Comparison and Contrast of the Hurricane Katrina Response and 9/11 Terrorist Attack

New Orleans became known for the impact it suffered when Hurricane Katrina reached landfall. In the same way, the world was never the same again after the 9/11 attack. Commentators claimed that the country has undergone a profound sense of awakening and changed in the light of these disasters.

However, despite the tragic losses, many people could not help but compare the responses of the Government to 9/11 and Katrina. This article makes a comparison and contrast of the two events. This paper also attempts to shed a light  to the reason behind the difference in the responses and what the authorities could have done to make things differently.

Introduction

On August 23, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the country causing a catastrophic loss in the lives of the people in New Orleans and other neighboring states. On September 11, 2001, the whole world was taken aback when the Al-Quada organization led by Osama Bin Laden hijacked four commercial jetliners that crashed the World Trade Center and damaged a part of the Pentagon thereby making it the biggest and most devastating terroristic attack against the American soil.

After national disasters such as these two struck the country, America as the world knows it, never became the same again. September 11 marked not only the worst terrorist attack in America by killing more than 3,000 people, this date is also memorable because it marked the passing of two weeks since the destruction of the Gulf Coast caused by Hurricane Katrina thereby revealing the utter lack of preparedness of all levels of the US Government for  a tragedy that could have been forecasted (Martin, 2005).

Both tragedies involve loss however, many people cannot help but see the difference between the responses of the President and the Federal Government directly after 9/11 and after the hurricane.

Despite the tragic loss, it can be said that 9/11 attack was the most uniting event that happened in the country. The whole nation was affected and the entire international community was touched. September 11 changed everything starting from the way people travel to the amount of finances that the government spends on their troops.

The government's immediate response to the terrorist attack was very predictable considering that the attack was meant to have them as the target but also because it clearly meant that the enemy was prepared to wage war on America.

This was undoubtedly one of the darkest chapters in the history of country but this was also the very first time in a long time that many citizens felt unity for a singe purpose. The policies, procedures and methods of security radically changed in view of this attack in order to prosecute what President Bush called the “global war on terror”. New departments were created such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) whose primary purpose was the prevention of terroristic attacks.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was on e of the agencies responsible for (the creation of DHS and for more than twenty years, FEMA has been responsible for dealing with storms, earthquakes, hurricanes and other disasters (Martin, 2005).

While 9/11 was the worst terroristic attack in the country, Katrina was the worst natural disaster in the history of United States. This hurricane destroyed not only the gulf coast but everything that has gotten in its way including thousands of lives.

In this calamity, the performance of FEMA was filled with criticisms due to their incompetence and lack of preparations before the event as well as their failure to immediately respond and rescue citizens of New Orleans after the hurricane passed (Martin, 2005). The impact as well as the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina touched and inspired the hearts of people around the world and awakened their devotion to humanitarian causes.

Aside from the 1,300 fatalities brought about by Katrina, there were also hundreds of people and animals who were left homeless without food and water (Science Daily, 2010). As a response to the destruction brought about by this natural disaster, the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was able to deploy one thousand staff to assist their emergency operations in the affected areas (Journal of Applied Communication Research, 2007).

The 9/11 victims were given financial assistance called the Victims Compensation Fund in order to compensate not only for the pain and the suffering experienced by the families of those who were killed and injured. The financial assistance given out amounted to $7 million.

This amount was extraordinarily high as compared to those given by public or private insurance. This Fund was released because of the contract made between White House and Congressional Democrats because they want to limit the liability of the airline companies to keep the aviation history afloat amidst the adversity.

The perception of the public that the victims of the terroristic attack were heroes play an important factor in sustaining the amount of financial compensation received by their families. In America, the families of the victims of crimes do not normally received compensation for loss of wages of the deceased unless the court decides to award them.

However, during the 9/11 attack, the people view the victims as more than just mere victims of terrorism or even victims of the negligence of airport security in not taking a more stringent approach against anti-hijacking. The entire country perceive them as heroes who bore the attack that was meant to destroy the nation.

The extraordinary amount given as payment to the victims were deemed justified because they were the victims of an extraordinary tragic event. Katrina was an extraordinary devastating event too but to many hurricane victims, they felt that their plight was not viewed with as much intensity and importance as that of the 9/11 victims (Sebok, 2005).

In contrast, the victims of Katrina were not viewed as heroes even though there were some heroic measures undertaken. Furthermore, the deadly blow was not struck by a common enemy but by Mother Nature herself for reasons only the meteorologist can understand.

It is also noteworthy to mention that the allegations of the negligence of the government concerning events prior to and after the hurricane is no less grave than that of the allegations of the airlines and their negligence which led to the distribution of the Fund.

The allegations about the negligence before and after Katrina are stronger than the negligence of the airlines in 9/11 because the mode of hijacking involved hostages and not bombs as compared to the advent of Katrine wherein it can be predicted with much accuracy yet despite the technological advances, the preparations and the responses fell short. What was surprising and disappointing at the same time was the lack of proper planning for the evacuation and the post-Katrina responses (Sebok, 2005).

Despite the efforts of both private and public organizations to help Katrina victims, investigations revealed that the overall efforts led to a national failure. New Orleans sat approximately 6 feet below the sea level. Criticisms were received by the authorities for not acting upon the warnings that they received months earlier that New Orleans must be protected from hurricanes that would fall on level 4 but this warning was ignored and the funds alloted for the disaster management were even reduced.

The Federal Government should have had better preparations to deal with a hurricane this big.

Immediately after Katrina struck, there were a lot of criticism about the slow federal response. It took several days for the National Guards to arrive (Shah, 2005). Prior to the landfall of Katrina on August 29, 2005, the United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM) started implementing their alert procedures.

Most of the deployments started after the President declared a state of national emergency on August 30. As a result, NORTHCOM activated the Joint Task Force-Katrina and by 31st of August, the Department of Defense (DOD) started their medical airlift to New Orleans. As the situation began to deteriorate, the DOD sent in the 82nd Airborne and the 1st Cavalry which arrived on New Orleans in September 5 and another assault ship came the next day (Kochems, 2005).

This delay in rescue led many people to compare the performance of President Bush in handling this crisis as compared to his prompt actuations in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack.

What stunned a lot of people over the world why the world most powerful country was unable to handle this emergency even though it was aptly capable of declaring war in foreign lands. In the same way, there are a number of commentators that asked why other nations had not come to give a helping hand to America in such a perilous time yet some third world countries offered their help.

Afganistan offered to give $100,000 while other nations such as Greece, Italy, China, Singapore also lend aid (Laville, 2005).