Hurricane Katrina: The Public Health and Medical Response

Publication Date: September 2005

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Health

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Abstract:

Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in late August 2005, causing catastrophic wind damage and flooding in several states, and a massive dislocation of victims across the country. The storm is one of the worst natural disasters in the nation's history. Early estimates are that hundreds of people were killed and about one million displaced.

In response to a series of disasters and terrorist attacks over the past decade, and especially since the terror attacks of 2001, Congress, the Administration, state and local governments and the private sector have made investments to improve disaster preparedness and response. New federal authorities and programs to strengthen the nation's public health system were introduced in comprehensive bioterrorism preparedness legislation in 2002. Congress also created a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2002 to provide national leadership for coordinated preparedness and response planning. A new National Response Plan (NRP), launched by DHS in December 2004, has met its first major test in the response to Hurricane Katrina.

According to the NRP, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is tasked with coordinating the response of the public health and medical sectors following a disaster. HHS works with several other agencies to accomplish this mission, which includes assuring the safety of food, water and environments, treating the ranks of the ill and injured, and identifying the dead. HHS activities are coordinated with those of other lead agencies under the overall leadership of DHS.

Congress and others will review the response to Hurricane Katrina with an eye toward assessing how well the NRP worked as an instrument for coordinated national response, and how well various agencies at the federal, state and local levels carried out their missions under the plan. Hurricane Katrina dealt some familiar blows in emergency response: the failure of communication systems and resultant difficulties in coordination challenged response efforts in this disaster as with others before it. Hurricane Katrina also pushed some response elements, such as plans for surge capacity in the healthcare workforce, to their limits for the first time in recent memory. The public health and medical response to Hurricane Katrina has also called attention to the matter of disaster planning in healthcare facilities, and the potential role of health information technology in expediting the care of displaced persons. Policymakers will no doubt study these elements of the Katrina response and seek options for continued improvement in national disaster preparedness and response.

This report discusses the National Response Plan and its components for public health and medical response, provides information on key response activities carried out by agencies in HHS and DHS, and discusses certain issues in public health and medical preparedness that have been raised by the response to Hurricane Katrina. This report will be updated as circumstances warrant.