EMERGENCY PREPARATION FOR HURRICANE KATRINA 2

Emergency Preparation for Hurricane Katrina

One of the roles of an emergency planning team is to identify physical assets or social
groups that are most vulnerable to risk and find ways of protecting them. As an emergency
planning leader in New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina, I have identified poor and elderly
people living in the city as the social group to be protected during the hurricane.

The main priorities for protection of this social group are shelter, transportation, safety,
medication, and social support. Shelter is a priority because for effective protection they will
need to leave their vulnerable homes to a safe place that is not at risk of being hit by the
hurricane. As for transportation, being poor and elderly, they may not have a car or not be able to
drive one. So, it is important to transport them to the safe shelter from their homes. Safety is also
important in the shelter that they will be evacuated to. It is important to not just protect them
from personal harm but also protect their belongings from theft. Additionally, as elderly people,
they have medical conditions that need treatment such as diabetes, dementia, and high blood
pressure. It is important that they get access to the medicines that they need in the shelter that
they will be evacuated to. Lastly, they will need close family members or social workers to take
care of them when in the safe shelter before, during, and after the hurricane.

Preparation for the disaster will involve making sure that all these priorities are
effectively met. The disaster strategy will involve proper and timely communication and
provision of resources required to achieve the priorities that have been identified. First, there will
be extensive communication to the public about the scale of the coming hurricane, the damage
that it is likely to cause, the need for evacuation, location and direction of evacuation shelter for
the identified social group, and the time frame for the evacuation. Additionally, members of the

EMERGENCY PREPARATION FOR HURRICANE KATRINA 3
identified social group will be informed where to find evacuation buses so that they can either
come by themselves or be brought there by their family members. Equally important, the
message will include personal items they should carry as well as their medications, if they are
using any.

This communication will be made on a mix of mediums to enable wide dissemination of
the message. This mix will include radio, television, use of community leaders such as church
leaders, and even social media. I will then liaise with the New Orleans city authorities and other
organizations involved in the disaster management to provide the required number of buses at
specified locations based on the number of people in the identified social group. Apart from the
buses, I will also coordinate with the city authorities to identify a safe place to serve as
evacuation shelter. For the shelter’s security, I will liaise with police department of the
jurisdiction of the shelter’s location to provide the required security.

In conclusion, I believe that these measures will effectively prepare the identified social
group to keep safe during and after the storm. The measures employed as part of this emergency
preparation have focused on protection priorities of the identified social group. As long as all
these priorities are met, there is little doubt that they will manage to remain safe during the
hurricane.