In the first answer, the departments of US federal government are criticized strongly for not being able to prepare to deal with the catastrophic destruction of the hurricane. This answer further tells that the disaster went up to huge scale due to the connectivity of global drivers as being part of SESs which is true because global drivers are dominating the local ones in today’s era. Another issue here that arose was that in many towns the people who were left behind started looting the stores. Nearly 80% of Orleans’ structures got damage by the hurricane which in my point of view is quite optimistic figure as one can see in the path of the hurricane that the main target of it seemed Orleans which it swept off. There is lots of critic in the answer about mismanagement of the US departments on relief activities. Where government was; during this adversity remains big question mark. Why the government bureaucrats were not able to carry out relief activities? Why they had not enough money to accommodate the victims of the hurricane?
The second answer mainly addresses the damages in the industrial and business sector which are true to its full extent. It is further mentioned in the answer that any failure of infrastructure related to these sectors would have devastating effects which means that if cellular towers got hit and become unserviceable then the victims who were without food, shelter and drinking water were not been able to communicate their contingency requirements to any official departments for relief. The most important question is that despite having prior notice of hurricane threats why was government not able to do required arrangements? It is further told in the answer that up to a 50% of infrastructures of the industrial sector is owned privately by people so in my point of view this would have caused stresses in the people for loss of their big investments. My question here is that what happened to the insured investments? Were all of the filed claims on insured infrastructures were properly processed to help the private sector?
In next answer it is told that the Department of Homeland Security is responsible to response to natural disasters on immediate basis side by side it counter-terrorism activities. Here the Department of Homeland Security has been criticized for delayed response to provide relief to the victims of the hurricane and the reason told here is that this department has many other functions to deal with including terrorism which is a hot issue these days. However in my point of view this can’t be put up as an excuse as there were many looting and rape cases in the affected areas which were also the responsibility of this department. There was lack of guidance and mismanagement from the government side and the aftermaths of hurricane reached far and wide from the locality of debacle. Therefore later on all kinds of resources at any place were declared as essential to national protection (Brennan, 2009). Private and government sector were stressed to work collectively for the wellbeing and rehabilitation of the people. My question here is that if the Department of Homeland Security has proved itself for being ineffective in providing the relief activities during natural disasters then why government is not putting some other department on the task?
In the last answer the reasons of infrastructure failures are discussed and the major reason for it is stated as the communication systems. It tells that in the disasters like Katrina Hurricane, communication play vital role in restoring and relieving the infrastructure failures through timely information to the government departments for relief activities to be carried out where required. In this answer the Department of Homeland Security is criticized as was in previous one due to the reason that communication systems in the affected areas were affected due to the disaster which as result affected the relief activities of the department. However in this answer another agency known as FEMA is held responsible for the bad management in relief activities. It is iterated in the answer that dealing with such disaster FEMA should not have the centralized decision making system because priority of relief activities should be decided by the people who are taking part in these activities rather than by the ones sitting in their offices. I think that the people who take decisions for these activities are not just sitting in their offices and taking decisions blindly but they get the true pictures of the disaster through satellites etc and they have the damage information of all the areas and have to cater for all of it rather than concentrating all efforts in one area.
References
Brennan, Virginia M.2009. Natural Disasters and Public Health: Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma Johns Hopkins University Press.
