Disaster Management

Disaster Management

Hurricane Katarina Disaster Management

One of the most destructive natural disasters in the history of the United States is Hurricane Katrina. This disaster was the most powerful as well as large and catastrophic flood that vastly exceeded previously occurred disasters. Prior to the storm reached at the Gulf Coast on 29th August 2005, the devastating impacts of Hurricane Katrina were already felt. Hurricane battered the infrastructure of off-shore energy in the Gulf of Mexico and enforced the mass departure of over 75% of the Gulf's 819 manned oil platforms (White House Archives, 2005). The storm tide was up to between 4 and 9 meter, and killed over 1,800 individuals. In addition, the storm tide made more than 1,000,000 people from their homes and caused around 3,000,000 stranded without electric power in the Gulf Coast area (Flakus, 2012).

The disaster not only damaged people physically, but also led to increasing mental as well as physical health issues. Research indicates that prevalence of possible adverse mental illness doubled, and almost half of the survivors exhibited possible post traumatic stress disorder. Particularly, low-income disaster survivors experienced the most stressors and loss, and thereby faced adverse health consequences (Rhodes et al, 2010). Thus, the health status of hurricane Katrina survivors is not very well, a wide range of people have suffered from the that huge storm tide and still exhibiting adverse physical as well as mental health issues, especially low-income survivors are facing mental health traumas.

As far as recovery efforts are concern, several agencies including federal government organizations; local or state agencies or organizations; National Guard or federal troops; non-governmental organizations; private individuals, and charities have all been tremendously involved in recovery programs. Numerous troops and volunteers responded and were deployed to the catastrophe, mostly in the impacted area as well as throughout ...