By Amy K. Donahue and Robert V. Tuohy

This paper is based on research sponsored by the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism and the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Portfolio. We are grateful to the incident managers who participated in this project, to Michelle Royal for her extensive research support, and to Tempril Moore for her administrative support.

On February 23, 2006, in a press conference to release the White House report on lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina, assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Frances Townsend said “[The president] demanded that we find out the lessons, that we learn them and that we fix the problems, that we take every action to make sure America is safer, stronger and better prepared.” The lessons Townsend called out in her briefing concerned planning, resource management, evacuation, situational awareness, communications, and coordination. No one in the emergency response community was surprised. We know these are the problem areas. We knew they would be before Katrina ever hit the Gulf coast. Why? Because we identify the same lessons again and again, incident after incident.

In fact, responders can... more