Case of Hurricane Katrina - Essay Sample

Introduction

In any disaster, the response and management of the situation are imperative. Often, it requires working together among different agencies to mitigate the problem. There are times that the agencies collaborate well and deal with disasters well. However, there are instances where interagency collaboration fails significantly, leading to more significant losses that could not have been experienced with better management of the crisis. Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 led to estimated property losses of more than $100 billion and over 1800 deaths (Edwards, 2015). The devastating effects are partially blamed on poor interagency collaboration in response to the tragic hurricane. Inadequate response and uncoordinated efforts by the agencies involved added to the already sad event's extreme impact. Leadership in such occurrences is crucial, and poor decisions can worsen the crisis management. Execution and implementation of disaster management plans are vital, and their usage in containing Hurricane Katrina remains questionable.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Major Observations of Leadership

It is one of the worst managed crises in recent history. Critics claim that during the disaster, leadership was in short supply among those spearheading the containment efforts. However, it was not all mistakes and challenges, as some intelligent leadership decisions were made. A standout performer was the governor of Mississippi at the time, Haley Barbour (Worrall, 2015). In such a situation, a fundamental concept is getting people to evacuate before they got affected. Having been convinced that it would hit the state, he got the media speaking about it, and people started evacuating. The storm finally hit Mississippi, and many lives were saved as people had relocated to safer places.

Some other crucial decisions by leadership were missing the occasion, attributed to the ineffectiveness of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The federal agency was supposed to spearhead the management of the disaster but fell short on many fronts. The presence of political appointees at the helm of FEMA made it difficult under the circumstances. They did not understand disaster management, complicating everyone's effort in the whole exercise (Jong et al., 2015). If experts held the positions, implementation of the National Response Plan (NRP) and National Incident Management System (NIMS) would have been better handled.

The weather forecasters had predicted accurately that such a hurricane was possible. A year before it hit, there had been a simulation of such a storm; but the agencies never took important lessons to plan (Worrall, 2015). Therefore, indecisiveness and poor planning at the top derailed any response plans, making it difficult to achieve the desired results of minimal losses. With the information they had before the occurrence of the disaster, they could have done much better.

Significant Observations

Some of the agencies involved in response to Hurricane Katrina include FEMA, federal and National Guard soldiers, the United States Coast Guard (USCG), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), individuals, among others (Edwards, 2015). The greatest challenge observed in their collaboration was a communication breakdown. The command and control structure in the disaster was broken, paralyzing the awareness efforts and entirely off the pace (Jong et al., 2015). The participating agencies should have established a central command center, from where information would be disseminated. This would have helped ease the breakdown of communication experienced by the response team.

The conflicting roles and responsibilities of FEMA and the Red Cross were apparent. The two had not worked together on such a vast scale, and the NRP and NIMS were not clear on how they would relate (Worrall, 2015). Therefore, there were always conflicting situations in the response from the two agencies. To improve the problem, it is essential for the disaster management blueprints to clearly state the duties of every agency involved in the response. It eliminates the chances of duplication and role conflict, speeding up the answer.

FEMA also showed poor interagency collaboration when it repeatedly blocked the delivery of emergency supplies ordered by the Methodist Hospital in New Orleans from its out-of-state headquarters (Edwards, 2015). The collections would have gone a long way in assisting the situation, but the lead responder was busy frustrating such efforts. FEMA also turned away doctors volunteering their services at emergency facilities, which would have aided in improving care delivery to victims (Edwards, 2015). The results would have been better if FEMA had agreed to take in the services of the well-wishers. They should have established a structure where such services would be absorbed to help the storm victims. The agency played a supremacy battle in a situation where such should have been avoided.

Challenges

A leader in an interagency team faces a multitude of problems that may negatively impact disaster management efforts. The leader comes in o guide a group of people drawn from various agencies that are guided by different principles and visions. Therefore, it becomes a challenge to bring these people together to serve a common purpose under a unified vision (Kramer et al., 2018). Another obstacle for an interagency team leader is the lack of a common organizational culture. Different corporate cultures bound FEMA, Red Cross, the USCG, and other agencies. A leader bears the challenge of harmonizing them all to chase one common goal.

Politics also play a significant role in the management of intra-agency teams. For instance, FEMA was full of political appointees at the time of the disaster. Such appointees serve the interests of their masters. There was a lot of blame for the political class on how the disaster was managed. The appointees will always try to cover up for the masters, making it hard for good leaders in the ranks to execute their mandates effectively under challenging circumstances.

Leaders in such a collaborative team have to deal with role overlap and duplication (Kramer et al., 2018). It brings about conflict among team members, which affects their productivity and performance in pursuing the team's goals. Therefore, the leader must be an excellent problem-solver to help in such instances where conflicts arise, and the unit is disintegrated (Kramer et al., 2018). A leader in interagency teams should be proactive and ready for such challenges. It allows enough space to prepare adequately to respond to them when they crop up. It also offers room for consultation between the various agencies involved in the response efforts.

Conclusion

Interagency teams are inevitable in disaster management. Nobody would love to witness the kind of confusion, communication breakdown, indecisiveness, and failures seen during the administration of Hurricane Katrina. Leadership is best observed and appreciated in times of crisis. Poor decisions and good ones are part of the process when managing disasters. However, every wrong decision should be covered up by good ones that are in succession. Poor management of a crisis can turn it from worse to catastrophic, hence the need to be careful. The failures observed in Hurricane Katrina management should act as lessons in the leadership of future disasters. Leaders of interagency collaborative teams should adopt the successes and mend their predecessors' failures if a similar situation in the future faces them.

References

Edwards, C. (2015). Hurricane Katrina: Remembering Federal Failures. Cato Institute. https://www.cato.org/blog/hurricane-katrina-remembering-federal-failures.

Jong, W., Dückers, M., & van der Velden, P. (2015). The leadership of mayors and governors during crises: A systematic review of tasks and effectiveness. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 24(1), 46-58. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5973.12091

Kramer, M., Day, E., Nguyen, C., Hoelscher, C., & Cooper, O. (2018). Leadership in an inter-organizational collaboration: A qualitative study of a statewide interagency task force. Human Relations, 72(2), 397-419. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718763886

Worrall, S. (2015). What Hurricane Katrina Can Teach Us About Leadership. National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/08/150830-hurricane-mississippi-katrina-haley-barbour-politics-fema-ngbooktalk/.