United States' Government Response to Hurricane Katrina: Where Does the Blame Belong?

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According to the Business Dictionary, government involvement is considered any “regulatory action taken by a government in order to affect or interfere with decisions.” Many accuse the United States’ national government of minimal and slow actions taken after the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, while others share the blame of this response. Local, state, and national government response will be discussed, focusing on the government’s interaction after the strike of Hurricane Katrina.
Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana on August 29th, 2005, but the failure of the local government started before this day “by allowing building and growing in areas in low flood lands.” The local government did not regulate these land areas that have always been at threat for flooding and natural disaster, which was ignored by the government and public, and was still a place for growing infrastructure. The author of Hurricane Katrina and the Paradoxes of Government Disaster Policy: Bringing About Wise Governmental Decisions for Hazardous Areas, Burby, relates the conflict of shortsighted public policy decisions. Two of these said policies include requiring local governments to prepare comprehensive plans that give consideration to natural hazards and requires local governments to assume greater financial responsibility for the consequences of their urban development decision-making.
Failures included by Burby of the national agencies include design limits that can lead to levees being overtopped by flood and hurricane events that are larger than they were designed for. Also, design flaws and construction and maintenance shortcomings can lead to protective works being breached when they cannot stand up to the forces exerted by large flood and hurr...

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Chua, Alton YK, Selcan Kaynak, and Schubert SB Foo. "An analysis of the delayed response to Hurricane Katrina through the lens of knowledge management." Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 58, no. 3 (2007): 391-403.

Muñiz, Brenda. In the eye of the storm: how the government and private response to Hurricane Katrina failed Latinos. Washington, DC: National Council of La Raza, 2006.

Schneider, Saundra K. "Administrative breakdowns in the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina." Public Administration Review 65, no. 5 (2005): 515-516.

Sobel, Russell S., and Peter T. Leeson. "Government's response to Hurricane Katrina: A public choice analysis." Public Choice 127, no. 1-2 (2006): 55-73.

“government involvement.” Business Dictionary. 2014. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/government-intervention.html (03 May 2014)

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