Assignment 5: Senior Seminar Project, Emergency Management

Senior Seminar project
Name:
Institution:
Date:
Senior Seminar project: Emergency management in Border Patrol
The USA government mandates the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to manage any form of disaster within its borders successfully. Therefore, the FEMA coordinates with the Border Patrol in a way to ensure that they solve all the disaster challenges that cause frequent immigration of its citizens or foreign nationals that migrate into the USA due to disaster problems. However, there has been poor coordination between the FEMA and the Border Patrol. Thus, the two organizations have immense pressure to ensure that they accomplish their missions and goals which further derail the functionality of the leadership, the overall management, and the employees. Consequently, the challenges regarding effective management in the two organizations during the emergency period was difficult to support the affected citizens, working together to ensure that all the affected residents are not affected. Besides, the challenges of poor management and coordination increase negligence in protection against disasters, delayed response and recovery as well as mitigation of the problems (FEMA.gov, 2017). A recent disaster happened on August 29, 2005, where Hurricane Katrina caused adverse destructions on the Gulf coast from Florida to Texas with much of damages in New Orleans Louisiana as well as the failure of the levee system due to high storm surge. USATODAY.com provided information correctly pointing out the failures of FEMA in its preparation and quick response regarding the Katrina. Therefore, its magnitude was devastating and beyond control (USATODAY, 2005).
History of the Emergency management in the USA
The Hurricane Katrina in 2005 exposed failures to various government branches especially the FEMA in the coordination of the destructions and other impacts of the disaster. In many places, especially the New Orleans, people had nowhere to seek refuge and stayed on rooftops with no water to drink, no food, and no medical supplies among others. According to the USATODAY (2005), the report noted that the FEMA and the Border Patrol had no prior experience about the management of emergency situations. Most of the experts at the FEMA had only expertise in the Arabian horse association which is unrelated to the disaster emergencies in USA (USATODAY, 2005).
The FEMA's history about disaster dates back in 1981 when John Macy was the director. However, the primary activity that the director focused on was the similarities between the preparations for hazards and the civil defense operations. Therefore, the FEMA only organized the Emergency Management System based on the risk technique.
The first director of experience in emergency and disaster management was James L. Witt. During his tenure, Witt spearheaded the disaster relief and recovery operation reforms ensuring adequate preparation and mitigation strategies with a focus on employees on customer service. The tenure was followed by Joe Allbaugh in George W. Bush administration in 2001 until the FEMA was taken to the Department of Homeland Security where Michael Brown immediately became the director in 2003 before the Hurricane Katrina. However, he resigned after the Hurricane Katrina that was an Atlantic Tropical Cyclone in 2005 (Stojkovic, Kalinich & Klofas, 2008).
President Bush later appointed Robert David Paulison on 12 September 2005. Robert mainly helped in the mitigation strategies on the aftermath of the disaster in 2005 and resigned in 2009. He was later replaced by Craig Fugate whose nomination got immense support from the congress under the President Barrack Obama (FEMA.gov, 2017).
One main resolution of the US Senate was a positive approach to the management in the FEMA agency where the officials in the higher administration were required to have adverse experience on emergency management instead of the usual horse association requirement. Therefore, the entire official appointed by the Senate and the President must attain the required qualifications and experience regarding proper management of emergencies. The main reason for such experience was proved during the Hurricane Katrina in the year 2005 where the management team had misguided experience that never adhered to all the necessities required to help people during the emergency situations. Thus, their efforts were not enough to curb or mitigate the Katrina problem. A major challenge that occurred during the rescue process and recovery included miscommunication, provision of wrong information, improper distribution of resources as well as the hiring of people with inadequate information regarding leadership and experience on jobs (FEMA.gov, 2017).
The improper work flow during the emergency crisis was at its peak and directly affected employees. In most cases, the employees realized the problems in leadership, little motivation and mistrust hence they could not work as a team. The employees did not attain any qualification regarding training, especially on emergency management. Regardless of lack of training in emergency management, the management instructed the employees to offer services and guidance to the victims as well as handle different problems related to the Katrina disaster. Consequently, victims bowed the bulk of the Katrina impacts due to improper management of the crisis. The management could not adequately offer resources to the people. Hence they developed mistrust with the full FEMA agency and the Border Patrol in respect to the provision of safety and security among others. The whole FEMA and other related agencies and administrators led by Michael Brown proved that they lack the mission, proper management skills (USATODAY, 2005).
Influence of stakeholders on Emergency Crisis
Stakeholders play an important role in ensuring effective management of emergency crises. Therefore, they contribute a lot to both positive and adverse impact on the overall management system. Regarding FEMA and the management of the crisis during the Hurricane Katrina problem, the stakeholders contribute negatively to the management and hiring practices. The different external stakeholders such as former President Bush led to poor leadership at the onset when he appointed Michael Brown who was one of the members of his campaign team. The situation became worse when the Senate and the residents ignored his qualifications for the job. Mr. Brown never showed adverse experience on a response regarding Hurricane Katrina and never provided affirmative action on preparation, intervention and mitigation processes. Also, he lacked the experience of management. The employees even though responded to the crisis, they never had the skills needed at the time when they acted on the directives from the top management. Therefore, there was a slow response and withdrawn attitude among the employees who had no skills on rescue and emergency management. One of the requisites of the stakeholders is their research background on any administrator who is appointed and whether he or she has the right qualification and skills in emergency challenges coupled with good leadership qualities.
On a separate note, the leaders as part of the stakeholders should be well informed about the community and the necessary programs that exist within the locality in preparation for any emergency that might arise. On the same note, the leaders should initiate if absent any program within the community setup or develop outreach programs that help in response, recovery, and mitigation to solve problems that are related to emergencies and disasters. The Hurricane Katrina was a wakeup call for both the internal and external stakeholders to scrutinize the administration of all the agencies about emergencies and emergency management coupled with the creation of public awareness on the impacts and the best responses that they can adopt in case of future problems. However, the best solution for such poor leadership and management in the management of emergency challenges is fair recruitment and hiring practices in agencies such as FEMA and the Border Patrols. Such ideas would otherwise sound improper to implement by stakeholders who mostly collude in political benefits. Therefore, it is important to motivate everybody to buy in such ideas.
The administrators have the mandate to conduct proper hiring and management practices in all the departments within the organization. Therefore, the need to do a thorough evaluation during recruitment processes to ensure that they have the best-qualified employees that can tackle challenges during emergencies. An examination of the current administration shows some positive impacts concerning FEMA management. Fugate who is the current administrator headed the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) and has served as the Coordinating Officer in Florida State for eleven disasters especially the $ 4.5 billion in disaster assistance from the Federal government. During 2004, Florida State exhibited four hurricanes and efficiently managed all the problems laying down the needed response and recovery as well as mitigation processes for quick succes...