Just weeks after Hurricane Katrina tore through cities and towns in southern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, some of the out-of-state responders are beginning to return home and are providing valuable observations about experiences during the immediate aftermath of the devastating storm.

On September 27, before a standing-room-only crowd assembled at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Dr. Joseph Barbera and Dr. Marvine Hamner shared insights and “lessons learned” from the disaster sites of southern Mississippi. The forum was the first in the '05 –'06 academic year series of GWU forums on Homeland Security, Emergency and Risk Management.

Dr. Barbera, deployed as the Medical Team Manager for Fairfax, Virginia's Urban Search and Rescue Task Force, observed that the bays surrounding several of the most ravaged areas of Mississippi exacerbated disaster conditions. Waveland, Pass Christian, Biloxi and Ocean Springs are Mississippi communities surrounded on all sides by water that inundated the towns as a consequence of Hurricane Katrina. The thirty-four member team from Fairfax, which included Barbera, was deployed on August 31.

From Barbera's perspective, “emergency management comes down to basic decency.” The nature of U.S. emergency management dictates that local officials be “in charge” of a federally-declared disaster –– with assistance from federal and state responders. Establishing this chain of command, “even if the locals are decimated,” according to Dr. Barbera, is a critical aspect of getting local emergency responders “back on their feet” and operating effectively. He added that as response and recovery progresses, federal and state personnel levels decrease but the need for local level command continues.

While marking homes with an internationally-known USAR sign “X” that includes critical information such as the date, location and number of living or dead found, Barbera observed that the USAR teams faced serious challenges, including insufficient numbers of dogs trained to locate cadavers. While conducting operations in search of bodies, the team had only one cadaver dog. Other search and rescue dogs that were trained to find the living had little work to do. By the fourth day of operations, decomposing food and sewage challenged olfactory capabilities of the trained dogs, as well as the humans involved; thus, search and rescue efforts were complicated further.

The media focused on looting in New Orleans as though this was a unique circumstance; however, looting (in the aftermath of a major catastrophe) is nothing new in disaster areas. Dr. Barbera observed that gasoline was siphoned from some of their vehicles and displayed a photo of an improvised sign made by a Mississippi resident scrawled with the words “Looters Will Be Shot!” He emphasized the need for officials to incorporate plans to control looting as an element of emergency management procedures.

Dr. Marvine Hamner, Assistant Professor of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering, who was deployed to Pascagoula, Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina, highlighted her initial remarks with a color-coded FEMA map of the affected areas. According to Hamner, Pascagoula was not “red-coded” on the map (indicating catastrophic damage) due to a lack of information and communications problems –– even though the damage experienced in Pascagoula was indeed catastrophic .

Dr. Hamner lamented that the media focus on New Orleans contributed to the belief that major destruction was isolated to the “Big Easy.” Because normal lines of communication were down, Red Cross workers in Pascagoula decided to create information flyers and deliver the latest news about shelters and food from door-to-door. She observed, however, that by the time someone drove nearly an hour away to Mobile, Alabama to print flyers and back that information might have changed.

Rumors compounded communication problems. Hamner observed that a rumor had developed that individuals who sought shelter in public facilities would be denied FEMA assistance. Combating rumors in the aftermath of disaster can be critical.

The lack of necessary medicine for a variety of health conditions, ranging from mental disabilities to heart conditions and diabetes, was among the complications faced by disaster survivors in and out of shelters. Dr. Hamner observed that many people rely on the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to deliver medications that would not be available until USPS resumed operations.

Hamner attributed the reluctance to evacuate by many residents as a common problem in disasters –– a “cry wolf syndrome.” Many residents may have evacuated in the past only to find that, after hours in traffic and the hassle of packing up important belongings, their towns had been spared major damage. This type of public sentiment is a serious concern for public officials and emergency responders. An evacuee attending the forum observed that she had evacuated five times from southern Mississippi since 1998 and, despite knowledge of the power of a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, could not believe the storm actually would cause so much damage based on her experience in several previous close calls.

Hamner concluded her remarks by emphasizing the need to stay focused on essentials for disaster survivors –– water, food, shelter and funding. She added that people “do not need to be in shelters for weeks and weeks.” However, the problem remains that with tens of thousands of dwellings and facilities condemned in Mississippi alone and a limited capacity to set up temporary housing (prefabricated shelters) for individual families, many people do not have adequate housing.

The George Washington University Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management (ICDRM) administers forums, such as this post-Katrina discussion, with the financial support and cooperation of SAIC. A third speaker, Dr. Anthony Macintyre was deployed to Texas as a medical officer for the FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Incident Support Team in response to Hurricane Rita and, thus, could not participate in the September 27 forum.