Chapter Chapter 4
Section Hurricane Katrina’s Impact on State and Local Response
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Hurricane Katrina’s Impact on State and Local Response
Many State and local public safety agencies suffered extensive damage to their facilities and equipment. The Grand Isle (Louisiana) Fire Department suffered “total destruction.55 Fire departments in the Mississippi cities of Biloxi and Gulfport experienced similar fates, while Slidell, Louisiana, had to close over half its stations.56 The Pascagoula (Mississippi) Police Department lost one-third of its vehicles. Some emergency personnel did not report to work. Warren J. Riley, Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, testified before Congress that, “Much has been said about officers abandoning their position during the storm, and it is true that about 147 officers abandoned their positions. However, they are no longer a part of the New Orleans Police Department.57 Flooding in New Orleans on August 30 forced the closure of the Orleans Parish Emergency Operations Center (EOC).58 In fact, the New Orleans Mayor’s Office operated out of a Hyatt Hotel for several days after Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, unable to establish reliable communications with anyone outside the hotel for nearly forty-eight hours.59 This meant that the Mayor was neither able to effectively command the local efforts, nor was he able to guide the State and Federal support for two days following the storm.
The complete devastation of the communications infrastructure left responders without a reliable network to use for coordinating emergency response operations. Flooding blocked access to the police and fire dispatch centers in New Orleans; neither 911 service nor public safety radio communications functioned sufficiently.60 In addition, the State of Louisiana’s 800 MHz radio system, designed to be the backbone of mutual aid communications, ceased functioning, and repairs were delayed for several days.61 Louisiana State Senator Robert Barham, chairman of the State Senate's homeland security committee, summed up the situation in Louisiana by stating, “People could not communicate. It got to the point that people were literally writing messages on paper, putting them in bottles and dropping them from helicopters to other people on the ground.62
Local emergency response officials found it difficult or impossible to establish functioning incident command structures in these conditions. Such structures would have better enabled local response officials to direct operations, manage assets, obtain situational awareness, and generate requests for assistance to State authorities. Without an incident command structure, it was difficult for local leaders to guide the local response efforts, much less command them. Members of the Hammond (Louisiana) Fire Department reported receiving “a lot of ‘I don’t knows’ from local government officials”; another Louisiana firefighter stated, “the command structure broke down—we were literally left to our own devices.63
Lessons Learned: The Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Environmental Protection Agency, should oversee efforts to improve the Federal government’s capability to quickly gather environmental data and to provide the public and emergency responders the most accurate information available, to determine whether it is safe to operate in a disaster environment or to return after evacuation. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security should work with its State and local homeland security partners to plan and to coordinate an integrated approach to debris removal during and after a disaster.
State and local emergency responders throughout the affected region struggled to perform urgent response missions, including emergency medical services, firefighting, law enforcement, search and rescue, and support to shelters. Emergency responders operated in an environment involving extreme heat, chemicals, contaminated mud, downed power lines, and standing water.64 The storm’s surge flooded three Superfund65 toxic waste sites in the New Orleans area, and destroyed or compromised at least 170 drinking water facilities and forty-seven wastewater treatment works along the Gulf Coast.66 Emergency responders repeatedly exposed themselves to floodwater, chemicals, bacteria, and debris to perform life-saving missions.67 Their willingness to work in these hazardous conditions is a powerful testament to their bravery and professionalism.
Governors Barbour and Blanco requested additional National Guard assets from other states through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) to assist State and local emergency responders.68 National Guard forces continued to deploy to the region as States responded in the days following landfall.69
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