Question

For the purposes of this discussion, assume that you are a consultant who has been hired by a southeastern community of 500,000 residents on the coast of North Carolina. You were retained because you were part of the team that examined the devastation following Hurricane Katrina. You are believed to have the benefit of collective hindsight from comprehensively examining the Hurricane Katrina disaster, but this community is seeking to prevent a similar disaster from hurricane threats because of their proximity to the Atlantic Ocean.

Question:

For this discussion and in the context of the following levels, identify and explain threats to this coastal community and your recommendations for action. Justify your recommendations based upon lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina. The levels to consider are:

The strategic level: affecting the ability of the city to properly provide an adequate quality of life for its citizens through essential improvements to social and commercial infrastructures (safe streets, schools, and playgrounds; revival of business activity, both service and industrial).

The operational level: involving law enforcement’s ability to ensure a level of security to the community’s residents that are sufficient to deter and suppress violent and other types of criminal activities on a widespread scale.

The tactical level: includes the more “immediate” problem of detecting, apprehending, and removing criminals of all stripes, but especially violent organized crime elements.

Use this systems-model in your threat identification and description, to include both internal and external variables. Establish and justify hazard priorities.

1

Answer 1

Considering the area is very much nearer to sea, predominantly a coastal area, the threat of Hurricane would always loom large in near future as well. Some of the precautions and protocols, which could be followed at various level to ensure the security of the residents, living in that area are-

The strategic level: The socio-economic factors needs to be strengthened further. All the general commodities and social needs such as streets and schools should be built in a more robust manner while adopting the new civil technologies. This will ensure that social life would be least affected in the future and in the advent of any catastrophic hurricane in future.

Operational level- Certainly an advanced level of awareness should be there in place, right from the prior alarms to the rehabilitation of the people after the storm. It would certainly involve people and experts from different streams to come together and provide the best possible support to needy.

Tactical level- As stated earlier advanced warning systems and reducing the damage would be the approach for any future incidences.