Leading Effectively Podcast
General Honoré: Leading the Response to Katrina
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While serving as a Commanding General of the First U.S. Army, General Russel Honoré led the Joint Task Force - Katrina, heading the Department of Defense response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana in 2005. He emerged as a tough-talking, get-it-done leader who brought hope to many.
At a recent "Lessons of Leadership" forum at the Center for Creative Leadership, Gen. Honoré, himself a Louisiana native, shared an insider's view of the Katrina crisis.
He reminded the audience of Katrina's size. The hurricane was as big as the country of England, over 420 miles wide. The storm, he said, produced what a classic military attack would attempt to do. It took people by surprise, created confusion, generated shock and awe. In a few hours, it closed the road network and devastated communications systems.
With airports closed, Gen. Honoré and his troops drove into Mississippi, stopping to pull trees off the road. Using dedicated military satellite phones for communication, he directed operations in Gulfport, Miss., before getting the word to head to New Orleans.
There, search and rescue was the priority. Troops eventually evacuated 20,000 people from the convention center in six hours. Even so, the pace and process of evacuation was excruciatingly slow for the people packed in the convention center and Superdome, stranded on flooded highways, or trapped on rooftops.
There were several factors that contributed to the complexity of the crisis, Honoré explained. For one, most of the police officers and first responders were also victims. They lost homes and family; they were cut off from each other and from outside information.
Another major challenge was the sheer number of victims. To evacuate everyone, troops had to arrange for transportation, identify where to take people, and track hospital capacity -- all with the power infrastructure wiped out.
Yet another factor was poverty. Louisiana and Mississippi have sluggish economies and rank near the bottom of the 50 states when it comes to education and healthcare. Gen. Honoré told the conference that in New Orleans, 53 percent of the people evacuated were renters; few had checking accounts. Forty to forty-five percent were on government subsidized rent or welfare.
Hurricane Katrina put the poor of New Orleans in the spotlight. Overnight, the "9th Ward" became synonymous with the poor, mostly African-American, residents who did not evacuate the city prior to the storm and whose homes were destroyed by levee breaks.
But Gen. Honoré said that there is a 9th Ward in every town or city in America. He said: "I grew up poor. When it's hot, it's a little bit hotter. When it's cold, you're a little bit colder. When you're sick, you're a little bit sicker. Unless we take care of them, it's going to get worse."
The general challenged leaders in government and business to have a plan in case a crisis occurs - whether it's a hurricane, train accident, earthquake, or something equally devastating. Being prepared on the local, state, and federal government levels, as well as within the private sector, can make a difficult situation much more manageable.
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