Lessons Learned From Hurricane Katrina
The world we live in is not devoid of problems. Natural disasters are not a new phenomenon. Many are the times they leave devastating effects whose repair consumes a lot of time energy and resources. One of the greatest natural disasters of all times in the United States was the 2005 Hurricane Katrina. It left a trail of extensive damages and loss of lives especially in New Orleans which was the hardest hit city. It also paralyzed all activities and operations in the affected regions. To prevent a future recurrence of such extensive damages, there were a number of lessons to be learnt.
One of the major lessons was emergency preparedness. It seemed to have eluded most organizations’ disaster management policies that damage as extensive as the one caused by hurricane Katrina could occur and that a long recovery period could actually be needed. There was need for institutions to continually assess their preparedness for unforeseen disasters. Although such disasters are not a common occurrence, they should not be ignored as they pose high risks regardless of their frequency of occurrence. Measures should be implemented to alleviate the risks that can occur.
Another important lesson was expecting possible communication interruption in the event of a disaster. People got to learn that the modern communication methods could be out of service for an extensive period of time. They thus needed to learn to use alternative methods to communicate to employers, employees, and workmates. This could be traditional methods for example satellite telephones and text message services. An updated list of important contacts could also come in handy in times of disaster as well as saving copies of information in all sites.
The establishment and location of back up sites also proved to be an important parameter in the event of disasters. Back up sites needed to be created in order to recover data lost in the disaster. Institutions also needed to reassess the location of their backup sites. This was to prevent the back up sites from suffering from the same disaster as the primary location. The capacity of back up sites was important. Several institutions may depend on the same back up site. These institutions needed to verify that the back up site had the capability to serve them if they all suffered the same fate in a disaster. Another important factor was power supply in these back up sits. It is not uncommon for organizations to use the same power supply in their primary outlets and back up sites. Organizations learnt the need to have different power transmission grids supplying their primary locations and their back up sites. His was to ensure that the back up sites would have power in the event of power loss in the primary location.
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