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Article Excerpt
In ideal circumstances, organizations learn to become more effective over time. A primary mechanism by which such learning occurs is through direct experience, whereby knowledge is gained through a trial and error process (Levitt & March, 1988). This knowledge from a given experience subsequently becomes a part of an organization's memory and can result in the alternation of routines, procedures, and culture. In the context of disaster response organizations, however, learning through direct experience is problematic. Disasters, particularly extreme disasters, are infrequent events. Most disaster response organizations across the United States, and even worldwide, do not manage earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorist incidents, or other- disasters on a regular basis. Thus, thousands of these organizations have little or no opportunity to learn from direct experience.
As a result, disaster response organizations predominantly rely on vicariously learning from the limited experiences of other organizations (Levitt & March, 1988). In order for this alternative form of learning to occur, it becomes imperative that the lessons learned from organizations with first-hand experience are diffused through various communication mediums to other organizations that may face similar events in the future. One important networking conduit that has aided the diffusion of knowledge in the disaster response field has been the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides a variety of training venues and materials on disaster response topics. Another outlet for knowledge diffusion and organizational learning is the growing body of empirical literature on disaster response (see Quarantelli, 2003).
While both the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the disaster response literature are valuable mechanisms for fostering organizational learning, it is important to recognize that their capacity to diffuse knowledge is complicated by the diversity of organizational fields that comprise disaster response efforts. Each of these disaster response disciplines (e.g. emergency medicine, public health, law enforcement, emergency management) has its own body of literature and other communication mediums for sharing lessons learned from the experiences of its members. A review of the literature from different organizational fields that compose disaster response, however, reveals that such communication does not occur in all cases. In particular, the law enforcement literature, whether empirical or practitioner, gives little coverage to the disaster response efforts of police organizations in general, let alone the actual experiences of particular agencies.
The present study addresses this gap by examining the experiences of law enforcement agencies that responded to Hurricane Katrina. Data for this study were gathered by traveling to the gulf region in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina made landfall and six months later in order to capture the law enforcement disaster response efforts to the storm. The data were captured through a case study methodology that utilized interviews, observations, and reviews of documents, which are analyzed in the present study to provide lessons learned. Although these lessons learned focus on law enforcement organizations, they have implications for the broader multiorganizational response apparatus of disaster management.
Law Enforcement Disaster Response
A core interest within the disaster response literature is the importance of multiple organizations having the capacity to coordinate their efforts in the management of disaster events (Drabek, 1985; Drabek & McEntire, 2002; Quarantelli, 2000; Tierney, 1985). This includes consideration of various types of organizations within this mix, including firefighting, law enforcement, public health, emergency management, and others. While it is important to examine the multiagency coordination of this diversity of disciplines, the present study narrows the focus to the disaster response efforts of law enforcement agencies. Large-scale disasters require the response of law enforcement agencies from various jurisdictions, which creates a number of demands, coordination problems, and organizational management issues within this field alone. Moreover, as Hurricane Katrina and the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 make clear, state and local law enforcement agencies play critical roles in early disaster response. Thus, it is important to independently consider the disaster response efforts of law enforcement agencies in order to understand how their efforts may be improved as part of a broader, multidiscipline apparatus that manages a disaster.
Similar to fire departments, law enforcement agencies have unique organizational roles and characteristics that make them a primary entity in disaster response efforts. Both organization fields provide the only domestic governmental entities that permanently deploy resources in communities around the clock for the purpose of responding to emergencies. As a result, these organizations are generally to first arrive at the scene of unexpected disaster events. In addition, they have the ability to quickly redeploy personnel and equipment in the field in anticipation of impending disasters, such as hurricanes. These roles and characteristics result in law enforcement agencies often having the largest presence in initial disaster response efforts relative to other types of response organizations (Drabek, 1985).
Despite this relevance of law enforcement agencies in disaster response, the academic literature on this activity is limited. Kennedy (1970) provides a review of police organization and tasks during disasters, and their relation to normal police operations. He asserts that these tasks include traffic and crowd control, protection of life and property, search and rescue, and warning and evacuation. The review of these points, however, is a general discussion and is not based on any empirical study. Other disaster researchers have mentioned some tasks of law enforcement in disaster response, but these are side points in a larger discussion piece rather than a focus on law enforcement efforts (Quarantelli, 1997; Tierney, 1985).
Additional discussion of law enforcement disaster response efforts are found in the field's practitioner magazines, such as Police Chief and Law and Order. While these articles do not reach the level of empirical rigor found in academic journals, they do provide insight into practitioner knowledge on such topics as mutual aid or interoperable communication systems (Weiss & Davis, 2005; Whitehead, 2005). The disaster response topic that has gained the most attention recently within these periodicals has been the National Incident Management System (NIMS) (Herron, 2004; Jamieson, 2005). This attention to NIMS is attributable to the Department of Homeland Security's mandate to create a common nationwide incident response framework to natural and manmade disasters for first responder agencies, along with the requirement that state and local agencies must be compliant with this model in order to participate in future grant funding opportunities under homeland security preparedness efforts (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2007).
While this practitioner literature provides greater focus on law enforcement disaster response issues, it lacks independent empirical evaluation and any related critique. For example, the articles on NIMS are brief outlines of the model's official manual provided by the Department of Homeland Security (Department of Homeland Security, 2004), along with a review of the legislation and presidential directives that support it. There is no evaluation on the implementation of NIMS components in actual disaster events and whether it is effective. Rather, the focus is on providing information that will help agencies implement this model, despite the lack of empirical support on its effectiveness for law enforcement agencies.
Beyond this empirical concern, the law enforcement literature does little to even provide an examination of law enforcement experiences during the management of actual disasters, whether in relation to NIMS or any other disaster response issue. Moreover, alternative bodies of literature, such as disaster response or public policy, also scarcely cover the activities of these organizations during disasters. Thus, the empirical and practitioner literature have not served as a conduit for vicarious organizational learning in the law enforcement arena when it comes to disaster response. The present study partially remedies this gap in the literature by examining the experiences of law enforcement agencies that responded to Hurricane Katrina.
Research Focus and Methods
In an effort to document the state and local law enforcement response to one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history, we traveled to Mississippi and Louisiana in late September 2005 (approximately one month after the hurricane) to conduct a case study of the law enforcement experiences in managing the extraordinary public safety challenges brought about by Hurricane Katrina. We sought insight into the extent that agencies planned and prepared for the hurricane's impact. We also examined the efforts of agencies during the storm and in the subsequent days and weeks that followed. We then returned to the region six months later to evaluate the recovery efforts of area law enforcement agencies and to assess the progress that they had made in the intervening months. The underlying goal of our research was to draw lessons from this catastrophic event in order to inform future disaster response efforts.
The primary data collection technique for this study were interviews with more than 40 public safety officials in many of the coastal areas most affected by Hurricane Katrina and with Florida officers who provided critical assistance to the region after the storm. This group of respondents included local law enforcement executives, homeland security personnel, public officials,...
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