Bottom-Up During Hurricane Katrina

According to Schneider (2008), in the early stage of the Hurricane Katrina, it seems that all public officials at all levels of government have a fairly clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities in the process of emergency operations. However, the bottom-up process still collapsed immediately. Public officials at local government (1st responders) were shocked by the magnitude of the hurricanes and were unable to fulfill their obligation. Therefore, it prevents the process and information to flow upward through the intergovernmental framework which caused the state level not to response in a timely manner, in terms of effectively mobilizing additional resources. As a result, “Governor Blanco refused to declare martial law, and declined a proposal from the White House to put National Groups troops under the control of the federal government” (Luo 2005; Shane, Lipton, and Drew 2005). According to Nossiter, 2007, her decision were described by the media as “shell-shocked” and “bewildered”, and federal officials characterized her as “dysfunctional” with local leaders having little confidence in her abilities. Therefore, Schneider summarized it, as just the inability of key state officials to understand their emergency management roles and responsibilities. …show more content…
The federal official were basically awaiting the request from the state before taking any action, even though public officials at local government were already exhausted by the magnitude of the disaster. According to the U.S House of Representative (2006), some “federal public officials on the field realized that the situation was really severe and need a top-down push system as quickly as possible, even if it’s operating outside the normal