Lessons from the US Army Response to Hurricane Katrina
The Rand Corporation's Agnes Gereben Schaefer believes the US military response to Hurricane Katrina offers important lessons to countries like the United Kingdom in which the military may be called upon to play a larger role in domestic emergencies
Hurricane Katrina tested many of the homeland security structures and policies put into place in the United States after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The hurricane was a particularly potent test because the scale of devastation and unexpected flooding in New Orleans mirrors potential characteristics of an unexpected terrorist attack, especially one involving weapons of mass destruction.
Thus the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina are vital to improving the response to future catastrophic domestic emergencies caused by natural and man-made events. The U.S. military's response to Hurricane Katrina also offers important lessons to countries like the United Kingdom in which the military may be called upon to play a larger role in domestic emergencies.
Military forces are often called to respond to disasters and emergency situations because they have a large number of personnel and equipment, existing control structures, as well as communications and transportation assets. In the United States, active-duty military forces fall under the command of the President of the United States, who can direct them to support state and local authorities. However, the federal Posse Comitatus Act restricts their involvement in law-enforcement activities.
National Guard troops traditionally have been the primary military forces that respond to domestic emergencies in the United States. National Guard troops fall under the command of the governor of the state or territory in which they are based and can participate in law-enforcement activities. They remain under the control of the governor unless they are federalized, in which case the President of the United States controls the forces and they are then subject to the Posse Comitatus Act.
Our analysis of the Army's response to Hurricane Katrina revealed that the National Guard's ability to respond quickly with the necessary types of units was affected by a number of factors:
· the percentage of available National Guard units varied by state, but the average was about 75 percent;
· the National Guard response from states that were not impacted by Hurricane Katrina consisted mostly of guardsmen who volunteered to assist rather than guardsmen who were called up to assist involuntarily;
· the speed with which National Guard units arrived in the hurricane-damaged region was a function of the time required for guardsmen to gather into units and deploy.
The National Guard response might have been more effective if unit types were matched to specific missions and needs; however, the units could have been delayed pending an assessment of those needs. The response also might have been more robust if more governors had called up more guardsmen on an involuntary basis. However, doing so would have reduced the number of units available in their own states if another disaster were to strike. If the emergency had been a terrorist attack, it is possible that governors from other states would have been unwilling to offer as many of their National Guard units out of concern that they may be needed to respond to follow-on attacks in their own states.
The timing and size of the active-duty response was also influenced by a number of factors:
· the decision to deploy active-duty Army and Marine land forces was not made until five days after the hurricane made landfall;
· the Department of Defense's initial response did not include active-duty Army and Marine land forces because civilian and military decision makers apparently judged that the projected flow of National Guard units would be sufficient;
· there were only a few Army brigades that were not just back from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan or about to deploy;
· civilian and military officials were hesitant to deploy federal land forces in the deteriorating law-enforcement environment in New Orleans.
Even if decisions had been made earlier to alert and deploy active-duty forces, most of the Army and Marine forces could not have been readied and transported into the region until after most of the evacuations were completed.
Many problems that arose in the military response were likely due to deficiencies in the command-and-control structure. For instance, there were coordination issues between the various state and federal chains of command that were exacerbated by poor communications. However, it is hard to find a direct link between the speed and effectiveness of the response and the multiple and complex command and control structures. The response was primarily delayed by a lack of civilian and military responders, transportation assets and relief supplies.
Given these findings, we offer the following recommendations:
1) Give the National Guard the federal mission to conduct homeland security activities, as is the case today in counterdrug operations.
2) Prepare National Guard units for rapid response not only within their states, but also for emergencies in other states.
3) Designate units to fill in during disaster response operations for National Guard units deployed overseas.
4) Prepare governors to call up units involuntarily.
5) Plan on using the Air National Guard or commercial airlines to fly designated units to out-of-state emergencies.
6) Create a regional focus in the National Guard's preparations for catastrophic emergencies by creating ten standing homeland security task forces and have them work closely with other National Guard units in a region, as well as with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
7) Predefine a set of command-and-control alternatives that would enable decision makers to select one alternative quickly based on the circumstances of the emergency.
While these recommendations are specific to the structures in place in the United States, the general lessons learned from the military response to Hurricane Katrina are relevant to all democracies that rely on their militaries to support civilian resources in domestic emergencies. Our recommendations call for better planning, but most importantly they call for changes in the perceived role of the military in domestic emergencies. The military's role in catastrophic domestic emergencies is equally important as its role in overseas contingencies.
Agnes Gereben Schaefer is an associate political scientist at the RAND Corporation. This article summarizes a report titled "Hurricane Katrina Lessons for Army Planning and Operations" written by Lynn E. Davis, Jill Rough, Gary Cecchine, Agnes Gereben Schaefer and Laurinda L. Zeman. The full report can be found at:www.rand.org
