10 Years After Hurricane Katrina

August 29 marked the 10-year anniversary of the day that Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, devastating the Gulf Coast region.  Just a few weeks later, Hurricane Rita made landfall on the Texas shoreline. These two horrific storms ravaged coastal areas of the Southeastern United States, leaving over 1,800 people dead and destroying the homes and communities of thousands more.

In the decade since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, our nation has learned many critical lessons about how to more effectively respond to emergencies and disasters, and in particular, how to ensure that the needs of the whole community—including individuals with access and functional needs; those from religious, racial and ethnically diverse backgrounds; people with limited English proficiency, nonprofit organizations, businesses, academia, media outlets and all levels of government—are considered and included in all stages of disaster and emergency management activities, including planning, response and recovery.  While disasters and emergencies can affect all members of a community, in the absence of appropriate planning, they may result in more severe hardships for vulnerable populations.

In recent years, the federal government has developed National Planning Frameworks that outline the way all levels of government, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations and the public at large can work together to build and sustain capabilities at each stage of emergency and disaster management, with an emphasis on engaging the whole community.  The National Response Framework and the National Disaster Recovery Framework incorporate civil rights nondiscrimination principles in their guidance and emphasize the importance of providing equal access to emergency related services.

The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is dedicated to working, in conjunction with our sister agencies, to ensure that everyone has access to critical resources and services provided in the wake of disasters and to enforce statutory provisions which prohibit discrimination against vulnerable communities, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Fair Housing Act, among others.  For example, in response to recent public health emergencies such as the spread of the H1N1 Influenza and the Ebola virus, the division has issued guidance concerning nondiscrimination requirements.  Please take time to read our recent article A Decade after Hurricane Katrina: Title VI Protections and Responsibilities in Emergencies and Disasters, available in the summer issue of Title VI Civil Rights News @FCS, which examines the federal government’s efforts to address racial and ethnic disparities during disaster preparation, response and recovery.  We must all remember that civil rights laws must always be complied with, even during emergency response and recovery activities.