Contents
In a disaster, hours count. Who sends buses, who delivers water and who deploys soldiers must be decided quickly. Hurricane Katrina is a textbook case of what happens when many bodies are responsible and none really leads. It is a counterexample: it shows Unity of Command through its absence.
A storm hits three levels
Situation
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina makes landfall on the Gulf of Mexico coast. In New Orleans, levees break, and large parts of the city are underwater. Three levels are responsible: the city under Mayor Ray Nagin, the state of Louisiana under Governor Kathleen Blanco, and the federal government with the Department of Homeland Security under Michael Chertoff and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under Michael Brown.
Link to the principle
Tiered responsibility is normal in a federal state. It becomes dangerous when, in an emergency, it isn’t clear who leads the whole. Then each level waits for the other, and decisions that no one wants or is allowed to make alone are left hanging.
Who is in charge?
Situation
Mayor Nagin does not order a mandatory evacuation until less than a day before the storm arrives. Critics later accuse him of sending people to the Superdome without adequate food, water, security and sanitation in place there. Thousands gather at the city’s convention center. By his own account, FEMA director Brown learns of this only on September 1. The first large supply convoy reaches the convention center at noon on September 2.
Link to the principle
When no one clearly leads, no shared picture of the situation emerges. Information gets stuck in individual offices. Each body acts in its own area, but no one fills the gaps in between. Unity of command also means this: there is one place where everything comes together.
The dispute over the troops
Situation
Governor Blanco asks for additional National Guard troops from other states. The commitment comes only on September 1. About 40% of the Louisiana National Guard is deployed in Iraq at the time. Shortly before midnight on September 2, President George W. Bush’s administration proposes that Blanco hand over command of the police and security forces to the federal government under the Insurrection Act. Blanco refuses, as does the governor of Mississippi to a similar request. The National Guard and federal troops therefore work under separate chains of command.
Link to the principle
Two chains of command for the same objective are exactly what the principle is meant to prevent. There were legal and political reasons on both sides, and no level wanted to give up authority. That is precisely why the question of who leads in an emergency must be settled beforehand. In the middle of a crisis, it turns into a power struggle.
The federal government is divided too
Situation
In early 2006, Congress’s audit office, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) under David Walker, finds that the federal government had not designated a single official responsible for the overall relief effort. In its view, Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff should have taken on this role himself. Instead, he relied on FEMA director Brown, who had only limited control. In addition, Chertoff never declared Katrina a catastrophic event, which would have triggered much greater federal assistance. The department rejects the report as premature. On September 9, Chertoff removes Brown and puts Vice Admiral Thad W. Allen in charge. Brown resigns on September 12.
Link to the principle
Leadership can fray even within a single level. A secretary who is formally responsible and an agency head who is supposed to act on the ground but lacks the means: that is how responsibility without power and power without responsibility arise. Walker summed it up by saying that there were too many layers and too many players.
Key takeaways
The lessons
- SituationOn February 15, 2006, a select committee of the House of Representatives presents its report. It is titled “A Failure of Initiative” and finds failures at every level. Walker points out that his office had already recommended a single responsible official for major disasters after Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
- Link to the principleThe lesson was known but not put into practice. Unity of command has to be settled before the crisis, in plans, exercises and clear agreements. In an emergency, there is no time left to negotiate it. Where several partners have to work together, there needs to be at least one agreed lead authority that speaks for the whole.
Key takeaways
Key lessons
- Settle before the crisis who leads the whole in an emergency.
- Make sure there is one place where all information comes together.
- Avoid two chains of command for the same objective.
- Give the person responsible the necessary means as well.
- Actually put the lessons of earlier crises into practice.
Summary
During Hurricane Katrina, the city, the state and the federal government were all responsible at once, but no one led the relief effort as a whole. Disputes over authority, delayed requests and the lack of a single person in overall charge cost valuable time. The investigations afterward show: unity of command has to be settled before the crisis, not while it is under way.
Sources
- U.S. House of Representatives, Select Bipartisan Committee: A Failure of Initiative. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office 2006.
