Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans

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President Bush & the Response
When the citizens of New Orleans needed federal assistance, the government was unable to respond. This inability turned into a stumbling block for President Bush. The handling of the response to Katrina exposed a level of incompetence from President Bush previously unseen. In the eyes of the world, if a disaster of any kind happened the United States could be counted on to assist in the recovery. The response to Katrina destroyed that notoriety and the president’s image.
Excuses, poorly chosen photographs, public statements and denial all demonstrate just how unequipped President Bush was to deal with this disaster. “A few days after Katrina struck New Orleans last September, President Bush told the press that the relationship between the federal, state and local governments is “an important relationship, and I need to understand how it works better”” (Dreier, 2006). A true leader, one who possessed the basic skills necessary for crisis management, would have known the three keys qualities he needed to exhibit were trust, communication and collaboration.
The president lost the trust of those in the disaster zone by not making decisions fast enough. Instead of making the right decisions and earning the trust of those affected, holding off on key decisions like sending in federal troops instead of making the call immediately seemed to further divide society from the politicians. The president’s trust took another hit when be publically praised FEMA director Michael Brown for a job well done when in fact quite the opposite was true. The country and especially those affected needed to hear from the president. Yet, it took President Bush nearly three days for him to publicly address the disaste...

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.... 2 years after Katrina, pace of rebuilding depends on who pays. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-08-28-rebuild_N.htm
Piper, P. & Ramos, M. (2006). A failure to communicate. Politics, scams, and information flow during Hurricane Katrina. Retrieved from http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jun06/piper_ramos.shtml
Robillard, K. (2012). 10 facts about the Katrina response. Retrieved from http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/81957.html
Science Daily. (2014). Hurricane Katrina. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/h/hurricane_katrina.htm
Shoup, A. (2005). FEMA faces intense scrutiny. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/government_programs-july-dec05-fema_09-09/
Zimmermann, K. (2012). Hurricane Katrina: Facts, damage & aftermath. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/22522-hurricane-katrina-facts.html

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