Speaker 1: Kyotra.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 1: Twenty years on and.
Speaker 2: The devastation left behind by Hurricane Katrina is still being felt.
Speaker 2: The Category three hurricane made landfall on August twenty ninth,
Speaker 2: two thousand and five, devastating parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama,
Speaker 2: with New Orleans suffering catastrophic flooding due to levy failures.
Speaker 2: About eighty percent of the city was inundated with water,
Speaker 2: and while a mandatory evacuation order was made just one
Speaker 2: day before landfall, many people up to one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty thousand did not or simply could not leave. The
Speaker 2: official death toll is believed to be nearly fourteen. Later,
Speaker 2: we'll speak to doctor Lauren Vannell Massi, University Senior lecturer
Speaker 2: of Emergency Management, about how New Zealand's systems have evolved
Speaker 2: over the years. But first on the Front Page, University
Speaker 2: of Olbany Professor of political Science, Eric Stern is with
Speaker 2: us to examine some of the painful lessons learned from Katrina.
Speaker 1: So, Eric, you are a.
Speaker 2: Crisis and emergency management specialist, tell me twenty years on,
Speaker 2: what can we learn from what happened with Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 3: So Hurricane Katrina is really a pivotal event in the
Speaker 3: history of emergency management in the United States. I think
Speaker 3: there are lessons for many other countries in what happened
Speaker 3: during Katrina. And actually, right at the outset, let me
Speaker 3: say that while we often focus on what went wrong,
Speaker 3: and most of the media reporting about what happened during
Speaker 3: Hurricane Katrina focused on what went wrong, in fact, there
Speaker 3: were many things that did go right. One of the
Speaker 3: lasting images and probably we'll get back to that later
Speaker 3: in terms of lessons, was the folks who got trapped
Speaker 3: in New Orleans in the Superdome under horrific conditions, with
Speaker 3: poor sanitation, toilets weren't working, issues with food and water,
Speaker 3: issues with security, just horrendous conditions. But what a lot
Speaker 3: of people don't know is that about eighty percent of
Speaker 3: the population of New Orleans was evacuated by car. Before
Speaker 3: that those were folks that had access to their own
Speaker 3: vehicles or vehicles that were provided by friends or family.
Speaker 3: And in fact, it was a textbook operation, very effective
Speaker 3: what's called contra implementation of what's called contraflow, so they
Speaker 3: take both sides of a major highway and have them
Speaker 3: all going in the same direction, so you double the
Speaker 3: bandwidth for exiting folks. As you can imagine, that's a
Speaker 3: kind of tricky operation if people get on the highway
Speaker 3: and the wrong direction. I guess, as tourists in New
Speaker 3: Zealand probably sometimes do, since you guys are a drive
Speaker 3: on the left, we drive on the right. That could
Speaker 3: be very dangerous. And in fact, that was beautifully choreographed
Speaker 3: by state police and others, and probably the most successful
Speaker 3: evacuation Carboorne evacuation of a major city in modern history.
Speaker 3: That being said, the problem was that about twenty percent
Speaker 3: of the population ended up being left behind because the
Speaker 3: decisions were made too late and the vehicles that were
Speaker 3: needed to get people out were not available, And there
Speaker 3: were many, many different reasons for it. But I do
Speaker 3: want to make a general point, which is that even
Speaker 3: in a case which is branded a failure, there are
Speaker 3: likely to be successes, and even in a case where
Speaker 3: it's celebrated as a great success, there are often lessons
Speaker 3: to be learned about things not to do as well.
Speaker 3: And so what people like I do is to try
Speaker 3: to put events like this under a microscope and try
Speaker 3: to pick out the good performances from the less good performances,
Speaker 3: the systemic issues to try to figure out how to
Speaker 3: do better in the future. And I've really dedicated most
Speaker 3: of my career to doing that.
Speaker 2: In terms of Katrina and the events surrounding it, what
Speaker 2: do they reveal about the importance of coordination between central
Speaker 2: and local governments.
Speaker 3: Well, so I just recently wrote an article about this,
Speaker 3: which I think probably was what caught your attention. One
Speaker 3: of the arguments that I make is that when it
Speaker 3: comes to emergency response in these very large and complex disasters,
Speaker 3: the chain of emergency response is only as strong as
Speaker 3: the weakest link, and in fact, by definition, you're you're
Speaker 3: going to have to work together across across these levels
Speaker 3: of government, also across the public, private and nonprofit sectors,
Speaker 3: and increasingly bringing in volunteers as well. One of the
Speaker 3: problems during Hurricane Katrina was that local government was overwhelmed
Speaker 3: by what was happening. The police force the fire, their
Speaker 3: command and control was disrupted, a very human thing to do,
Speaker 3: but a lot of people ended up trying to rescue
Speaker 3: their their own loved ones. Number of studies have suggested
Speaker 3: that an unusually high percentage of folks left their posts,
Speaker 3: and that's something that you have to think about. One
Speaker 3: of the world formal definitions social science definitions of disaster
Speaker 3: is that and legal as well in the United States,
Speaker 3: is that it's a situation that overwhelms the resources the
Speaker 3: coping capacity of a jurisdiction. And so if the local
Speaker 3: resources are not enough, you're going to need provincial or
Speaker 3: central government, depending on how your system is organized. And
Speaker 3: if the provincial is not enough, you need national Sometimes
Speaker 3: you need international assistance as well.
Speaker 1: In terms of the miss and disinformation.
Speaker 2: Of course, Katrina was twenty years ago, but do you
Speaker 2: think it's gotten just so much worse with the invention
Speaker 2: of social media? I mean, how do emergency management, management
Speaker 2: and managers get around that.
Speaker 3: That's one of the biggest challenges that we face today
Speaker 3: and there are a number of reasons for it. So,
Speaker 3: first of all, as you said, the socio technical context,
Speaker 3: the way we get our information today, the smart device
Speaker 3: is social media means that information just flows much much faster.
Speaker 3: We now have artificial intelligence as well, which means that
Speaker 3: people can can fake images during the which Hurricane Helene
Speaker 3: in North Carolina. Recently, there was an image of a
Speaker 3: crying child that became the iconic image of the event,
Speaker 3: but it turned out to be a manufactured image and
Speaker 3: if you if you look very closely at it, you
Speaker 3: could see tells that had to do with the shadows
Speaker 3: on the boat that she was in. So the problem
Speaker 3: is that there there are various bad actors or sometimes
Speaker 3: people who are playing dirty political tricks, that have an
Speaker 3: interest in spreading bad information. Sometimes it's for financial reasons.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of scams that try to separate
Speaker 3: disaster survivors from their their property or their or their money,
Speaker 3: and these are people that are at their most vulnerable,
Speaker 3: really terrible thing to do. Other times it's political motives,
Speaker 3: you know, to to discredit the government's response to something.
Speaker 3: We have in the United States a very polarized media
Speaker 3: environment at the moment, and we've seen in a number
Speaker 3: of events. Also during Hurricane Alina, North Carolina, there were
Speaker 3: rumors spread that if you applied for aid from FEMA,
Speaker 3: the Federal Emergency Management Agency, that they could confiscate your property.
Speaker 3: People didn't dare to ask for help that was available
Speaker 3: and was badly needed because they because of these rumors
Speaker 3: and myths. So emergency managers have to try very hard
Speaker 3: to get their message out in this very competitive, sometimes
Speaker 3: toxic information environment.
Speaker 4: I know that when you sit on the steps of
Speaker 4: a ports where home was to, or sleep on a
Speaker 4: cod in a crowded shelter, it is hard to imagine
Speaker 4: a bright path. But that future will come. The streets
Speaker 4: of Biloxi and Gulf Court will again be filled with
Speaker 4: lovely homes and the sound of children playing. The churches
Speaker 4: of Alabama will have their broken steeples minted in their
Speaker 4: congregation's hall. And here in New Orleans, the street cars
Speaker 4: will once again rumble down Saint Charles, and the passionate
Speaker 4: soul of a great city will return.
Speaker 2: In terms of Katrina, I know that leave no one
Speaker 2: behind became a bit of a mantra there. How should
Speaker 2: emergency managers make sure that the most vulnerable, like the elderly, disabled,
Speaker 2: or people without a car, are included in all of
Speaker 2: the plans well.
Speaker 3: So, one of the important innovations in American emergency management
Speaker 3: after Katrina is something called the whole community emergency management concepts.
Speaker 3: And actually this is something that has national counterparts. The
Speaker 3: United Nations has promulgated a whole society approach to disaster resilience,
Speaker 3: which is actually quite similar and the whole I should
Speaker 3: say the whole community strategy was developed in part in
Speaker 3: dialogue with pure countries including New Zealand, that was doing
Speaker 3: some similar things. UK resilience had some of the same elements,
Speaker 3: but basically the idea was that in the past, the
Speaker 3: people who made the emergency management plans often were elites
Speaker 3: that were not always making an effort to capture the
Speaker 3: needs of the whole community, and the community was often
Speaker 3: not included. It was a very top down process and
Speaker 3: often the most vulnerable socioeconomic groups, ethnic minorities, disabled folks,
Speaker 3: their needs were not reports entered at the table when
Speaker 3: the emergency plans were made. They might not have been
Speaker 3: included in emergency management exercises. The facilities that are used
Speaker 3: to shelter people may not have been adapted to their needs,
Speaker 3: and often we're not. In fact, post Katrina, the whole
Speaker 3: community doctrine says, no, you can't make those plans, you know,
Speaker 3: just having the officials and the professionals. You have to
Speaker 3: invite the community in, you have to bring in the stakeholders,
Speaker 3: you have to have conversations. You have to plan and
Speaker 3: prepare and develop capabilities such that the most vulnerable are
Speaker 3: not left behind. In fact, they need special attention. And
Speaker 3: we know that the most vulnerable are often the ones
Speaker 3: that are hit hardest in disasters, both both in terms
Speaker 3: of the health consequences and in terms of the financial impact.
Speaker 2: What do you say is the most enduring image or
Speaker 2: legacy of our haying Katrina four emergency managers?
Speaker 1: Well, I guess anyone today.
Speaker 3: So in terms of the images, again, I think it
Speaker 3: was the folks who were left behind at the at
Speaker 3: the Superdome. Or it was the contrast of President George W.
Speaker 3: Bush congratulating his emergency manager on the great job that
Speaker 3: he was doing, a guy named Michael Brown, so he said,
Speaker 3: heck of a job, Brownie. And then two weeks later, Brown,
Speaker 3: who was not a professional emergency manager, was fired. And
Speaker 3: there are a bunch of reasons for that, and it
Speaker 3: wasn't only his fault. Was a highly complex political environment,
Speaker 3: and at that time FEMA was under the control of
Speaker 3: the Department of Homeland Security, which it is now as well,
Speaker 3: and there was there were complexities about or uncertainties about
Speaker 3: who who was actually in charge what the the authority
Speaker 3: of the FEMA administrator, who is the boss at FEMA,
Speaker 3: what what authority that person would have there? There are many,
Speaker 3: many aspects of the case that that are really memorable.
Speaker 3: We learned some things about the power of the private sector.
Speaker 3: Uh turned out that the the way that the private
Speaker 3: sector uh big box stores and uh soorts like Walmart,
Speaker 3: they were more effective at moving vital supplies quickly sometimes
Speaker 3: than the public sector. UH and and and some of
Speaker 3: the things that they did we were in an improvised
Speaker 3: way turned out to be very important. That was built
Speaker 3: into that whole community idea that we we we need
Speaker 3: to also draw so not only take care of everybody,
Speaker 3: leave no one behind, but also draw on the resources
Speaker 3: of the whole society, including volunteers. Another legacy of Katrina
Speaker 3: is a volunteer groups like the so called Cajun Navy.
Speaker 3: These are folks with boats that go to two major disasters,
Speaker 3: not just in Louisiana, but other parts of the country
Speaker 3: too and help to rescue people when the public sector
Speaker 3: official rescue services are completely overwhelmed. And actually that was
Speaker 3: the case during the christ Church earthquakes as well. I'm
Speaker 3: not as up to date on how things are in
Speaker 3: New Zealand at the moment. But at that time, the
Speaker 3: dominant mindset was if you have a big disaster, put
Speaker 3: yellow tape around it and let the professionals do their job.
Speaker 3: But if you have a disaster on the scale of
Speaker 3: what happened in christ Church, there's just not enough official
Speaker 3: responders to meet the needs. And so they had to
Speaker 3: on the fly find ways of integrating community volunteers. And
Speaker 3: here's the upside of the of the information technology that
Speaker 3: we have. They use social media. To let me think,
Speaker 3: it was the student volunteer Army and the Farming Army
Speaker 3: UH which was spontaneously brought volunteers and the farmers had
Speaker 3: heavy equipment you know that could be used for debris
Speaker 3: removal and other tasks to help get christ Church on
Speaker 3: its feet again. Actually, the New Zealand story there is
Speaker 3: has been well documented and it's something that that other
Speaker 3: parts of the world have learned from.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Eric, that's a pleasure.
Speaker 2: From earthquakes and eruptions to flooding and cyclons, New Zealand
Speaker 2: has dealt with its fair share of natural disasters. Senior
Speaker 2: Lecturer of Emergency Management at Massi University, Doctor Lauren Vannell
Speaker 2: joins us to discuss what we could learn from the
Speaker 2: failings of Katrina twenty years on. Lauren, we've just been
Speaker 2: speaking about how the US emergency management works between federal,
Speaker 2: state and local agencies.
Speaker 1: How does New Zealand's work and is there good communication there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so we're a little bit lucky in some regards
Speaker 5: being a bit smaller in New Zealand. Obviously we don't
Speaker 5: have the federal system to worry about. That chain of
Speaker 5: communication between you know, local people on the ground and
Speaker 5: our national central government. It's a bit it's stronger, it's
Speaker 5: more direct because there are fewer links in that chain.
Speaker 5: So you know, it tends to work quite well. Obviously.
Speaker 5: You know a few years ago we shifted from having
Speaker 5: a Ministry of Civil Defense Emergency Management to having the
Speaker 5: National Emergency Management Agency, which was a bit of a
Speaker 5: bit of a shakeup. I think, you know, generally that's
Speaker 5: been there's been a good change. I think it's helping
Speaker 5: things work better. But you know, that's not to say
Speaker 5: that we still can't improve these things. So where eagerly
Speaker 5: anticipating more details of the Emergency Management Bill, which one
Speaker 5: of the main points there is to help clarify some
Speaker 5: of the roles and responsibilities at different levels, to help
Speaker 5: sort of streamline some of that communication.
Speaker 2: Is the communication something that we have gotten better at
Speaker 2: over time here in New Zealand.
Speaker 5: I think definitely communication during crisis or emergencies in New
Speaker 5: Zealand has improved over time. It varies a little bit
Speaker 5: depending on the nature of the natural hazard event. So
Speaker 5: you know, for example, as we saw during Cyclone Gabriel,
Speaker 5: a lot of damage to the communication infrastructure made that
Speaker 5: a challenge. It wasn't necessarily, you know, issues with the system,
Speaker 5: but it's really hard to communicate when you don't have
Speaker 5: self and coverage or internet connection. So definitely we're wanting
Speaker 5: to try to find ways that we can allow communication
Speaker 5: to occur between people on the ground to know what's
Speaker 5: happening people outside the region, providing support in instances where
Speaker 5: we may not have the full range of technological options
Speaker 5: available for communication.
Speaker 2: When looking at Katrina, it's hard not to think about
Speaker 2: what happened at the Superdome, right, so sixteen thousand evacuees
Speaker 2: ended up there. They faced failed generators, poor security, dwindling supplies,
Speaker 2: overflowing toilets. I mean, how important is it in an
Speaker 2: emergency management crisis planning, so pre planning for these kind
Speaker 2: of events just to make sure that you have the
Speaker 2: places and supplies ready to go.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's absolutely vital for a couple of reasons. So obviously,
Speaker 5: once people are there, we want them to be safe.
Speaker 5: We don't want to have hygiene issues leading to people
Speaker 5: getting sick. You know, we need to make sure people
Speaker 5: are comfortable and being looked after. But we also know
Speaker 5: that if people don't have a if they don't know
Speaker 5: where those shelters are, or if they don't think it's
Speaker 5: going to be a good environment, they're less likely to evacuate.
Speaker 5: So actually, one additional benefit of you know, communitating to
Speaker 5: people where the shelters are, what they can expect that
Speaker 5: we're ready to look after them, is that those people
Speaker 5: are going to be more likely to evacuate and take
Speaker 5: themselves out of danger with something like a storm or
Speaker 5: a flood event if we're able to get more warning.
Speaker 5: What what we'd like to see is also people considering
Speaker 5: maybe whether they can go and stay with friends or relatives.
Speaker 5: Any pressure we can take off those temporary evacuation shelters.
Speaker 5: We obviously don't want, you know, sixteen thousand people descending
Speaker 5: on a single place. Even if it's well prepared dealing
Speaker 5: with that larger group, it's always going to be a challenge.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One thing Eric said to me that was quite
Speaker 2: interesting and something that they learned from Katrina, is that
Speaker 2: the impact of private companies and private businesses.
Speaker 1: He mentioned Walmart being really good at.
Speaker 2: Not surprisingly, getting produced across large from parts.
Speaker 1: Of the country.
Speaker 2: Do you reckon that's something that New Zealanders do well,
Speaker 2: because I know that looking back at some of there
Speaker 2: are natural disasters, there is that community spirit really in
Speaker 2: New Zealand already, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, And I mean it's easy to look at
Speaker 5: Katrina and focus on all the bad that happened, but
Speaker 5: there were some really good things that were seen during
Speaker 5: that event. You know, corporations, businesses standing up to help people.
Speaker 5: You know, people helping their neighbors, helping their friends, helping strangers.
Speaker 5: Contrary to popular belief, disaster zones they're not usually full
Speaker 5: of you know, crime and looting. It is usually people
Speaker 5: helping each other. The private company is an interesting one.
Speaker 5: I'm not entirely sure how much of that plays into
Speaker 5: consideration around planning, but I know, for example, with the
Speaker 5: new Emergency Management bill that's being worked on, there's going
Speaker 5: to be consideration around roles and responsibilities for groups that
Speaker 5: maybe haven't so much been officially included in the past.
Speaker 5: I'm thinking particularly Ewe and Harper. We know in New
Speaker 5: Zealand our Mardi community is really really good at standing
Speaker 5: up and looking after you know, themselves, but also other
Speaker 5: members of the community. The private company one is an
Speaker 5: interesting question though. Definitely. You know, if we can find
Speaker 5: anyone who's able to help take some of that burden
Speaker 5: off of a disaster response is going to be helpful.
Speaker 2: How has New Zealand's emergency management framework changed over the years,
Speaker 2: do you think well? Or are we really waiting to
Speaker 2: see what ends up happening with this bill?
Speaker 5: So, I mean, I definitely I think the bill is
Speaker 5: going to be a good step forward. So that the
Speaker 5: Civil Defense Emergency Management Act that we've got at the moment,
Speaker 5: it is from two thousand and two, so it's quite old,
Speaker 5: but I mean there obviously has been amendments to that
Speaker 5: to update it. A lot of you know, the work
Speaker 5: that's done is based on the National Plan, which I
Speaker 5: think our current one is from twenty fifteen. How local
Speaker 5: seed and groups update their group plans regularly, so it's
Speaker 5: not like we're still working to what we knew in
Speaker 5: two thousand and two. But the update to some of
Speaker 5: that underpinning legislation, I think is going to help move
Speaker 5: forward towards more where we would want our emergency management
Speaker 5: system to be.
Speaker 2: And lastly, how do you think New Zealand's emergency management
Speaker 2: response differs to that of the rest of the world. Say,
Speaker 2: what do we do better and what are some things
Speaker 2: that we can perhaps do better?
Speaker 5: In yep, that's a great question, I think definitely, As
Speaker 5: sort of I was saying, because we are a little
Speaker 5: bit smaller, we have, you know, fewer levels of bureaucracy
Speaker 5: than places like the US or Australia, which also has
Speaker 5: a federal system, we can be a bit more agile.
Speaker 5: It can be easier to get resources around where they
Speaker 5: need to be, you know, including people in personnel. I
Speaker 5: think one issue is that we have so many events
Speaker 5: because we are prone to a lot of different nets
Speaker 5: hazards that we see quite a lot of turnover and
Speaker 5: quite a lot of burnout amongst our emergency management personnel.
Speaker 5: All great people, really really passionate, but it is really
Speaker 5: hard work. So I think more support for the people
Speaker 5: doing this work, you know, including professionalization, so training, but
Speaker 5: also in a psychological support helping them cope with the
Speaker 5: you know, the challenges and difficulties of responding to these events,
Speaker 5: so that you know, after one major event, we don't
Speaker 5: then lose everyone because they're too tired and burnt out,
Speaker 5: and then next time it's people going through it again.
Speaker 5: It'll be great to see more of that experience retained
Speaker 5: within the system.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Lauren al.
Speaker 5: Race, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at NSID Herald dot co dot nz. The Front Page
Speaker 2: is produced by Janey and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 2: our editor.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
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