Introduction
The United States of America is a land of blessings, but it is sometimes prone to major disasters that leave indelible marks to the lives of those involved, the three tiers of government, citizens and no-governmental agencies. The United States takes pride in its economic prowess, its technological prowess, as well as its human capital. Nonetheless, the nation is prone to disaster that sometimes stretch the national resources, which led to the formation of continuity of operations to help the government and different actors affected by a disaster to get bounce back. The national preparedness has identified five main areas of prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery that are built along 32 core capabilities. This paper is going to explore three of the capabilities and evaluate their relevance to hurricane Katrina as a natural disaster.
THREATS AND HAZARDS IDENTIFICATION
The goal of risk and hazard identification is centered on the mitigation goal and seeks to identify threats and hazards that occur in the geographic area (FEMA, ND). The goal seeks to establish the frequency and magnitude of threats to incorporate the information to the planning processes and clearly understand the needs of a community. In regards to hurricane Katrina, the disaster was anticipated, but not in the exact magnitude with which it happened. The hurricane claimed the lives of 1,883 people and caused damage approximated at $80 billion (Everglades University, 2021).
This goal would have borne fruits in minimizing the loss if the approximate risk and hazard was identified. Funk (2015) observes that many of the people caught up by the hurricane in New Orleans was because they had been used to false alarms. Since people are used to being evacuated on basis of false alarms, perhaps many did not take the evacuation notice on hurricane Katrina seriously. That demonstrates that identification of threats and hazards should be carefully carried out to ensure that people are not put on alert mode, yet the disaster does not happen. People might be too used to the ordinary alarms raised by the weatherman until they became used to the alerts. If the weather department and the relevant authorities involved in threats and hazards identification would have ben more realistic, probably the loss of lives would be minimized, or the number of displaced people could have been minimized.
LONG TERM VULNERABILITY REDUCTION
Reduction of vulnerability in the long-term is centered on the mitigation goal and entails building and sustaining resilient systems, communities, as well as critical infrastructure and key resources lifelines. The goal is aimed at minimizing the vulnerability that is caused by human threats, technological hazards or natural threats. When disasters occur, they cause immediate ad long term impact. Everglades University (2021) records that hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans city’s heritage, causing more than $80 billion in damage, wreaking havoc from Florida to Texas. The national oceanic and atmospheric administration regards hurricane Katrina as the costliest hurricane in the history of the United States, with the storm and the subsequent flooding displacing more than 1 million people (NOAA, 2018).
Long-term vulnerability reduction seeks to ensure that the country builds and sustains resilient systems. In that regard, the hurricane demonstrated how vulnerable the country is to the disaster as it led to damage of critical infrastructure such as telephone lines, broadcast communication including 50 percent of area radio stations. The storm as devastating that it led to the disruption of local emergency centers and 911 emergency centers (FEMA, ND). That means that the cry of people who needed help could not be heard. Thus, the federal, state and local government learned a valuable lesson that there is need to build resilient systems like telephone service to reduce vulnerability in the long-term.
LOGISTICS AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
The goal on logistics ad supply chain management is centered on response goal and seeks to promote the delivery of essential commodities, equipment and services to support the affected communities and survivors. the supply chain encompasses a range of support services such as emergency power and fuel (FEMA, ND). The goal also entails the synchronization of logistic capabilities and enable the restoration of impacted supply chains. when disasters occur, the supply chain of different products are normally affected. for instance, when covid-19 struck America, more than 18 million were affected, and there was no end in sight. governments instituted lockdown measures to curb the spread, which severely impacted logistics and supply chain as people were not prepared for the shutdown.
Similarly, during hurricane Katrina, there was massive destruction of critical infrastructure such as roads, rail, and even telephone services (The White House, 2005). Difficult times call for desperate measures and the goal on supply chain and logistics management deals with ensuring that community staples are not affected. The destruction of roads and other infrastructure not only affected the general supply chain of businesses, but it also hampered the delivery of essential services such as medication, food supplies and the much-needed help. Having destroyed even the emergency call centers and radio services, there is no doubt that hurricane Katrina made it nearly impossible to manage the supply chain because without telephones and radio services, rescuers and the homeland department operated almost blindly.
