Hurricane: Necessary Government Response

It is absolutely necessary for governments to prepare for potentially destructive hurricanes. The United States in the past has tried several innovative methods of mitigating hurricanes. Recently, however, the United States government was criticized strongly for its mismanagement and lack of leadership in its relief response to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina.

In the 1960s, the United States’ Project Stormfury attempted a technique to impact the condensation process through seeding the clouds near the hurricane with silver iodide particles. The hope was to allow cool clouds to grow quickly and consume the warm moist air near the ocean’s surface which would enlarge the eye and lessen the hurricane’s strength. However, the results of this experiment were "ambiguous at best." Today, we know that silver iodide seeding does not work because there are not enough cool particles of water in the hurricane to expand upon. Recently, some experts have suggested that hurricanes manipulated by satellite or spreading a film of oil over the oceans to block out water vapors from contributing to the storm.

More realistically, governments need to reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies when responding to hurricanes. Right before Hurricane Katrina, a letter asking for federal assistance from the Louisiana governor had to travel through multiple points within FEMA, the emergency management agency of the United States, and a major federal response was not evident until days later. Relief effort should be integrated on the local and national levels to ensure rapid response as well as adequate resources. Coordination and leadership are critical to acquiring emergency food, water, medical supplies and services, search and rescue operations and transportation assistance. Partners such as the Red Cross and local emergency management crews often lend a helping hand in such disasters.

Hopefully, governments at multiple levels globally learn from devastating consequences of past hurricanes. Hurricane Katrina raised the issues about emergency management, bureaucratic red tape, environmental policy and socioeconomic disparities that should concern not just the United States, but governments all around the world.

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