Sorting out Katrina: the lessons so far

Out of the chaos wrought by hurricane Katrina, at least one major good may emerge: better plans to deal with the next disaster.

The country - indeed, the world - can see that better preparation is needed. The stumbling response to Katrina, from the local level on up, has already produced a round of recriminations between Washington officials and some political leaders from the region. Over the next weeks and months, a series of federal investigations may produce more solid details about what went wrong. From this may flow recommendations for US disaster response reform.

Meanwhile, some lessons from Katrina are already apparent, say experts. Among them: Keep your eyes open. One of the major reasons help did not race in quickly, they say, is that in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane New Orleans did not appear too badly damaged. Officials and first responders may have relaxed a bit - and then realized that the levees had given way.

"I think that the major problem was a lack of recognition of how big this problem was," says Thomas Kirsch, an emergency physician and disaster expert at Johns Hopkins University.

Another obvious point is the importance of communications. After the attacks of Sept. 11, failures of fire and police department radios complicated response efforts at the World Trade Center, and perhaps led to unnecessary casualties. After flooding washed over New Orleans, phone lines died, as did most cellular communications, and first responders had little means of discovering who needed what help where.

"Communication is essential," says Paul Light, professor of organizational preparedness at New York University.

State and local governments need to take into account the fact that individual Americans are usually not prepared themselves for natural disasters, Professor Light adds. They will look to government to tell them what to do.

That means plans have to take into account everyone - not just those who can evacuate via car, or those who can get to an evacuation center. To this point, many of those hardest-hit by the disaster appear to be the elderly, the poor, and members of racial minorities.

In essence, disaster response needs to recognize that sometimes the worst-case scenarios, or something very close to them, do come to pass. The situation in New Orleans could conceivably have been worse, if the city had taken a direct hit and Mississippi River levees had also given way. But the stutter-step disaster, with flooding following the hurricane, was bad enough.

"I think this is going to cause all of us at the state and local level, and federal, too, to rethink how we go about preparing and responding," says Dewayne West, president of the International Association of Emergency Managers.

In Washington, President Bush and Congress pledged to open separate investigations into the federal response to Katrina.

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