There are many disaster relief agencies that play a very vital role in responding to emergencies example is FEMA and the Red Cross. Natural disasters have displaced so many people around the world leaving them homeless and jobless. Disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes are unavoidable and many people have been losing their lives because not all disasters come with a warning. There has been a rise of disasters in the world today and good strategies to deal with all types of disasters should be put in place. Trainings should be conducted and more people recruited in learning how to deal with disasters and how to rescue victims if a disaster strikes so as to minimize the number of lives lost.
Philippine was the world’s most frequently country hit by natural disasters in 2011. Flooding has been the top disaster that is affecting most countries in the world today. Additionally, the United States has experienced a variety of natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes in the plains and floods throughout the Midwest. Focus should be put on disaster prevention even though natural disasters cannot be prevented other than waiting for disasters to strike. There should be good communication at the time of disaster so as to be able to ensure that the resources needed to support response and recovery activities are available. Programs of disaster preparedness, management, mitigation and prevention should be put in place and followed regardless of whether there is a disaster location in the country. Hurricanes have affected so many people in the United States rendering them homeless, and example is the Katrina hurricane.
Katrina hurricane was the costliest hurricane ever recorded in history that left thousand of people homeless and jobless. Due to its destructiveness, many relief organizations scrambled to help the victims and even though so many turned out successful, some were unsuccessful because they were disorganized and poorly run.
The aspects of Relief Efforts
The city’s evacuation turned out very successful. The coast guards were able to evacuate about 33,500 people among the 60,000 people who were already stranded in floods in New Orleans. After evacuation, over 760,000 families and individuals were provided with housing assistance by FEMA (Dyson, 2006).
The IDF delegation sent from Israel was able to transport equipment, food, blankets and even diapers to different government institutions and relief camps despite the U.S. criticizing them that they did not need any help from Israel. The team was also able to administer first aid to the survivors and they rescued pets that were abandoned by their owners as they run for their safety, and discovered hurricane victims who had not received help yet.
The federal state and the American Red Cross provided public health and medical support to the survivors. They also provided food and shelter and relief supplies were delivered at Superdome. Food was distributed through supply trucks and buses in the temporary warehouses that were set and the food banks in New Orleans were kept running so that the survivors could get easy access. Additionally, Ava Mark provided cleaning and maintenance services to the evacuees.
There was death of hundreds of people during the flood. Many people lost their lives because the government failed to provide means of evacuation for people who were stranded and had no means to save themselves. The (US&R) Urban search and rescue team were untrained and unequipped to perform in water and this made it difficult for them to be able to evacuate people who were already trapped in water and save their lives thus the death toll increased (Virginia,2009).
They failed to evacuate people. Many people were left trapped in water because they could not be traced due to communication breakdown. The devastating infrastructure and power failures made it hard for people to be evacuated. The government to provide adequate means of evacuation for people who could not access them
The search and rescue team failed. Due to lack of experienced rescue team, many people were not rescued immediately from the floods. Due to lack of search and rescue team, the agencies that were conducting the rescue could not co-ordinate their operations effectively.
Why it was unsuccessful
The relief efforts were unsuccessful due to many reasons including poor running and organization of the relief organizations. Mismanagement and lack of good leadership in the government and relief organizations highly facilitated the failure of the relief efforts. When New Orleans started flooding, there was delayed response and this lead to the death of many people. If the government had responded immediately, many lives could have been saved. Delayed rescue responses also contributed to the rescue failure because as the rescue team delayed in attending to the trapped people, many of them died of exhaustion, huger and others suffocation. The government should make emergency needs the first priority and if this could have been done, it could have saved many lives since there could be a first response.
Communication breakdown was another factor that led to the failure of the relief efforts. Communication was a problem during the disaster because most of the key generators are placed on ground floor and since it was flooded and the generators were damaged, there was no power and this affected the phones. In New Orleans, there was no communication for three consecutive days because the systems failed to operate and this affected the rescue process. With upgrading standard building codes for construction whereby key generators are not put on ground floors, many lives could have been saved because communication could not have been the problem.
Poor decision making, scams, and bad information led to the failure of rescue efforts. Over 4,000 domains were registered under Katrina and they turned up to be fraudulent. It was very hard to identify the fraudulent and legitimate organizations that were seeking for relief. There were unsolicited calls and emails being received so that food and other necessities to be sent to survivors yet they were not legitimate and donations were sent. With improved management programs and working together with mutual agreement relief process could have been easier and lives could have been saved (Brinkley, 2007).
FEMA failed to request military support after Katrina ravaged New Orleans yet the rescue team they had was unqualified and inexperienced since they wanted to do it on their own so as to receive the praise in the end. If more rescue teams were to be deployed in the area which it was not, this could have saved the situation since a good number of the people who were already trapped in the floods could be rescued.
Politics also led to the failure of the relief efforts because of the arising of public debates on local and government’s role in responding to the hurricane. This slowed down the rescue process because decisions were being awaited from the government and this led to the rise of the death toll because people died from thirst and exhaustion. If the government could have put the rescue efforts on the front line and put their differences aside, many lives could have been rescued during Katrina.
References
Virginia, B. (2009). Natural Disaster and Public Health: Hurricanes Katrina Rita and Wilma, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins.
Dyson, M., E. (2006). Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster, New York: Perseus Book group.
Brinkley, D. (2007). The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, New York: Harper Perennial.
