A Failure of Initiative - The Preparation and Response to Hurricane Katrina

Five frogs are sitting on a log.
Four decide to jump off.
How many are left?
Answer: Five.
Why?
Because there’s a difference between deciding and doing!
As quoted in the Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina

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When Hurricane Katrina made landfall near the Louisiana – Mississippi border on the morning of August 29, 2005 it set in motion a series of events that exposed vast numbers of Americans to extraordinary suffering.

At least 1,100 Louisianans died as a result of Katrina.

On September 15, the United States House of Representatives approved the creation of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina (“the Select Committee”).

The Select Committee reported its findings last week and the findings have applicability for all forms of business and operational continuity.

A full copy of the 600 page report can be accessed here:

http://reform.house.gov/GovReform/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=39497

Overall Findings

“Government failed because it did not learn from past experiences or because lessons thought to be learned where somehow not implemented.

If 9/11 was a failure of imagination, then Katrina was a failure of initiative.

It was a failure of leadership.”

It continued: “there is of course, a nexus between the two. Both imagination and initiative – in other words leadership – require good information. And a coordinated process for sharing it. And a willingness to use information – however imperfect or incomplete – to fuel action.”

The Select Committee also noted that too often, because everyone was in charge, nobody was in charge.

Additionally there was a vast divide between policy creation and policy implementation and that this was compounded by a “blinding lack of situational awareness and disjointed decision making needlessly compounded and prolonged Katrina’s horror.”

The Select Committee noted that the preparation for and response to Katrina show “we are still an analog government in a digital age. We must recognize that we are woefully incapable of storing, moving and accessing information – especially in times of crisis.

The failure of initiative was also a failure of agility.

Response plans at all levels of government lacked flexibility and adaptability. Inflexible procedures delayed the response.

The Select Committee noted that officials at all levels “seemed to be waiting for the disaster that fit their plans, rather than planning and building scalable capacities to meet whatever Mother Nature threw at them.”

Specific Findings with Relevance to Any Industry’s Business Continuity

There were many specific findings. The ones of note to any industry’s business continuity efforts include :

• Implementation of lessons learned from Hurricane Pam (a July 2004 disaster simulation involving 50 organisations in a five day exercise in Louisiana) was incomplete.
  
• Levees protecting New Orleans were not built for the most severe hurricanes.
  
• Responsibilities for levee operations and maintenance were unclear.
  
• The lack of warning systems for breaches and other factors delayed repairs to the levees.
  
• There was a failure to anticipate the post-landfall conditions and this delayed post-landfall evacuation and support.
  
• Critical elements of the National Response Plan were executed late, ineffectively or not at all.
  
• The President of the United States did not receive adequate advice and counsel from senior disaster personnel.
  
• The Homeland Security Operations Centre failed to provide valuable situational information to the White House and key operational officials during the disaster.
  
• The White House failed to de-conflict varying damage assessments and discounted information that ultimately proved to be correct.
  
• Federal agencies have varying degrees of unfamiliarity with their roles and responsibilities under the National Response Plan and National Incident Management System.
  
• The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) lacked adequate trained and experienced staff for the Katrina response.
  
• The readiness of FEMA’s national emergency response teams was inadequate and reduced the effectiveness of the federal response.
  
• Massive communication damage and a failure to adequately plan for alternatives impaired response efforts, command and control and situational awareness which impacted on the ability to address unsubstantiated media reports.
  
• The lack of situational awareness paralysed command and control.
  
• The New Orleans Police Department was ill-prepared for continuity of operations and lost almost all effectiveness.
  
• The lack of a government public communications strategy and media hype of violence exacerbated public concerns and further delayed relief.
  
• Poor planning and pre-positioning of supplies and equipment led to delays and shortages.
  
• New Orleans was unprepared to provide evacuations for its special needs population because Louisiana lacked a common definition of “special needs”.
  
• Government agencies do not share a common understanding of who controls the National Disaster Medical System.
  
• The failure at all levels to enter into advance contracts led to chaos and the potential for waste and fraud as acquisitions were made in haste.
  
• FEMA suffered a lack of sufficiently trained procurement professionals and the Department of Homeland Security procurement process continues to be decentralised and lack a uniform approach and it procurement office was understaffed given the volume and dollar value of work.

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A throbbing metropolis of 470,000 before the storm, New Orleans has become a struggling city that is home to barely 100,000 people with significant portions of the city and region still uninhabitable.

The overall human and financial toll from the devastation is still being tallied.

At the time of the Select Committee report, more than 3,000 people from storm-affected states remain unaccounted for.