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HURRICANE KATRINA:

A NATION STILL UNPREPARED

SPECIAL REPORT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES SENATE

TOGETHER WITH

ADDITIONAL VIEWS

Printed for the Use of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental A? airs http://hsgac.senate.gov/

ORDERED TO BE PRINTED

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 2006

FOR SALE BY THE SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS

Cover Photo: Helicopter Rescue, New Orleans (Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard)109th Congress

2nd Session

SPECIAL REPORT

S. Rept. 109-322For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing OfficeInternet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402-0001

ISBN 0-16-076749-0

TED STEVENS, Alaska

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota

TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

JOHN W. WARNER, VirginiaJOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut

CARL LEVIN, Michigan

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

Majority Sta?

Arthur W Adelberg, Senior Counsel

Melvin D. Albritton, Counsel

Kate C. Alford, Research Assistant

Jennifer C. Boone, FBI Detailee

Erin M. Bouchard, Intern

Allison J. Boyd, Counsel

Codias M. Brown, Legislative Correspondent

Donald L. Bumgardner, GAO Detailee

Jennifer S. Burita, Communications Director

Cyrus E. Cheslak, Intern

John H. Cobb, Senior Counsel

? omas R. Eldridge, Senior Counsel

Ann C. Fisher, Deputy Sta? Director

Keith A. Fleming, CBP Detailee

Jennifer E. Gagnon, Executive Assistant

Amy L. Hall, Professional Sta? Member

Catherine A. Harrington, Intern

Jennifer A. Hemingway, Professional Sta? Member

David E. Hunter, Sta? Scientist

Clark T. Irwin, Editor/Professional Sta? Member

Keith B. Janssen, USCG Detailee

Kathleen L. Kraninger, Professional Sta? Member

Gordon N. Lederman, Special Counsel

Brian J. Lepore, GAO Detailee

Mira L. Lezell, Intern

Jay W. Maroney, Counsel

Asha A. Mathew, Counsel

James R. McKay, Counsel

Jonathan T. Nass, Counsel

David K. Porter, Counsel

Chad T. Sarchio, DOJ Detailee

Debra J. Schlagenhauf, Assistant Clerk

Kurt A. Schmautz, Counsel

Robert L. Strayer, Counsel

Jennifer L. Tarr, Research Assistant

Sarah V. Taylor, Research Assistant

Debra M. ? omas, Executive Assistant

Larry F. Vigil, Professional Sta? Member

Monica A. Wickey, Legislative CorrespondentMinority Sta?

Michael L. Alexander, Professional Sta? Member*

Alistair F. Anagnostou, Sta? Assistant

Eric P. Andersen, Professional Sta? Member

David M. Berick, Professional Sta? Member

Dan M. Berkovitz, Counsel, PSI

Stacey M. Bosshardt, Counsel

Janet L. Burrell, O? ce Manager/Executive Assistant

Scott G. Campbell, Communications Advisor

William E. Corboy, Professional Sta? Member

Troy H. Cribb, Counsel

Heather R. Fine, Counsel

Boris Y. Fishman, Editor

Susan A. Fleming, GAO Detailee

Je? rey E. Greene, Counsel

Elyse F. Greenwald, Sta? Assistant

Beth M. Grossman, Counsel

R. Denton Herring, GAO Detailee

Holly A. Idelson, Counsel

Kristine V. Lam, Sta? Assistant

Kevin J. Landy, Senior Counsel

Joshua A. Levy, Counsel

Alysha S. Liljeqvist, Sta? Assistant

F. James McGee, Professional Sta? Member

Lawrence B. Novey, Senior Counsel

Siobhan C. Oat-Judge, Deputy Press Secretary

Leslie J. Phillips, Communications Director

A. Patricia Rojas, Professional Sta? Member

Mary Beth Schultz, Counsel

Adam R. Sedgewick, Professional Sta? Member

Todd M. Stein, Counsel, O? ce of Senator Lieberman

Traci L. Taylor, DOI Detailee

Donny Ray Williams, Jr., Professional Sta? Member

Jason M. Yanussi, Professional Sta? MemberMichael D. Bopp, Majority Sta? Director and Chief Counsel

David T. Flanagan, Majority General Counsel, Katrina Investigation Joyce A. Rechtscha? en, Minority Sta? Director and Counsel

Laurie R. Rubenstein, Minority Chief Counsel

Robert F. Muse, Minority General Counsel, Katrina Investigation

Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk

Elisabeth F. Butler, Archivist

John S. Gleason, Financial Clerk

Megan T. Gorski, Documents Manager

Patricia R. Hogan, Publications Clerk/GPO Detailee

Daniel M. Muchow, Systems Administrator

* Succeeded Ms. Rechtsha? en as Minority Sta? Director on May 1, 2006. Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental A? airs

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman

iii

Note to Readers

Fellow Citizens:

In the late summer of 2005, millions of us watched the satellite images of Hurricane Katrina as it moved through the Gulf of Mexico and drove menacing swells of water toward the American coastline. We watched in sympathy as hundreds of thousands of lives were upended when the hurricane struck the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. We watched in hor- ror as hundreds died in collapsed or ? ooded houses and nursing homes. We were heartened by acts of initiative, perseverance, and heroism by local responders and the U.S. Coast Guard but, to add bewilderment and outrage to our sense of tragedy, we were horri? ed when the response to the Katrina catastrophe revealed - all too o? en, and for far too long - confusion, delay, misdirection, inactivity, poor coordination, and lack of leadership at all levels of government. Meanwhile, thousands languished in heat and squalor on islands of concrete highway, in darkened stadiums, in nursing homes, or on roo? ops, waiting for rescue, sometimes dying before help arrived. All of this unfolded nearly four years a? er the terror attacks of September 11, 2001; a? er a massive reorganization of federal plans and organizations for disaster response and billions of dollars of expenditures; and a? er a closely observed hurricane struck when and where forecasters said it would. We knew Katrina was coming. How much worse would the nightmare have been if the disaster had been unannounced - an earthquake in San Francisco, a burst levee near St. Louis or Sacramento, a biological weapon smuggled into Boston Harbor, or a chemical- weapon terror attack in Chicago? Hurricane Katrina found us - still - a nation unprepared for catastrophe. ? e United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental A? airs has prepared this bipartisan report to acknowledge what was done well, to identify what was done poorly or not at all, and to recommend changes in our national system for emergency response that will put local, state, federal, and private responders in a better position to provide prompt and e? ective relief when disaster strikes again. ? e Com- mittee conducted a long and thorough investigation of these issues, and is grateful for the work of its sta? of investigators, writers, researchers, and other professionals that made this report possible. We hope you ? nd it informative and, above all, useful. Senator Susan M. Collins Senator Joseph I. Lieberman

Maine, Chairman Connecticut, Ranking Member

Table of Contents

iv

Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared

Contents Page

Preliminaries

Committee Members and Sta? List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Note to Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Narrative

Chapter 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Chapter 2 Hurricane Katrina: Indicators of Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Chapter 3 Hurricanes and the Gulf Coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Chapter 4 Katrina Strikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Chapter 5 Hurricane Katrina: Timeline of Key Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Analysis

Chapter 6 Emergency Management: Louisiana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Chapter 7 Emergency Management: Mississippi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Chapter 8 "Hurricane Pam": Warning Flag for Katrina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Chapter 9 E? ects of Environmental and Engineering Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Chapter 10 Levees: Who"s in Charge? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Chapter 11 "? e New Orleans Scenario": State and Local Preparations . . . . . . . . . . 149

Chapter 12 Federal Preparations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Chapter 13 Department of Homeland Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Chapter 14 ? e Federal Emergency Management Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Chapter 15 Government Response: ? e Role of the White House . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Chapter 16 Pre-Storm Evacuations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Chapter 17 Why the New Orleans Levees Failed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Chapter 18 Communication Voids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Chapter 19 Lack of Situational Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Chapter 20 Protecting Infrastructure; Public Communication;

Role of the Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Chapter 21 Search and Rescue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Chapter 22 Post-Landfall Evacuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Table of Contents

v

Chapter 23 Logistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Chapter 24 Medical Assistance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Chapter 25 Public Safety and Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Chapter 26 Military Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

Chapter 27 Failures in National Response Plan: Uni? ed Command. . . . . . . . . . . . 551

Chapter 28 FEMA Waste and Fraud. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

Results

Overview: Conclusions and Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585

Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589

Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607

Appendices

Appendix 1 Common Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631

Appendix 2 Emergency Support Functions (ESFs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635

Appendix 3 Committee Hearings on Hurricane Katrina. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637

Appendix 4 HSGAC Interviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643

Appendix 5 Members" Additional Views

Senators Collins, Stevens, Coleman, Coburn, Bennett, and Domenici . . 665 Senators Lieberman, Levin, Akaka, Carper, Lautenberg, and Pryor . . . 667

Senator Voinovich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701

Senator Coburn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 705

Senator Domenici . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709

Senator Warner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713

Senator Levin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717

Senators Akaka, Lautenberg, and Pryor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 721

Senator Dayton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725

Senator Lautenberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729

1

Executive Summary

Hurricane Katrina:

A Nation Still

Unprepared

2

Executive Summary

H urricane Katrina was an extraordinary act of nature that spawned a human trag- edy. It was the most destructive natural disaster in American history, laying waste to 90,000 square miles of land, an area the size of the United Kingdom. In Mis- sissippi, the storm surge obliterated coastal communities and le thousands destitute. New Orleans was overwhelmed by ? ooding. All told, more than 1,500 people died. Along the Gulf Coast, tens of thousands su? ered without basic essentials for almost a week. But the su? ering that continued in the days and weeks a er the storm passed did not hap- pen in a vacuum; instead, it continued longer than it should have because of - and was in some cases exacerbated by - the failure of government at all levels to plan, prepare for, and and respond aggressively to the storm. ? ese failures were not just conspicuous; they were pervasive. Among the many factors that contributed to these failures, the Committee found that there were four overarching ones:

1. Long-term warnings went unheeded and gov-

ernment o? cials neglected their duties to prepare for a forewarned catastrophe;

2. Government o? cials took insu? cient actions

or made poor decisions in the days immediately before and a er landfall;

3. Systems on which o? cials relied on to support

their response e? orts failed; and

4. Government o? cials at all levels failed to pro-

vide e? ective leadership. ? ese individual failures, moreover, occurred against a backdrop of failure, over time, to develop the capacity for a coordinated, national response to a truly catastrophic event, whether caused by nature or man-made. ? e results were tragic loss of life and human su? ering on a massive scale, and an under- mining of con dence in our governments ability to plan, prepare for, and respond to national catastrophes. E? ective response to mass emergencies is a critical role of every level of government. It is a role that requires an unusual level of planning, coordination, and dispatch among govern- ments diverse units. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, this country went through one of the most sweeping reorganizations of the federal government in his- tory. While driven primarily by concerns of terrorism, the reorganization was designed to strengthen our nations ability to address the consequences of both natural and man-made disasters. In its rst major test, this reorganized system failed. Katrina revealed that much remains to be done. ? e Committee began this investigation of the preparations for and response to Hurricane Katrina within two weeks of the hurricanes landfall on the Gulf Coast. ? e tragic loss of life and human su? ering in Katrinas wake would have been su? cient in themselves to compel the Committees attention. But the conspicuous failures in governments emergency pre- paredness and response added a sense of urgency to the investigation - not only because of

Hurricane Katrina over the

Gulf Coast, August 2005

NOAA photo

Executive Summary

3 our heightened national awareness of the dangers of both terrorist acts and natural disas- ters, but because so much e? ort had been directed towards improvement. ? e Committee"s investigation has been bipartisan, and has examined in detail the actions of o? cials of local, state, and federal government departments and agencies. ? ough suf- fering was pervasive across the Gulf Coast, the Committee focused most of its e? orts on the response in New Orleans, where massive ? ooding presented extraordinary challenges to responders and victims alike. In addition, the investigation centered largely on the initial response to the hurricane in the critical week or so a? er the storm hit. We have conducted formal interviews of more than 325 witnesses, reviewed over 838,000 pages of documenta- tion, and conducted 22 public hearings with 85 witnesses in the course of our information gathering e? orts. Most of the hearings focused on what went wrong in Katrina. Two of the hearings, however, examined the successes: the e? ective and heroic search-and-rescue e? orts by the U.S. Coast Guard; and the outstanding performance of certain members of the private sector in restor- ing essential services to the devastated communities and providing relief to the victims. ? ese successes shared some important traits. ? e Coast Guard and certain private-sector businesses both conducted extensive planning and training for disasters, and they put that preparation into use when disaster struck. Both moved material assets and personnel out of harm"s way as the storm approached, but kept them close enough to the front lines for quick response a? er it passed. Perhaps most important, both had empowered front-line leaders who were able to make decisions when they needed to be made.

The Roles of the Different Levels of

Government in Disaster Response

Assessing the government"s response to Katrina requires, at the outset, an understanding of the roles of government entities and their leaders and the framework within which they operate. Every level of government, and many components within each level, play impor- tant roles. At every level of government, the chief executive has the ultimate responsibility to manage an emergency response. It has long been standard practice that emergency response begins at the lowest possible jurisdictional level - typically the local government, with state government becoming involved at the local government"s request when the resources of local government are (or are expected to be) overwhelmed. Similarly, while the federal government provides ongoing ? nancial support to state and local governments for emergency preparedness, ordinarily it becomes involved in responding to a disaster at a state"s request when resources of state and local governments are (or are expected to be) overwhelmed. Louisiana"s Emergency Opera- tions Plan explicitly lays out this hierarchy of response. During a catastrophe, which by de? nition almost immediately exceeds state and local re- sources and signi? cantly disrupts governmental operations and emergency services, the role of the federal government is particularly vital, and it would reasonably be expected to play a more substantial role in response than it would in an "ordinary" disaster.

Long-Term and Short-Term Warnings Went Unheeded

? e Committee has worked to identify and understand the sources of the government"s inadequate response and recovery e? orts. And while this Report does not purport to have

Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Uprepared

4

Executive Summary

identi? ed every such source, it is clear that there was no lack of information about the dev- astating potential of Katrina, or the uncertain strength of the levees and ? oodwalls protect- ing New Orleans, or the likely needs of survivors. Nonetheless, top o? cials at every level of government - despite strongly worded advisories from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and personal warnings from NHC Director Max May? eld - did not appear to truly grasp the magnitude of the storm"s potential for destruction before it made landfall. ? e potentially devastating threat of a catastrophic hurricane to the Gulf Coast has been known for 40 years: New Orleans experienced ? ooding in some areas of remarkably similar proportions from Hurricane Betsy in 1965, and Hurricane Camille devastated the Gulf Coast in 1969. More recently, numerous experts and governmental o? cials had been an- ticipating an increase in violent hurricanes, and New Orleans" special and growing vulner- ability to catastrophic ? ooding due to changing geological and other conditions was widely described in both technical and popular media. Hurricane Georges hit the Gulf Coast in 1998, spurring the State of Louisiana to ask Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for assistance with catastrophic hurricane plan- ning. Little was accomplished for the next six years. Between 2000 and 2003, state authori- ties, an emergency-preparedness contractor, and FEMA"s own regional sta? repeatedly advised

FEMA headquarters in Washing-

ton that planning for evacuation and shelter for the "New Orleans scenario" was incomplete and inadequate, but FEMA failed toquotesdbs_dbs42.pdfusesText_42

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