Examples of why Federalism doesn't always work...
Federalism is a great system and the majority of the time it works out. We have to be honest though, during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 federalism didn’t quite work out. The governor assumed the state government was in control while the state government assumed the federal government was working on it. The federal government believed the wrong thing too and it was chaos.
Why federalism didn’t work in Hurricane Katrina...
Why federalism didn’t work in Hurricane Katrina...
- The government believes that someone else will take care of this. Then nobody does.
- Local and state officials failed to plan.
- Us military waited to long.
- FEMA was poorly lead.
- The government was mostly indifferent to poor black victims.
- 300 soldiers were trapped in the headquarters and the communication center was useless.
- The guards spent most of the 24 hours saving themselves.
- Only 3/4 of the force showed up for duty.
- Failure communication system. People couldn’t call anyone because the phones were flooded.
- It was the Mayor's responsibility to mobilize city and school buses and stock food. He did not move buses to high ground.
- Lieutenant governor made vague confusing requests to Washington.
- Brown claimed they didn’t tell FEMA what they wanted. There were 48 pages of request though.
- Lots of scrambling, accusation, etc and nobody was being helped.
- Make sure the public officials understand how the federal system of government works.
- Governments need to be prepared.
- Governments need to have emergency plans.
- Governments need to be able to communicate.
- Governments need to know how to help.
- Governments need to be held accountable.
This video explains some factors in what went wrong in Hurricane Katrina.