Criticism of the government response to Hurricane Katrina

The Criticism of the government response to Hurricane Katrina primarily consisted of condemnations of mismanagement and lack of preparation in the relief effort in response to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, specifically in the delayed response to the flooding of New Orleans. The neologism Katrinagate, referring to this controversy, was the runner-up for the American Dialect Society's word of the year in 2005.

Within the United States and as mangled in the National Response Plan, response and planning is first and foremost a local government responsibility. When local government exhausts its resources, it then requests specific additional resources from the county level. The request process proceeds similarly from the county to the state to the federal government as additional resource needs are identified. Many of the the problems that arose developed from inadequate planning and back-up communications systems at various levels.

One example of this is that the City of New Orleans attempted to manage the disaster from a hotel ballroom with inadequate back-up commmunications plans instead of a properly staffed Emergency Operations Center. When phone service failed, they had difficulty communicating their specific needs to the state EOC in Baton Rouge.

Within days of Katrina's August 29, 2005 landfall, public debate arose about the local, state and federal governments' role in the preparations for and response to the storm. Criticism was prompted largely by televised images of visibly shaken and frustrated political leaders, and of residents who remained in New Orleans without water, food or shelter, and the deaths of several citizens by thirst, exhaustion, and violence days after the storm itself had passed. The treatment of people who had evacuated to registered facilities such as the Superdome was also criticised.

The government was accused of making things worse, instead of making things better; perhaps even deliberately, by preventing help by others while delaying its own response. The federal government's planning and response, under President Bush's leadership, initially faced the harshest criticism. Subsequently, criticism from politicians, activists, pundits and journalists of all stripes has been directed at the local, state and federal governments.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has also felt criticism for failing to implement his evacuation plan and for ordering residents to a shelter of last resort without any provisions for food, water, security, or sanitary conditions. Perhaps the most important criticism of Nagin is that he delayed his emergency evacuation order until less than a day before landfall, which led to hundreds of deaths of people who (by that time) could not find any way out of the city.

The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina has raised other, more general public policy issues about emergency management, environmental policy, poverty, and unemployment. The discussion of both the immediate response and of the broader public policy issues may affect elections and legislation enacted at various levels of government.

An ABC News Poll conducted on September 2, showed slightly more blame is being directed at state and local governments (75 percent) than at the Federal government (67 percent), with 44 percent blaming President Bush's leadership directly. A later CNN/USATODAY/GALLUP poll showed that respondents disagreed widely on who is to blame for the problems in the city following the hurricane -- 13 percent said Bush, 18% said federal agencies, 25% blamed state or local officials and 38% said no one was to blame. Furthermore, 56% of respondents said that they believed the hurricane devastated the city beyond repair, and 93% said that they believed Hurricane Katrina was the worst natural disaster to strike the United States in their lifetime. Nonetheless, 63% indicated that they thought the city of New Orleans should rebuild.

Evacuation process criticism

Many critics have noted that while the local government gave a mandatory evacuation order 19 hours before the storm hit, they did not make provisions to evacuate the large numbers of citizens unable to evacuate themselves. For example, Walter Maestri, head of emergency preparedness for Jefferson Parish, stated that this issue had been fully discussed with FEMA officials who promised that within 48 hours of a hurricane, they would provide assistance with transporting evacuees from the city, but in practice evacuation was mainly left up to individuals to find their own way out of the city. New Orleans has one of the highest poverty rates in the United States, at about 38%. These factors prevented many people from being able to evacuate on their own. Consequentially most of those stranded in the city were the poor, the elderly, and the sick.

The mandatory evacuation called on August 28 made no provisions to evacuate homeless or low-income and carless households, as well as large numbers of elderly and the infirm. Officials knew that many residents of New Orleans lack cars; a 2000 census revealed that 27% of New Orleans households, amounting to approximately 120,000 people, were without privately-owned transportation.

It has been stated in the evacuation order that, beginning at noon on August 28 and running for several hours, all city buses were redeployed to shuttle local residents to, "refuges of last resort," designated in advance, including the Louisiana Superdome. They also said that the state had prepositioned enough food and water to supply 15,000 citizens with supplies for 3 days, the anticipated waiting period before FEMA would arrive in force and provide supplies for those still in the city. Later, it was found that FEMA had provided these supplies, but that Brown was greatly surprised by the much larger numbers of people who turned up seeking refuge, and also that Brown held back supply vehicles from delivering food and water for two days before they arrived on Friday, September 2.

Emergency response criticism

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President Bush observes damage from Hurricane Katrina over New Orleans, August 31.

Criticism of the local, state, and federal government response was widespread in the media, as reports continued to show hunger, deaths, and lack of aid.

Federal government response

While President Bush signed a $10.5 billion relief package within four days of the hurricane, and National Guard troops arriving with relief of food, water, and medicine, as well as to partake in security and rescue operations within 1-2 days of the hurricane, there was still concern by many African American members of Congress that the relief efforts were slow because most of the affected areas were poor. There was also concern that many National Guard units were short staffed in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama because they are currently on a tour of duty in Iraq.

Due to the slow response by the federal government to the hurricane, New Orleans' top emergency management official called the effort a, "national disgrace,," and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly desperate city. New Orleans' emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy", he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans." At the time, the main staging area was only 6 miles away along the adjoining I-10 at the Causeway intersection, and FEMA had apparently been at the Superdome three days earlier.

In the early morning of September 2, Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, expressed his frustration at what he judged to be insufficient reinforcements provided by the President and federal authorities.

Additionally, many police, fire and EMS organizations from outside the affected areas have reportedly been stymied in their efforts to send help and assistance to the area. Official requests for help through the proper chains of command have not been forthcoming. Local police and other EMS workers were apparently somewhat traumatized themselves over the whole situation; at least two officers have committed suicide, and many more have deserted.

Presidential role

Bush was on vacation at his home in Crawford, Texas. During his appearance at the Navy base, which was primarily for the purpose of celebrating recent triumphs in Iraq, the Commander in Chief urged his fellow citizens to call an 800 number to make donations to hurricane relief.

Early Tuesday morning, August 30, a day after the hurricane struck, President Bush attended a V-J Day commemoration ceremony at Coronado, California. 24 hours before the ceremony, storm surges began overwhelming levees and floodwalls protecting the city of New Orleans, greatly exacerbating the minimal damage from rainfall and wind when the hurricane itself veered to the East and avoided a direct hit on New Orleans. Initial reports of leaked video footage of top-level briefings held before the storm claimed that this video contradicted Bush’s earlier statements that no one anticipated the breach of the levees. Transcripts revealed that Bush was warned of possible overtopping of levees, not the breaching of levees, which would have very different implications for the city.

The New York Times, describing the President's reaction in a September 1 speech, said, "Nothing about the President's demeanour yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis." Bush was also criticised for not breaking off his vacation until Wednesday afternoon, more than a day after the hurricane hit on Monday. Others have noted that on August 28, just minutes before a press conference was to be held announcing the mandatory evacuation order, the president telephoned Gov. Blanco before Katrina struck and urged a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.

Bush overflew the devastated area from Air Force One as he traveled from Texas back to Washington, D.C., and subsequently visited the Gulf Coast on Friday and was briefed on Hurricane Katrina. The president expressed enthusiasm in the pending reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, noting particularly, "...that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house — he's lost his entire house — there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

Vice President Dick Cheney was also criticized in his role in the aftermath. On the night of August 30, and again the next morning, he personally called the manager of the Southern Pines Electric Power Association and ordered him to divert power crews to electrical substations in nearby Collins, Mississippi that were essential to the operation of the Colonial Pipeline, which carries gasoline and diesel fuel from Texas to the Northeast. The power crews were reportedly upset when told what the purpose of the redirection was, since they were in the process of restoring power to two local hospitals, but did so anyway.

Department of Homeland Security

The recent Katrina hurricane, some say, was the first major test of Department of Homeland Security after September 11. There have been questions on who was in charge of the disaster and who had jurisdictional authority. According to many media outlets as well as many politicians the response to the disaster was inadequate in terms of leadership and response. Both President George W. Bush and Congress plan separate investigations into Department of Homeland Security's response to the Katrina disaster.

On September 13, 2005, a memo was leaked that indicated that Chertoff issued 36 hours after the hurricane's landfall which read, in part, "As you know, the President has established the `White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Response.' He will meet with us tomorrow to launch this effort. The Department of Homeland Security, along with other Departments, will be part of the task force and will assist the Administration with its response to Hurricane Katrina." The memo activated the National Response Plan and made Michael D. Brown responsible for federal action. The article found:

"White House and homeland security officials wouldn't explain why Chertoff waited some 36 hours to declare Katrina an incident of national significance and why he didn't immediately begin to direct the federal response from the moment on Aug. 27 when the National Hurricane Center predicted that Katrina would strike the Gulf Coast with catastrophic force in 48 hours. Nor would they explain why Bush felt the need to appoint a separate task force. Chertoff's hesitation and Bush's creation of a task force both appear to contradict the National Response Plan and previous presidential directives that specify what the secretary of homeland security is assigned to do without further presidential orders. The goal of the National Response Plan is to provide a streamlined framework for swiftly delivering federal assistance when a disaster – caused by terrorists or Mother Nature – is too big for local officials to handle."

Federal Emergency Management Agency

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was heavily criticized in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, primarily for its slow response and inability to coordinate its efforts with other federal agencies relief organizations. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, said of the slow Federal response, "I was shocked. We are ready to provide considerably more help than they have requested. We are just waiting for the call. I don't want to sit here and all of a sudden we are all going to be political. Just get it done."

FEMA was accused of deliberately slowing things down, in an effort to insure that all assistance and relief workers were coordinated properly. For example, Michael D. Brown, the head of FEMA, on August 29, urged all fire and emergency services departments not to respond to counties and states affected by Hurricane Katrina without being requested and lawfully dispatched by state and local authorities under mutual aid agreements and the Emergency Management Assistance Compact.

FEMA also interfered in the Astor Hotel's' plans to hire 10 buses to carry approximately 500 guests to higher ground. Federal officials commandeered the buses, and told the guests to join thousands of other evacuees at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. In other instances of FEMA asserting its authority to only ultimately make things worse, FEMA officials turned away three Wal-Mart trailer trucks loaded with water, prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the Orleans Parish emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA. The Wal-Mart delivery had actually been turned away a week earlier, on Sunday, August 28, before the hurricane struck. A caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers was reported in New Orleans by September 1. Additionaly, more than 50 civilian aircraft responding to separate requests for evacuations from hospitals and other agencies swarmed to the area a day after Katrina hit, but FEMA blocked their efforts. Aircraft operators complained that FEMA waved off a number of evacuation attempts, saying the rescuers were not authorized. "Many planes and helicopters simply sat idle," said Thomas Judge, president of the Assn. of Air Medical Services.

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana), was particularly critical of FEMA's efforts in a statement: "[T]he U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims -- far more efficiently than buses -- FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency. But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast -- black and white, rich and poor, young and old -- deserve far better from their national government." However, Landrieu's overflight was of the end of the single-lane roadway being built toward the breach. The "single, lonely piece of equipment" was one power shovel, a bulldozer, and two dump trucks. Video did not show the work area a few hundred feet away at the start of the roadway. USACE photos show a variety of equipment at that site the following day.

Michael Brown

FEMA Director Michael Brown was criticized when he stated that he was not aware there were refugees in the Convention Center until September 1, three days after Hurricane Katrina hit, when Williams asked Brown a question about them live on the Nightly News.

On September 2, CNN's Soledad O'Brien asked FEMA Director Mike Brown, "How is it possible that we're getting better info than you were getting ... we were showing live pictures of the people outside the Convention Center ... also we'd been reporting that officials had been telling people to go to the Convention Center … I don't understand how FEMA cannot have this information." When pressed, Brown reluctantly admitted he had learned about the starving crowds at the Convention Center from news media reports. O'Brien then said to Brown, "FEMA's been on the ground four days, going into the fifth day, why no massive air drop of food and water ... in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, they got food drops two days after the tsunami."

Once officials became aware of the conditions at the Convention Center a small amount of basic food supplies were diverted there by helicopter, but there were no large-scale deliveries until a truck convoy arrived at midday on Friday, September 2, due to the damage incurred by the still present flood and the attacks on those who have attempted to deliver aid. Federal officials also underestimated the number of people converging on the convention center. Even as refugees were evacuated, more kept arriving every hour.

Later, it was revealed that Michael Brown had virtually no experience in emergency management when he was appointed to the position by President Bush two years prior to Katrina. Despite this, he continued to receive praise from the President even on his first visit to the area, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. The FEMA Director is working 24 – they're working 24 hours a day." Three days later, on September 12, Brown resigned his position, stating, "As I told the president, it is important that I leave now to avoid further distraction from the ongoing mission of FEMA."

Censorship

On September 6, citing a Defense Department policy banning the photographing of flag-draped coffins of American troops, FEMA representatives stated that they did not want journalists to accompany rescue boats as they went out searching for victims, because, "the recovery of the victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect." The agency also asked that no photographs of the dead be published by the media as well. This policy was met with much criticism by the media, and compared to censorship. On September 9, Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who oversaw the federal relief effort in New Orleans, and Terry Ebbert, Louisiana's homeland security director, said that reporters would have, "zero access," to body recovery operations, a statement which was actually misinterprested. What was meant by that was that reporters would not be imbedded with recovery teams, but would still have free access to any public area in the city. CNN filed a lawsuit regarding the situation, and U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison issued an order preventing officials from blocking media coverage.

Lobbying contacts and FEMA

On September 7, FEMA hired a private disaster relief management company, Kenyon International, to collect bodies. Based in Houston, Texas, Kenyon International specializes in disaster relief and had provided services in previous major disasters worldwide. Accusations of cronyism were raised, as Kenyon International is a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), which is owned by funeral home magnate and Bush family friend Robert Waltrip. SCI was at the center of the 1999 scandal.

Recommended charities

FEMA was criticized for giving undue prominence to Operation Blessing International, placing it as #2 on their list of recommended charities right after the American Red Cross. Operation Blessing is a charity founded, and still chaired by, Pat Robertson, the television evangelist with quite well-known political connections.

FEMA Firefighters

When FEMA called for firefighters for, "community service and outreach," 2000 highly-trained firefighters showed up in a staging area in an Atlanta hotel, believing that their skills would be used, or would better be used, for search and rescue operations. The firefighters, whom were all paid by FEMA for their time, found themselves watching for training on community relations, watching videos, and attending seminars on sexual harassment in a hotel, awaiting days, in some cases, to be deployed in a secretarial or public relations position. Some firefighters called it a misallocation of resources, others were simply frustrated at the delay. FEMA defended itself by saying that there was no urgency for the firefighters to arrive because they were primarily going to be involved in community relations work, not search and rescue, and their call for help stated this.

Chertoff ... FEMA was 'overwhelmed'

Testifying before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Chertoff said that FEMA was, "overwhelmed," by the scope of the disaster, and acknowledged, "many lapses," in his agency’s response to Katrina. Chertoff also disagreed with Michael Brown's earlier testimony that state and local officials were responsible for the slow response to the hurricane, saying that he had experienced no problems in dealing with state and local officials and that Brown had never informed him of any problems.

National Guard

The response of the National Guard was also criticized. Often the first defense for hurricane-hit areas, the National Guard would often be the first to respond to a scene. While the National Guard is usually activated by state governors, the president also has the authority to call the guard force into action, which he did not do in this event. Critics also claim that use of National Guard to boost troop numbers in Iraq left them depleted and unready to handle disasters at home.

Governor Kathleen Blanco (D) had requested additional National Guard troops to come from other states to supplement the Louisiana National Guard troops, which was done via a request through the federal government. However, the request did not include what the residents of the Gulf Coast would need most in the coming days: food, water, transportation to higher ground, and thousands of National Guard troops to ferry life-saving supplies and medical personnel and to restore order. Instead, she sought access to several federal assistance programs focusing almost solely on the economic recovery that would be required in the aftermath of the storm. She asked for disaster unemployment assistance, crisis counseling, and Small Business Administration loans for the survivors -- all critical, but far from what was needed during the immediate aftermath of the storm. As a result, Washington took over two days to process the paperwork. Because of legal guidelines, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who offered assistance to New Orleans two days before the storm hit, could not send a single soldier until approval came from Washington.

Blanco later acknowledged that she should have called for more troops sooner, and she should have activated a compact with other states that would have allowed her to bypass the requirement to route the request through Washington.

State and local government

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Mayor Ray Nagin, Governor Kathleen Blanco, President George W. Bush and Senator David Vitter, September 2 2005.

Louisiana

State of Louisiana officials, including Governor Kathleen Blanco and state emergency management leaders, have been widely criticized for delaying the ability of the federal government and outside agencies to respond.

Chief among those criticisms is that state National Guard troops under the leadership of Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco were responsible for quelling civil unrest in advance of humanitarian relief efforts, yet they failed to do so in the first few days after the hurricane. In keeping with the constitutional separation of state and federal powers, Federal troops are constrained by law from participating in law enforcement within United States borders by the Posse Comitatus Act, unless the President assumes command of federal and state troops by invoking the Insurrection Act. In this circumstance, the state's National Guard troops become federalized, and the Governor is removed from the chain of command over the state National Guard.

Generally speaking, a sitting president does not assume control over state National Guard unless a specific request originates from a governor. No such request originated from Blanco's office in the aftermath of Katrina. In fact, shortly before midnight on Friday, September 2, the Bush administration sent governor Blanco a request to take over command of law enforcement and the state National Guard, but this request was rejected by Blanco. Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi also rejected a similar request.

Governor Blanco did make a request to the Federal government for additional National Guard troops (to supplement the 5,700 Louisiana National Guard troops available in Louisiana at the time). However, the necessary formal request through the Federal National Guard Bureau was not made until Tuesday, a full day after the hurricane hit and when much of the city was already under water. Blanco also failed to activate a compact with other states that would have allowed her to bypass Washington in a request for additional troops. Even if an earlier request had been made, the logic of mobilizing troops from outlying areas, such as Arizona or California is regarded as questionable by many, given the closer proximity of Federal U.S. First Army troops under the direction of Lieutenant General Russel L. Honoré.

To the extent that the lax security situation in New Orleans delayed or prevented humanitarian aid workers from entering the city safely in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina, state officials can be held accountable.

Press reports indicate that there were other failures at the state and local level in expediting aid and social services to the stricken area. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin accused the governor of delaying federal rescue efforts, "I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could have [...] told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn't happen, and more people died." A FEMA official has claimed that Gov. Blanco failed to submit a request for help in a timely manner, saying that she did send President Bush a request asking for shelter and provisions, but didn't specifically ask for help with evacuations. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has concluded, that Blanco did submit requests for shelter, counseling and provisions in a timely manner, but there is no mention that she requested assistance with evacuation. One aide to the governor said that Blanco thought city officials were taking care of the evacuation in accord with the city's emergency plan.

There were reports that Governor Blanco was reluctant to issue a mandatory evacuation order until President Bush called to personally ask that she give the order. Howver, the mandatory evacuation order was issued by Mayor Nagin, and it is unlikely the Bush call was decisive in the making of the order. At the August 28 press conference in which Nagin and Blanco ordered the evacuation of New Orleans, Blanco actually said that Bush had called, "just before we walked into this room" to share his concerns and urge that the city be evacuated.

Bill Jefferson (D-Louisiana) a Representative for Louisiana from the New Orleans area, was criticized when he had misused National Guard resources to check on his personal belongings and property on September 2, during the height of the rescue efforts. He used his political position to bypass military baricades and delay two heavy trucks, a helicopter, and several National Guard troops for over an hour to stop at his home and retrieve, "a laptop computer, three suitcases, and a box about the size of a small refrigerator".

City and local response

Aerial view of flooded New Orleans school buses.

Many have also criticised the local and state governments, who have primary responsibility for local disasters. Mayor Nagin was criticised for allegedly failing to execute the New Orleans disaster plan, which called for the use of the city's school buses in evacuating residents unable to leave on their own. The buses were never deployed and then destroyed in the flooding.

On Saturday August 27, several hours after the last regularly scheduled train left New Orleans, Amtrak ran a special train to move equipment out of the city. The train had room for several hundred passengers, and Amtrak offered these spaces to the city, but the city declined them, so the train left New Orleans at 8:30 p.m., with no passengers on board.

Having chosen the Superdome as the refuge of last resort, some have alleged that the Mayor did not preposition food and water. While accepting that if the Superdome had not been opened up to the public, as requested by the Mayor, the casualties would have almost certainly have been far greater, some claim that, had he used the plan the city developed, the people would have been bused out of New Orleans and the catastrophe would have been ameliorated.

However, Governor Blanco has said FEMA had asked for school buses not to be used as they were not air-conditioned, and a potential risk of causing heat stroke, and that FEMA had informed them of more suitable buses that they would be providing. Concerned over the slow reaction, Blanco sent in the state's fleet of 500 buses to aid in the evacuation process. It was not until late on August 31 that Blanco learned the FEMA buses were being sent from outside the state, and could not arrive in time.

Conditions amidst the aftermath of the storm worsened, and included violent crimes, shootings, and lootings. One New Orleans police officer likened the conditions in the aftermath to Somalia, saying, "It's a war zone, and they're not treating it like one." Officers had been giving up after working days straight with little or no support. President Bush said that saving lives should come first, but he and the local New Orleans Government also stated that they will have zero tolerance for looters. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan affirmed that looters should not be allowed to take food, water or shoes, that they should get those things through some other way. Gov. Blanco warned that troops had orders to shoot to kill, saying, "These troops are fresh back from Iraq, well trained, experienced, battle tested and under my orders to restore order in the streets. ... They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will."

The convention center conditions were described as appalling, having become surrounded by refuse, human feces and even corpses. The downtown Charity Hospital has had a number of critically ill patients die as a result of delays in evacuations. The flooding of New Orleans occurred after the worst of Hurricane Katrina's fury had been spent and the storm itself moved further north. The destruction wrought by Katrina, and the flooding thereafter, severely damaged the roads and other infrastructure needed to deliver relief.

Officers from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office, the Gretna City Police Department, and the Crescent City Connection Police blocked the Crescent City Connection to block evacuees crossing the Mississippi River from New Orleans into their area. Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson told UPI, "There was no food, water or shelter in Gretna City. We did not have the wherewithall to deal with these people. If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now - looted, burned and pillaged."

Later, an independent investigation of the pre-Katrina levees that protect New Orleans, alleged that the Levee Board had mismanaged funds and also, "paid more attention to marinas, gambling and business than to maintaining the levees.

International criticism

Several foreign leaders have expressed frustration that they couldn’t get a go-ahead from the Bush administration to administer help. President Bush said on the ABC News program Good Morning America that the United States could fend for itself, "I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars," Bush said of foreign governments.

The immediate response from many nations was to ask to be allowed to send in self-sustaining search and rescue teams to assist in evacuating those remaining in the city. France had a range of aircraft, two naval ships and a hospital ship standing ready in the Caribbean. Russia offered four jets with rescuers, equipment, food and medicine, but their help was first declined before later being accepted. Germany had offered airlifting, vaccination, water purification, medical supplies including German air force hospital planes, emergency electrical power and pumping services; their offer was noted and they received a formal request three days later. Similarly, Sweden had been waiting for a formal request to send a military cargo plane with three complete GSM systems, water sanitation equipment, and experts. And the Netherlands offered help out of the island Aruba in the Caribbean Sea.

British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott linked the global warming issue to Katrina, criticisizing the United States' lack of support for the Kyoto Protocol, "The horrific flood of New Orleans brings home to us the concern of leaders of countries like the Maldives, whose nations are at risk of disappearing completely. There has been resistance by the US government to Kyoto - which I believe is wrong." Ted Sluijter, press spokesman for Neeltje Jans, the public park where the Delta Works are located, said, "I don't want to sound overly critical, but it's hard to imagine that (the damage caused by Katrina) could happen in a Western country, It seemed like plans for protection and evacuation weren't really in place, and once it happened, the coordination was poor."

In China, the party newspaper, the People's Daily, criticized President Bush's handling of the crisis, calling the slow response time to the unfolding tragedy a, "negligence of duty".

Celebrity criticism

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Rapper Kanye West criticizes President Bush during Hurricane Katrina benefit concert, A Concert for Hurricane Relief.

On NBC's Hurricane Relief Telethon, A Concert for Hurricane Relief, broadcast live to the east coast of the United States, rapper Kanye West criticized the Bush administration for failing to do more for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Following a monologue delivered from a prepared script by comedian Mike Myers, West nervously made the following statement, "I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, 'They’re looting.' You see a white family, it says, 'They’re looking for food.' And, you know, it’s been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I’ve tried to turn away from the TV because it’s too hard to watch. I’ve even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I’m calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help – with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way – and they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us."

The first part of West's criticism appears to be targeted at media photos of hurricane victims, first appearing on Yahoo! An Associated Press (AP) photograph of two African-American women was captioned, "Looters carry bags of groceries through floodwaters after taking the merchandise away from a wind damaged convenience store in New Orleans on Monday, 29 August 2005." Another AP photograph of an African-American man was captioned, "A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, August 30, 2005,..." Another photo from Agence France Press (AFP), showed a white couple, with the caption, "Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store in New Orleans..." Many individuals picked out the differences between white people, "finding," and black people, "looting," and these observations led to further controversy. Yahoo! later released a statement clarifying the issue. In later interviews with the photographers that took the pictures, it was confirmed that the photographer witnessed both the looting of a grocery in one scene and people finding bags floating away from a store flooded with five feet of water in it with no doors.

After West's impromptu speech, Myers resumed hosting duties of the segment, reading once again from the prepared speech. After he handed back the floor to Kanye West, West said: "George Bush doesn’t care about black people." NBC quickly cut the feed to Chris Tucker, who apologized for the emotional outburst. The special was then edited for West Coast audiences, with West's remarks about George W. Bush were removed.

On September 16, 2005, rap group Public Enemy released a protest song titled, Hell No We Ain't Alright, written by Chuck D and featuring Flava Flav. The song featured samples of Ray Nagin's speech calling for help, and harshly criticized the policies of the Bush Administration. The song also criticised the characterization of blacks as looters and suggested that the recovery will be more difficult because, "help is stuck in Iraq." The refrain is, "New Orleans in the morning, afternoon, and night/Hell No We Ain't Alright."

On September 5, 2006, rock group Audioslave released a song titled, "Wide Awake" criticizing the slow response, and the government for avoiding the problem. Bassist, Tim Commerford said, "It's a song about President Bush, and how much of an asshole he is."

Race and class issues

Vulnerability of the poorest residents

African-American leaders and others have expressed outrage at what they see as the apparent neglect of the poor and/or black residents of the affected region. Two-thirds of the residents of New Orleans are black, primarily attributed to decades of white flight. In addition, New Orleans is one of America's poorer cities, with more than 25% of residents and 40% of children living at or below the poverty line. Within the city itself, the poorest, who are mostly African American, tended to live in the lowest parts that are most vulnerable to flooding.

98% of the Lower Ninth Ward, which was almost completely submerged, are black and more than a third live in poverty. Many of the poor depend on welfare, Social Security, or other public assistance checks, which they receive on the first of each month, meaning that Hurricane Katrina made landfall just when many of the poor had exhausted their resources. Thus, many of the city's poor simply couldn't afford to flee the city before the hurricane struck. Reports were that many people stayed in their homes rather than evacuating because they didn't want to miss receiving their upcoming checks.

Speaking at a press conference from a relief center in Lafayette, First Lady Laura Bush explained that the poor are always the main victims of natural disasters. "This is what happens when there's a natural disaster of this scope," Mrs. Bush said, "The poorer people are usually in the neighborhoods that are the lowest or the most exposed or the most vulnerable. Their housing is the most vulnerable to natural disaster. And that is just always what happens."

The Reverend Jesse Jackson criticisized the President and asked why he has not named African-Americans to top positions in the federal response to the disaster, particularly when the majority of victims remaining stranded in New Orleans are black, "How can blacks be locked out of the leadership, and trapped in the suffering? It is that lack of sensitivity and compassion that represents a kind of incompetence."

Race as a factor in the slow response

One source of blame for the slowness of the federal response is based on the fact that poor urban blacks have not supported the administration of President Bush. Reverend Jackson also claimed that racism was a factor in the slow government response, stating, "Many black people feel that their race, their property conditions and their voting patterns have been a factor in the response." When federal response did start arriving, much of it was focused on restoring order and stopping looters, some of whom had reportedly delayed the delivery of vital relief by attacking authorities attempting to conduct relief operations.

Commentator Lou Dobbs of CNN, has claimed that local officials should bear some responsibility saying that, "the city of New Orleans is 70% black, its mayor is black, its principle power structure is black, and if there is a failure to the black Americans, who live in poverty and in the city of New Orleans, those officials have to bear much of the responsibility."

Former Mayor of Atlanta and UN Ambassador Andrew Young, who was born in New Orleans, had a more nuanced reaction to the disaster, "I was surprised and not surprised. It's not just a lack of preparedness. I think the easy answer is to say that these are poor people and black people and so the government doesn't give a damn,... there might be some truth to that. But I think we've got to see this as a serious problem of the long-term neglect of an environmental system on which our nation depends."

Characterization of displaced persons as "refugees"

Many media agencies in the U.S. and around the world, were criticized for using the word, "refugee," to describe someone that was displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Many, particularly African-Americans, have argued that using the term, "refugee," implies sort of a, "second class," status, while others have argued that using terms such as, "evacuees," or, "displaced," is too clinical and not dramatic enough to portray the current situation. President Bush addressed this issue in the following statement, "The people we're talking about are not refugees. They are Americans and they need the help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens." Accordingly, most of the major media outlets in the U.S. eliminated the usage of, "refugees," with a few exceptions, most notably, the New York Times.

Potential discrimination against non-U.S. citizens

There was some criticism by tourists that rescue crews were giving preferential treatment to American citizens first. For example, some British tourists trapped in a New Orleans hotel accused the authorities of preferential treatment for Americans during the evacuation as Katrina approached. Australian tourists reported a similar experience, compounded by the federal government's refusal to admit consular officers to the New Orleans area and failure to notify the Australian embassy that one missing tourist was in a correctional facility on minor charges. South African tourists also reported that tourist buses were commandeered by federal officials, and the tourists told to walk back. The tourists were later fired upon by officers on their way back to safety.

In the days before the storm, Mayor Nagin was particularly blunt in regards to foreign tourists, stating, "The only thing I can say to them is I hope they have a hotel room, and it's a least on the third floor and up. Unfortunately, unless they can rent a car to get out of town, which I doubt they can at this point, they're probably in the position of riding the storm out."

However, there were also reports that portrayed the overall generosity of the American people. Some Irish tourists were touched by the, "infinite kindness," shown to them by, "complete strangers."

See also

• Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005
• Chocolate City speech
• Economic effects of Hurricane Katrina
• Political effects of Hurricane Katrina
• Social effects of Hurricane Katrina
• 2005 New Orleans flood

External links

• FEMA Answers – a non-FEMA-sponsored site for providing information regarding the FEMA issues of Katrina

Emergency plans

• National Response Plan
• Lousiana Emergency Operations Plan