Hurricane Katrina: No Leaders, No Followers,
Just Incompetence
Predictable. That is how I would describe the effect Hurricane Katrina had on the
city of New Orleans. The city sits nine feet below sea level and is surrounded by
water held back only by 100-year-old levees. A basic understanding of how water flows
downhill made a flood of The Big Easy simple to predict. It was also predictable
that many residents of the city would not be able to get out, and that the displaced
would be disproportionately from lower income brackets.
But what was mostly unpredictable was the way in which the various levels of government
turned this into a political struggle, and ignored basic operational duties we expect
of our elected leaders in times of crisis. We expect more. We are entitled to more.
Local, state and federal officials seemed more concerned with struggling for control
of the situation than with working together, leading when necessary, and following
when appropriate. No one was blameless, no one capably fulfilled their duties, and
citizens throughout the Louisiana and Mississippi coastal areas suffered immensely.
This was a power struggle set within a leadership vacuum.
Let's look briefly at the performance of some of the major players.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin summarized his evacuation plan for The Wall Street Journal: “Get
people to higher ground and have the feds and the state airlift supplies to them
- that was the plan, man.” Thanks, Ray. Did you draft that plan with construction
paper and crayons?
How about Governor Kathleen Blanco? Her crisis leadership skills will never be confused
with Rudy Giuliani's. She had the figurative “deer-in-the-headlights” look
in every press conference I watched, and spewed several golden PR nuggets such as
describing National Guard troops as being “locked and loaded.” She seemed
more concerned with holding on to power - she refused to let the White House federalize
law enforcement, despite total chaos in the city - than actually doing anything with
it.
And once we get to the Federal level, take your pick. Should we point at former
FEMA Director Michael Brown, the federal fall guy? Or do we take a look at the person
who appointed him, President Bush, who was busy training for the X Games the week
after the tragedy? Based on “Brownie's” resume, I'm not far off from
being qualified to run FEMA. What do you say, W?
The simple fact is that there was little leadership at any level of government,
and zero followership. There was no sense of teamwork among the different
levels of government, no willingness to work together and get the job done. From
my seat, it seems that responsibility for initial plans should start locally and
flow upward to the state and federal levels. Yet none of the lines of defense seemed
to work. The fact that members of the media were somehow able to get to hard-hit
areas hours and days before any relief workers could is fascinating - and frightening.
The natural catastrophe caused by this hurricane pales in comparison to the man-made
catastrophe caused by political incompetence, a lack of teamwork and non-existent
communication among all levels of government.
 Beacon Issue -
October 2005
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