Hurricane Katrina's impact on disaster preparedness in New Orleans: Where are we now?

A major practice change can be seen in our attempts to become a more resilient city, which embraces FEMA’s “whole community approach to disasters” as well as PPD 8. In 2008, the entire city evacuated in advance of Hurricane Gustav, marking the single largest pre-storm evacuation in US history. This event, coupled with the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, instilled a preparedness mindset into not only the residents, but also businesses. As preparedness planning continued following the 2008 hurricane season, the re-entry aspect of a mandatory evacuation became critical as businesses began to adopt a powerful stance in their Business Continuity Planning. With NOHSEP providing a city-wide tiered re-entry plan as an accompanying piece of the CAEP, businesses had a voice and credentials to re-enter the city and reestablish operations prior to the residents returning. These partnerships spread into other areas and were no longer isolated to the evacuation strategy. As the critical partner needs became more apparent, which ultimately aligned directly with city economic recovery, broader partnerships were made. The Cities Readiness Initiative became such an avenue for partnership growth, as we leveraged these relationships and offered these types of businesses (among many others) closed Point of Dispensing Memorandums of Understanding in the event of a biological threat to our city. This resulted in one of the most robust CRI/SNS plans across the country, as these partnerships, beginning back in 2007, have now totaled nearly 450,000 individuals being covered within the closed POD system for the city.