Beyond Katrina: Improving Disaster Response Capabilities

Abstract

As Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma successively lashed the Gulf Coast starting in late August 2005, nature’s fury exposed serious weaknesses in the United States’s emergency response capabilities. These problems were not simply the failure of particular places or leaders to be ready for disaster but rather an indication of more fundamental issues. These must be addressed if the country is to be ready for serious challenges that may lay ahead, whether severe natural disasters, outbreaks of emergent infectious disease, or renewed terrorist attacks.