Recovering from Powerful Storms

Massive storms and powerful hurricanes have the potential to destroy the infrastructure of cities, ruin the homes of the residents and cause a significant loss of life in the affected areas. One of the primary functions of US and state government agencies is to implement effective plans that would help minimize the damage inflicted upon the cities, reduce the loss of life caused by the storms and help the cities recover from the damage as quickly as possible. However, throughout the nation’s history, the government has responded better to some natural disasters than to others. Although the US and Louisiana state governments demonstrated incompetence with the inferior assistance provided to the city of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, vast improvements were made that encouraged and enabled the state of New York to much more diligently provide an effective response to Hurricane Sandy.

Hurricane Sandy infiltrated the northeast areas of the US to cause New York and New Jersey to experience the most damage that has ever inflicted the area because of a storm or natural disaster. The New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (OEM) displayed tremendous competence in developing and implementing a strategic plan to prepare for Hurricane Sandy and to ensure that the state was ready to manage the destruction after the storm had passed. One of the strategies implemented by the OEM was to establish reliable weather monitoring systems. These monitoring systems helped state officials accurately detect the movements of the storm, track the developments of the hurricane, and predict the time the storm would arrive along with the areas that would most likely be impacted by the destruction. Additionally, the OEM developed advanced alert systems and maximized the access that residents had to those systems. Many different types of alert systems were established to ensure that residents of New York were informed and notified regarding the developments of the storm and the procedures that should be followed after the storm had passed, including alert systems made accessible by telephone, television, Internet, radio and cell phone (Yonkers). Thus, the OEM did an excellent job of developing alert systems and informing the New York residents regarding the developments of the storm and procedures that can help the residents manage the damage of the storm.

The OEM also helped residents prepare for electric blackouts that were likely to occur from Hurricane Sandy. Because of the electric blackouts and the lack of transportation available, residents would need to prepare food and light to help them and their families survive and remain safe during the storm. As a result, the OEM delivered several informational messages on various forms of media to remind residents that they should prepare for the storm by having canned or non-perishable foods, bottles of water, cash, prescription medication, batteries, and flashlights ready for use (Yonkers).

One of the most important strategies that help cities respond to storms is to have shelters ready to support survivors after the storm, for many residents might suffer from losing their homes, needing food or requiring other services that the government can provide. Before the storm had hit the area, the OEM was effective in preparing shelters to help residents in the aftermath of the storm. The OEM prepared evacuation procedures had shelters ready to support people who needed services and provided information to residents beforehand regarding the locations of the many different shelters. Additionally, the OEM prepared local assistance centers, food banks and mental health resources in several New York neighborhoods (Yonkers). Thus, the OEM diligently prepared for the storm by designating shelters to provide services for people in need and by supplying those shelters and agencies with the sufficient amount of supplies, equipment, and resources required to help the residents.

However, there were some weaknesses that inevitably impaired the response capabilities of the New York state government. For instance, the government could not predict what parts of the state would experience the most severe damage, which buildings would be destroyed and where the power outages would develop. Additionally, the government could not require residents to follow the preparation instructions, to keep track of alert systems or to know exactly where shelters are located (Cuomo). Although these weaknesses diminished the efficaciousness of the government’s response, these are general weaknesses that all agencies and organizations experience when preparing for natural disasters.

After a massive storm that spreads excessive amounts of destruction passes beyond the state, a government must be ready to develop and implement response plans to help the city recover from the damage. The OEM was successful in executing response plans to ensure that the residents and the state were capable of recovering from the storm quickly and effectively. One of the plans involved debris removal, as the OEM employed services to remove all trees, sand, debris, building parts and misplaced vehicles that were inconveniently scattered throughout the affected areas (Gibbs & Halloway).

The OEM also implemented effective supply distribution strategies. After the storm had passed, many residents were stranded in neighborhoods that had been destroyed and that lacked a sufficient amount of food and resources. Thus, the OEM funded and executed programs to have agencies provide and distribute food, water, and supplies to areas where the resources were needed (Gibbs and Halloway). The OEM successfully purchased an abundance of groceries, coordinated an organized supply distribution plan, and arranged for important resources to be delivered directly to neighborhoods and houses.

The OEM also helped provide health care services for the many residents who were injured by the violence and destruction of the powerful hurricane. Many hospitals were destroyed and many health care facilities were evacuated because of the damage caused by the storm. However, the OEM helped open facilities and organize professionals to successfully provide health care services to its residents, and the organization also implemented mobile health care services to provide care for residents who were stranded in particular neighborhoods (Gibbs and Halloway).

Many buildings and homes were destroyed or significantly damaged from Hurricane Sandy, and thus the OEM developed building recovery plans to help repair or replace essential buildings that had been damaged, small businesses that were ruined and family homes that were destroyed. Many transportation systems were also destroyed or impaired by the storm, and so the OEM employed agencies to quickly and effectively rebuild the transportation services by repairing or replacing damaged roads, railway networks and subway systems (OEM). Additionally, the OEM also provided a mitigation list that was easily accessible to residents and that could maximize the information provided to residents regarding hazard mitigation procedures. Thus, the OEM’s response to the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy was effective because the organization developed and implemented many plans to have the debris removed, to provide services for residents in need, to repair damaged or destroyed infrastructure, and to provide available hazard mitigation procedures. To prevent similar problems from occurring in the future, the OEM also proposed many ideas to build a stronger city that was more capable of withstanding destructive storms.

However, the government officials that helped New York recover from Hurricane Sandy learned valuable information from the mistakes that the government officials of Louisiana made during and after Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina arrived in the New Orleans area in September 2005, and many people were horrified and overwhelmed with sympathy as news programs displayed images of people stranded on rooftops surrounded by water, people desperately pleading for help and dead bodies floating in the flood. These unacceptable images were a result of government incompetence on a national and state level, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness failed to adequately prepare for the hurricane and respond to the destruction after the storm had passed.

A primary demonstration of incompetence displayed by the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) was that the organization failed to prepare for evacuations and have shelters readily available for residents in need. The GOHSEP did not prepare for the likely scenario of residents being in need of aid because their homes were destroyed and because they did not have access to food and the organization did not implement evacuation strategies or establish a sufficient amount of shelters to provide care for the many New Orleans residents who were in desperate need of shelter and assistance (Walsh). Thus, the failure of the GOHEP to provide evacuation plans and assistance shelters resulted in a disorganized and chaotic situation in which the stranded New Orleans residents did not have a place to go, did not have evacuation procedures and did not know where any available shelters were located. This led to desperate residents wandering around the flooded city without any government assistance and eventually led to an excessive amount of residents being crammed into the Superdome stadium of the New Orleans Saints football team.

The GOHEP also demonstrated negligence by failing to develop and implement plans regarding resource distribution. The organization did not prepare adequate resources such as food, water, and supplies, and did not execute a plan to ensure that those supplies were delivered to shelters and agencies in the many different neighborhoods of the city. The organization also failed to implement strategies to have food and supplies delivered to people who were stranded in neighborhoods and areas that were dramatically deprived of sufficient resources. Additionally, the organization did not have strategies ready to provide health care services for people who were injured by the storm, who required medication or who needed other health care services (State of Louisiana). Thus, the lack of uniform guidelines and procedures developed by the organization to prepare for the storm yielded an inferior response in which the state government was completely unable to adequately provide shelter, food, and resources to the many residents who so desperately needed assistance because of the immensely destructive nature of the hurricane.

The organization also displayed incompetence in its response to the storm by failing to efficiently and effectively repair the many communication lines that were damaged by the storm. After the storm had passed, residents struggled to access communication lines to acquire information regarding evacuations, shelter locations, and mitigation procedures. Telephone, Internet, television, radio and cell phone communication systems were all disrupted and broken by the devastation of the storm, and GOHSEP was unable to respond to the situation, repair the communication lines and restore information services in a timely manner (State of Louisiana). Thus, by the time the communication lines were finally restored, several days had already passed, the city had already been reduced to destruction and chaos, and thus the lack of response from the government exacerbated the intensity of the damage and confusion caused by the storm.

In the aftermath of the storm, the government also provided an insufficient response regarding the need to develop and implement building recovery plans. An abundance of buildings, small businesses, and residential homes were damaged or destroyed by the powerful and destructive force of Hurricane Katrina, and the anxiety experienced by the New Orleans residents was amplified by the inability of the GOHSEP to execute recovery plans (State of Louisiana). As a result, after the storm had passed and the chaos had subsided, the infrastructure of New Orleans was left in a dilapidated condition and the damaged buildings were not repaired for an extensive period of time, which intensified the suffering of the residents and which made it significantly more difficult for businesses, transportation systems, and the city to operate effectively again. Additionally, the inability of FEMA to arrive at the disaster zone of New Orleans in a timely manner further increased the devastation experienced by the city, for FEMA is designed to provide assistance to disaster zones, and so without assistance from the state or federal government, for several days the residents of New Orleans were left to suffer desperately without any assistance (Krugman).

Although Hurricane Katrina illuminated the flawed incompetence of FEMA and the GOHSEP, other state agencies were able to learn from these mistakes to ensure that their states were more prepared for natural disasters and more capable of responding to the destruction. The embarrassing failure of FEMA encouraged the organization to improve its strategies regarding storm procedures, resource distribution and agency coordination (Starks). The NYS Division of Homeland Security was also able to learn from the mistakes of Katrina. The OEM avoided repeating those mistakes by ensuring that they were prepared for the storm, by developing evacuation procedures, by designating a sufficient amount of shelters, by coordinating with the federal government and by providing resources for the millions of residents who needed aid (Vickery).

Storms possess the potential to cause significant damage and destruction to cities occupied by large numbers of US citizens. To ensure that entire cities are not destroyed and that the residents of affected cities are not desperately left to suffer, few situations are more important for government agencies to demonstrate competence than during and after massive storms and destructive natural disasters. Although the state and federal response to Hurricane Katrina was an inexcusable and unfathomable failure that intensified the amount of suffering inflicted upon the residents, the New York State and US federal government agencies admirably learned valuable lessons from the debacle and ensured that they minimized the suffering of their residents by developing and implementing effective plans to prepare, respond and recover from the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy.

References

Cuomo, Andrew. (2012, October 25). Governor Cuomo directs division of homeland security and emergency services to monitor hurricane sandy. Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. Retrieved from http://www.governor.ny.gov/press/102512hurricanesandy

Gibbs, L., & Holloway, C. (2013, May 1). Report and recommendations to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The Official Website of the City of New York. Retrieved from http://www.nyc.gov/html/recovery/downloads/pdf/sandy_aar_5.2.13.pdf

Krugman, P. (2012, November 4). Sandy versus Katrina. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/opinion/krugman-sandy-versus-katrina.html?_r=3&

OEM - Hurricane Sandy Relief & Recovery. (n.d.). New York City Office of Emergency Management. Retrieved from http://www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/relief_recovery/sandy_relief_recovery.shtml

Starks, T. (2013, December 29). Katrina’s lessons seen in response to sandy. CQ. Retrieved from http://public.cq.com/docs/weeklyreport/weeklyreport-000004197197.html

State of Louisiana Standard Operating Procedure. (n.d.). Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Retrieved from http://gohsep.la.gov/plans/lscap.pdf

Vickery, J. (2012, October 4). Hurricane Sandy recovery has been better than Hurricane Katrina. PolicyMic. Retrieved from http://www.policymic.com/articles/18148/hurricane-sandy-recovery-has-been-better-than-hurricane-katrina

Walsh, K. (2012, October 31). A tale of two storms: Comparing Bush and Obama's hurricane response. US News. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/Ken-Walshs-Washington/2012/10/31/a-tale-of-two-storms-comparing-bush-and-obamas-hurricane-response

Yonkers Tribune. (2012, October 28). NYS Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Commissioner Jerome Hauer Announces Activation of Hurricane Sandy Helpline. Retrieved from http://www.yonkerstribune.com/2012/10/nys-division-of-homeland-security-and-emergency-services-commissioner-jerome-hauer-announces-activation-of-hurricane-sandy-he.html