An Analysis of the Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina

<p>The attacks of September 11 2001 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon awakened a naive nation to the idea that the American homeland is vulnerable to major disaster. More importantly those attacks highlighted the need for the federal government to overhaul its strategic plan on securing the homeland from major catastrophes both natural and man-made. The result was the creation of the Department of Homeland Security the National Incident Management System a National Federal Response Plan realignment of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under the new Department of Homeland Security and the authoring of numerous Homeland Security Presidential Directives. The Department of Defense also saw the creation of a new regional combatant command the United States Northern Command. This new strategic disaster preparedness response structure saw its first test in 2005. Hurricane Katrina was a long-lived hurricane that made landfall three times along the United States coast. On August 29 2005 at 6:10am Hurricane Katrina made its second landfall in Plaquemines Parish Louisiana.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p>