The Yale Free Press

Hurricane Katrina is officially the most costly hurricane in all of American history. In terms of dollars, there may be as much as $200 billion dollars in damage. More importantly, the official death toll is over one thousand dead. Combined with hurricane Rita hitting Texas, the Gulf Coast is a mess.

The primary response now must be to help those affected and displaced by these hurricanes. However, it is also important to think towards the future and figure out how best to improve disaster responses so that when hurricanes strike again victims receive better aid. Areas in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana were all struck, but New Orleans is a focus point for disaster response analysis both because it was struck so hard and because the response was clearly not enough.

On August 25, Katrina first hit land near Miami as a relatively weak category 1 storm. It soon gained strength and did substantial damage to both Mississippi and Louisiana on August 29 as a category 4 storm. New Orleans suffered especially because the levee system that usually protected the below sea level city broke at multiple points causing massive flooding. Although the mayor ordered mandatory evacuations the day before the storm struck the city, many people did not get out of the city in time. Many more were left without anywhere to go and became refugees in football stadiums. Lawlessness became so bad that Michael Brown, the head of Federal Emergency Management Agency at the time, described the rescue operations as being “under conditions of urban warfare.”

These problems resulted in massive political fallout. President Bush’s approval ratings dropped, and he made a statement taking some of the responsibility. Michael Brown was stripped of his disaster relief responsibilities and soon resigned. Now New Orleans’ police chief has even resigned. Politicians have also begun official investigations. But the only results have been apportionments of blame. It is clear that the government must undergo substantial structural changes in addition to the few personnel changes that have already occurred.

The biggest problem is that no one is sure who was actually responsible for the disaster relief. The local and state governments say they did not receive the federal assistance that was necessary. The federal government through FEMA has laid the blame on the local and state governments. Indicative of these responses is Brown’s congressional testimony. Brown maintained that “FEMA did a good job in the Gulf States.” He also squarely laid the blame elsewhere, saying, “My biggest mistake was not recognizing, by Saturday (before the storm made landfall), that Louisiana was dysfunctional.”

In order to avoid such counter-productive blame games in the future, there must be a clear understanding of who is actually in charge. Right now FEMA can help coordinate the response but cannot overrule local decisions, while those local decisions cannot be effective without federal support. Since the worst emergencies easily overwhelm local governments, the federal government must be the one to take charge.

However, such a change would mean a substantial shift in the balance of power between states and the federal government. For example, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prevents military personnel from doing police work except under certain circumstances. In the case of New Orleans’ lawlessness, it would have been useful for the military to have been able to immediately fill such a role. Not only was New Orleans’ police force inadequate for such a disaster, but 250 officers never showed up.

At the very least the government will hire a new FEMA chief and budget more money for future natural disasters, but these changes - while necessary- are only the beginning. There needs to be national debate on federalism that results in substantial changes in the federal government’s powers over local and state governments. While these changes would have much broader effects than just hurricane response, New Orleans is proof that the status quo will only lead to future failure.

Aaron Barnet is a sophmore in Trumbull College and Senior Editor of The Yale Free Press.