Intergovernmental Affairs 2/7/14

In this weeks class we discussed intergovernmental affairs. Using the Katrina disaster as an example of the failures of intergovernmental affairs and government in general. One student raised the premise that it is difficult to place blame on one person or groups of people who happen to be in office during the time of the disaster. To this statement I agree that sometimes people are placed into office while situations are unfolding or have already unfolded, and they are left with the baggage. However, the Katrina disaster was no such instance. The Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, was in office 2 years prior to the disaster. President Bush was in office for 4 years, Michael brown for 2 years and the Governor of Louisiana was in office for a year prior to Katrina. Each of these people deserve part of the blame for what happened. Looking back on Katrina it is easy to spot the failures and criticize everything from preparedness to response, but none of us can truly know who, what, where, when, how, or why this happened. The focus should now be for us to increase communication amongst agencies and entities so that this sort of thing never happenens again.