The making of American domestic policy 255incorporated into the newly established Department of Homeland Security
(DHS). FEMA’s Director was Michael D. Brown and shortly after the reor-
ganisation, according to the Washington Post, he warned the then Secretary
of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, that the result would be ‘an ineffective
and uncoordinated response’ to a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. The
problems of creating a new department, incorporating existing organisations
such as FEMA, which had been independent and had had its own budget,
resulted in ‘turf wars’ and personality clashes that proved to be a disaster in
themselves. Before being absorbed into the Department of Homeland Secu-
rity the Director of FEMA had reported directly to the president on disaster
situations; now it was up to the Secretary of DHS to determine the way in
which situations were handled. Furthermore the new emphasis on the ‘War
on Terror’ distracted attention and funds from planning for natural disasters.
As well as the battles going on within the DHS there were interdepartmental
fights between the Department and the Department of Health and Human
Services concerning the location and control of the teams responsible for
providing emergency medical services.
There were several days warning of the approach of Hurricane Katrina,
although the exact path of a hurricane is never certain. The responsibility for
the evacuation of the endangered population lay with state and local authori-
ties who were required to activate their emergency plans as a prerequisite to
requesting federal assistance. Mayor Nagin of New Orleans issued an evacu-
ation order on Sunday when it was feared that the city might be struck by
a Category 5 hurricane. A high proportion of the population of the city left,
but many chose to stay and others were unable to leave, because they did
not have cars or were disabled or elderly. When the flooding began many
refugees went for shelter to the Superdome, a large football stadium, and
later to a huge convention centre in the city on higher ground. However, the
Superdome soon became overcrowded, without food supplies or air-condi-
tioning. The New York Times reported:
At the convention center, food and water grew scarce. Dead bodies
sagged in wheelchairs. Residents reported hearing burst of sporadic
gunfire. A number of city police officers walked off their jobs in despair... ‘The tourists are walking around there and as soon as these indi-
viduals see them, they’re being preyed upon,’ said P. Edwin Compass III,
superintendent of police. ‘They are beating, they are raping them in the
streets.’
FEMA aid workers had to leave the Superdome because of the lawless
conditions. The poor and the black suffered much more than the affluent,
and it took a long while for effective relief to arrive.
The plan had been to set up command centres to deal with the emergency,
combining federal, state and local resources; this was achieved in Missis-