United States Government Accountability Office

GAO Report to the Congressional Committees

May 2006 HURRICANE 

KATRINA 

Better Plans and 

Exercises Needed to 

Guide the Military’s 

Response to 

Catastrophic Natural 

Disasters 

GAO-06-643
May 2006 

H

. 

Highlights of 

Why GAO Did This Study 

ighlights 

Accountability Integrity Reliability 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-643

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

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GAO-06-643, a report to 

congressional committees 

Hurricane Katrina was one of the 

largest natural disasters in U.S. 

history. Despite a large deployment 

of resources at all levels, many 

have regarded the federal response 

as inadequate. GAO has a body of 

ongoing work that covers the 

federal government’s preparedness 

and response to hurricanes Katrina 

and Rita. Due to widespread 

congressional interest, this review 

was performed under the 

Comptroller General’s authority. It 

examined (1) the extent to which 

pre-Katrina plans and training 

exercises reflected the military 

assistance that might be required 

during a catastrophic, domestic, 

natural disaster, (2) the military 

support provided in response to 

Katrina and factors that affected 

that response, and (3) the actions 

the military is taking to address 

lessons learned from Katrina and to 

prepare for the next catastrophe. 

What GAO Recommends 

GAO is making recommendations 

to improve the military response to 

catastrophic disasters. The 

recommendations address the 

needs to clearly delineate military 

capabilities in the National 

Response Plan and to improve 

military plans and exercises. The 

recommendations specifically 

address the integration of the 

military’s National Guard and 

active duty and Reserve forces, as 

well as response problems 

associated with damage 

assessment, communication, 

search and rescue, and logistics 

issues. DOD partially concurred 

with all of our recommendations. 

HURRICANE KATRINA

Better Plans and Exercises Needed to 

Guide the Military’s Response to 

Catastrophic Natural Disasters 

What GAO Found 

The military mounted a massive response to Hurricane Katrina that saved 

many lives and greatly assisted recovery efforts but many lessons are 

emerging. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, disaster plans and exercises did not 

incorporate lessons learned from past catastrophes to fully delineate the 

military capabilities needed to respond to a catastrophe. For example, the 

government’s National Response Plan made little distinction between the 

military response to a smaller regional disaster and its response to a 

catastrophic natural disaster. In addition, DOD’s emergency response plan 

for providing military assistance to civil authorities during disasters lacked 

adequate detail. The plan did not: account for the full range of assistance 

that might be provided by DOD, divide tasks between the National Guard 

and the federal responders, or establish response time frames. National 

Guard state plans were also inadequate and did not account for the level of 

outside assistance that would be needed during a catastrophe, and they 

were not synchronized with federal plans. Moreover, plans had not been 

tested with a robust exercise program. None of the exercises that were 

conducted prior to Katrina called for a major deployment of DOD 

capabilities in response to a catastrophic hurricane. As a result, a lack of 

understanding exists within the military and among federal, state, and local 

responders as to the types of assistance and capabilities that DOD might 

provide in the event of a catastrophe, the timing of this assistance, and the 

respective contributions of the active-duty and National Guard forces. 

Despite the lack of planning, the military took proactive steps and 

responded with about 50,000 National Guard and 20,000 active federal 

personnel. Based on its June 2005 civil support strategy, DOD relied heavily 

on the Guard during the initial response. Active duty forces were alerted 

prior to landfall and key capabilities such as aviation, medical, and 

engineering forces were initially deployed. Growing concerns about the 

magnitude of the disaster prompted DOD to deploy large, active ground 

units to supplement the Guard beginning about 5 days after landfall. Several 

factors affected the military’s ability to gain situational awareness and 

organize and execute its response, including a lack of timely damage 

assessments, communications difficulties, force integration problems, 

uncoordinated search and rescue efforts, and unexpected logistics 

responsibilities. Without detailed plans to address these factors, DOD and 

the federal government risk being unprepared for the next catastrophe. 

DOD is examining the lessons learned from its own reviews and those of the 

White House and the Congress, and it is beginning to take actions to address 

the lessons and prepare for the next catastrophe. It is too early to evaluate 

DOD’s actions, but many appear to hold promise. However, some issues 

identified after Katrina such as damage assessments are long-standing 

problems that were identified by GAO after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. They 

will be difficult to address because they are complex and cut across agency 

boundaries. Thus, substantial improvement will require sustained attention 

from the highest management levels in DOD, and across the government. 

United States Government Accountability Office 
Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 3

Background 9

Pre-Katrina Preparations Did Not Fully Address the Military 

Capabilities Needed during a Catastrophic Natural Disaster 14

The Military’s Response to Hurricane Katrina was Massive but 

Faced Several Challenges 20

DOD Has Begun Taking Actions to Address Catastrophic Disaster 

Response Problems, Some of Which are Complex and Longstanding 31

Conclusions 34

Recommendations for Executive Action 35

Matter for Congressional Consideration 36

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 36

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 42

Office of The Secretary Of Defense 42

DOD Agencies 42

Commands 42

Military Services 43

Task Forces 44

National Guard 44

Appendix II NRP Emergency Support Function Responsibilities 

Appendix III Comments From the Department of Defense 

Appendix IV GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 

Related GAO Products 67

Preparedness 67

Federal Response 67

Command and Control 67

Recovery 67

Page i GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 

47 

48 

66 
Figure 

Figure 1: Buildup of Military Forces Supporting Hurricane Katrina 

Operations 

Abbreviations 

DOD Department of Defense 

FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency 

NRP National Response Plan 

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Page ii GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 

21 
United States Government Accountability Office 

Washington, DC 20548 

May 15, 2006 

Congressional Committees 

When Hurricane Katrina made its final landfall along the 

Louisiana/Mississippi border on August 29, 2005, it quickly became one of 

the largest natural disasters in the history of the United States. Despite a 

massive deployment of resources and support from both military and 

civilian agencies, many have regarded the federal response as inadequate. 

As local, state, and federal governments responded in the days following 

Katrina, confusion surfaced as to what responsibilities the military1

 has 

and what capabilities it would provide in planning and responding to a 

catastrophic event. As recovery operations continue, the nation is quickly 

approaching the 2006 hurricane season, and faces other natural and manmade threats that could result in a catastrophe at any instant. 

About 9 months prior to Katrina’s landfall, the National Response Plan 

(NRP) was issued to frame the federal response to domestic emergencies 

ranging from smaller, regional disasters to incidents of national 

significance. The plan generally calls for a reactive federal response 

following specific state requests for assistance. However, the NRP also 

contains a catastrophic incident annex that calls for a proactive federal 

response when catastrophes overwhelm local and state responders. The 

NRP generally assigns the Department of Defense (DOD) a supporting role 

in disaster response, but even in this role, DOD has specific planning 

responsibilities. For example, the NRP requires federal agencies to 

incorporate the accelerated response requirements of the NRP’s 

catastrophic incident annex into their own emergency response plans. 

Within DOD, the Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support, which 

was issued in June 2005, envisions a greater reliance on National Guard 

and Reserve forces for homeland missions. The military response to 

domestic disasters typically varies depending on the severity of an event. 

During smaller disasters, an affected state’s National Guard may provide a 

sufficient response but larger disasters and catastrophes that overwhelm 

the state may require assistance from out-of-state National Guard or 

1

 Throughout this report, we use the term military to refer to the combined efforts of the 

National Guard and the federal military force. We use the term DOD to distinguish between 

the federal military response commanded by Northern Command and the National Guard 

response. During Katrina, DOD’s federal military response consisted of active-duty military 

personnel and reservists who volunteered to be part of the federal response. 

Page 1 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
federal troops. For Katrina, the response was heavily reliant on the 

National Guard, which is consistent with DOD’s Strategy for Homeland 

Defense and Civil Support. This represents a departure from past 

catastrophes when active-duty forces played a larger role in the response. 

During disaster response missions, National Guard troops typically 

operate under the control of the state governors. However, the National 

Guard Bureau has responsibility for formulating, developing, and 

coordinating policies, programs, and plans affecting Army and Air National 

Guard personnel, and it serves as the channel of communication between 

the United States Army, the United States Air Force, and the National 

Guard in U.S. states and territories. Although the Chief of the National 

Guard Bureau does not have operational control of National Guard forces 

in the states and territories, he has overall responsibility for National 

Guard Military Support to Civil Authorities programs. The United States 

Northern Command also has a support to civil authorities mission. 

Because of this mission, Northern Command was responsible for 

commanding the federal military response to Hurricane Katrina. 

Over the years, we have completed a number of reviews related to disaster 

preparedness and response. Our past work has shown that both DOD and 

National Guard forces play key roles in the wake of catastrophic 

disasters.2

 Our recent Katrina testimony and statement,3 along with White 

House and congressional reports,4

 have highlighted deficiencies in the 

NRP’s implementation and thoroughness. For example, the Secretary of 

the Department of Homeland Security did not implement the NRP’s 

Catastrophic Incident Annex during Katrina. In addition, the plan’s 

catastrophic incident supplement, which was supposed to have listed 

specific proactive actions agencies would take in response to a 

2

 GAO, Disaster Assistance: DOD’s Support for Hurricanes Andrew and Iniki and 

Typhoon Omar, GAO/NSIAD-93-180 (Washington, D.C.: Jun. 18, 1993). 

3

 GAO, Hurricane Katrina: GAO’s Preliminary Observations Regarding Preparedness, 

Response, and Recovery, GAO-06-442T (Washington, D. C.: Mar. 8, 2006) and GAO, 

Statement by Comptroller General David M. Walker on GAO’s Preliminary Observations 

Regarding Preparedness and Response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, GAO-06-365R 

(Washington, D. C.: Feb. 1, 2006). 

4

White House, The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, (Feb. 23, 

2006), House of Representatives, A Failure of Initiative: Final Report of the Select 

Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane 

Katrina, (Feb. 15, 2006), and Senate, Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared, 

(May 2006). 

Page 2 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Results in Brief 

catastrophe, had not been approved during the 9 months between the 

plan’s issuance and Katrina’s landfall. 

We currently have a large body of ongoing work to address preparation, 

response, recovery, and rebuilding efforts related to hurricanes Katrina 

and Rita. Due to the widespread congressional interest in these subjects, 

our work is being completed under the Comptroller General’s authority. 

This report presents the results of our review of the military response to 

Hurricane Katrina, which examined (1) the extent to which pre-Katrina 

plans and training exercises reflected the military assistance that might be 

required during a catastrophic, domestic, natural disaster, (2) the support 

that the military provided in responding to Katrina and factors that 

affected that response, and (3) the actions the military is taking to address 

lessons learned from Katrina and to prepare for the next catastrophic 

event. 

To address our first two objectives, we traveled to the affected areas, 

interviewed officials who led the response efforts, and collected, 

compared, and analyzed data from numerous military organizations that 

provided support to the Hurricane Katrina response operations. We also 

reviewed the military responses to prior catastrophes and analyzed 

disaster planning documents and exercise reports. To determine the 

actions that the military is taking to address lessons learned from Katrina 

and to prepare for the next catastrophic event, we collected and analyzed 

after action and lessons learned documents from a wide range of military 

and civilian organizations, and we interviewed responsible officials and 

reviewed available documentation on DOD’s actions to address lessons 

learned and prepare for the next catastrophic event. A detailed discussion 

of our scope and methodology can be found in appendix I. We determined 

the reliability of the military response data we obtained by interviewing 

DOD officials knowledgeable about the data and corroborating the 

information with information gathered from other DOD and military 

service organizations. We conducted our review from September 2005 

through April 2006 in accordance with generally accepted government 

auditing standards. 

Prior to Hurricane Katrina, disaster plans and training exercises involving 

the military did not sufficiently incorporate lessons learned from past 

catastrophes to fully delineate the military capabilities that could be 

needed to respond to a catastrophic natural disaster. Pre-Katrina plans 

involving the military were inadequate at multiple levels: (1) at the federal 

government level, through the NRP (2) at the DOD level, and (3) at the 

Page 3 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
state level through National Guard plans. First, the NRP made little 

distinction between the military response to smaller, regional disasters 

and the military response to large-scale, catastrophic, natural disasters 

even though past disasters had shown that the military tends to play a 

much larger role in catastrophes. Second, DOD, in its own emergency 

response plan, did not fully address the military capabilities that could be 

needed to respond to a catastrophic natural disaster. DOD has procedures 

to develop specific detailed operations and contingency plans for its 

missions, but opted to use its least detailed type of plan, a functional plan, 

as its emergency response plan to provide defense assistance to civil 

authorities during disasters or catastrophes. This plan was adequate for 

most disasters, but did not account for the full range of tasks and missions 

the military could be expected to provide in the event of a catastrophe, 

despite the NRP requirement that agencies incorporate the accelerated 

response requirements of the NRP’s catastrophic incident annex into their 

emergency response plans. Another significant shortfall of DOD’s preKatrina planning was that the department did not fully address the division 

of tasks between National Guard resources under the governors’ control 

and federal resources under Presidential control, nor did it establish time 

frames for the response. Third, Mississippi and Louisiana National Guard 

plans were not synchronized with DOD plans and were inadequate for a 

catastrophe of Katrina’s magnitude. For example, the plans did not 

adequately account for the outside assistance that could be needed during 

a catastrophe. In addition, the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, who 

has overall responsibility for military support to civil authorities programs 

in the National Guard, had not coordinated in advance with the Adjutants 

General in the states and territories to develop plans to identify the types 

of units that were likely to be available to respond to disasters across the 

country. Moreover, disaster plans had not been tested and refined with a 

robust exercise program. The Homeland Security Council has issued 

planning scenarios—including a major hurricane scenario—that provide 

the basis for disaster exercises throughout the nation. However, few 

exercises led by the Department of Homeland Security or DOD focused on 

catastrophic natural disasters and none of the exercises called for a major 

deployment of DOD capabilities in response to a catastrophic hurricane. In 

addition, a 2004 catastrophic hurricane exercise had revealed problems 

with situational awareness and operational control of forces that still had 

not been resolved when Katrina made landfall in August 2005. As a result 

of the inadequate plans and exercises, when Hurricane Katrina struck, a 

lack of understanding existed within the military and among federal, state, 

and local responders as to the types of assistance and capabilities that the 

military might provide, the timing of this assistance, and the respective 

contributions of the National Guard and federal military forces. 

Page 4 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Even though there was a lack of detailed planning, the military mounted a 

massive response to Hurricane Katrina that saved many lives and greatly 

assisted recovery efforts, but several factors affected this response. The 

military proactively took steps and supported the Katrina response with 

more than 50,000 National Guard and 20,000 federal military personnel. 

This heavy reliance on the National Guard was based on DOD’s Strategy 

for Homeland Defense and Civil Support, which was issued in June 2005. 

However, it represents a departure from past catastrophes such as 

Hurricane Andrew, when the National Guard constituted less than 20 

percent of the military response. For Katrina, active-duty forces were 

alerted prior to landfall and after landfall key capabilities such as aviation, 

medical, and engineering forces were initially deployed. Growing concerns 

about the magnitude of the disaster prompted DOD to deploy large activeduty ground units to supplement the National Guard, beginning about 5 

days after landfall. However, a number of interrelated factors affected the 

military’s ability to leverage its resources to gain situational awareness and 

effectively organize and execute its Katrina response efforts. Without 

detailed plans to address each of the following factors, the military risks 

being unprepared for the next catastrophe that strikes the United States. 

• Lack of timely damage assessment. As with Hurricane Andrew, an 

underlying problem was the failure to quickly assess damage and gain 

situational awareness. The NRP notes that local and state officials are 

responsible for damage assessments during a disaster, but it also notes 

that state and local officials could be overwhelmed in a catastrophe. 

Despite this incongruous situation, the NRP did not specify the 

proactive means necessary for the federal government to gain 

situational awareness when state and local officials are overwhelmed. 

Moreover, DOD’s planning did not call for the use of the military’s 

extensive reconnaissance assets to meet the NRP catastrophic incident 

annex’s requirement for a proactive response to catastrophic incidents. 

Because state and local officials were overwhelmed and the military’s 

extensive reconnaissance capabilities were not effectively leveraged as 

part of a proactive federal effort to conduct timely comprehensive 

damage assessments, the military began organizing and deploying its 

response without fully understanding the extent of the damage or the 

required assistance. According to military officials, available 

reconnaissance assets could have provided additional situational 

awareness. 

• Communications difficulties. Hurricane Katrina caused significant 

damage to the communication infrastructure in Louisiana and 

Mississippi, which further contributed to a lack of situational 

Page 5 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
awareness for military and civilian officials. Even when local officials 

were able to conduct damage assessments, the lack of communications 

assets caused delays in transmitting the assessments. Under the NRP, 

the Department of Homeland Security has responsibility for 

coordinating the communications portion of disaster response 

operations. However, neither the NRP, the Department of Homeland 

Security, nor DOD fully identified the extensive military 

communication capabilities that could be leveraged as part of a 

proactive federal response to a catastrophe. DOD’s plan addressed 

internal military communications requirements but not the 

communication requirements of communities affected by the disaster. 

Because state and local officials were overwhelmed and the 

Department of Homeland Security and DOD waited for requests for 

assistance rather than deploying a proactive response, some of the 

military’s available communication assets were never requested or 

deployed. In addition, some deployed National Guard assets were 

underutilized because the sending states placed restrictions on their 

use. Communications problems, like damage assessment problems, 

were also highlighted following Hurricane Andrew. 

• Problems with integrating military forces. The military did not 

adequately plan for the integration of large numbers of deployed troops 

from different commands during disaster response operations. For 

example, a Louisiana plan to integrate military responders from outside 

the state called for the reception of not more than 300 troops per day. 

However, in the days following Hurricane Katrina, more than 20,000 

National Guard members from other states arrived in Louisiana to join 

the response effort. In addition, the National Guard and federal 

responses were coordinated across several chains of command but not 

integrated, which led to some inefficiencies and duplication of effort. 

Because military plans and exercises had not provided a means for 

integrating the response, no one had the total picture of the forces on 

the ground, the forces that were on the way, the missions that had been 

resourced, and the missions that still needed to be completed. Also, a 

key mobilization statute5

 limits DOD’s Reserve and National Guard 

units and members from being involuntarily ordered to federal active 

duty for disaster response. As a result, all the reservists who responded 

to Hurricane Katrina were volunteers. The process of lining up 

volunteers can be time consuming and is more appropriate for 

mobilizing individuals than it is for mobilizing entire units or 

 10 U.S.C. §12304. 

Page 6 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 

5
capabilities that may be needed during a catastrophe. After Hurricane 

Andrew, we identified this issue in two 1993 reports,6

 but it has not 

been resolved. 

• Uncoordinated search and rescue efforts. While tens of thousands 

of people were rescued after Katrina, the lack of clarity in search and 

rescue plans led to operations that, according to aviation officials, were 

not as efficient as they could have been. The NRP addressed only part 

of the search and rescue mission, and the National Search and Rescue 

Plan had not been updated to reflect the NRP. As a result, the search 

and rescue operations of the National Guard and federal military 

responders were not fully coordinated, and military operations were 

not integrated with the search and rescue operations of the Coast 

Guard and other rescuers. At least two different locations were 

assigning search and rescue tasks to military helicopter pilots 

operating over New Orleans, and no one had the total picture of the 

missions that had been resourced and the missions that still needed to 

be performed. 

• Logistics challenges. DOD had difficulty gaining visibility over 

supplies and commodities when the Federal Emergency Management 

Agency (FEMA) asked DOD to assume a significant portion of its 

logistics responsibilities. Under the NRP, FEMA is responsible for 

coordinating logistics during disaster response efforts, but during 

Hurricane Katrina, FEMA quickly became overwhelmed. Four days 

after Katrina’s landfall, FEMA asked DOD to take responsibility for 

procurement, transportation, and distribution of ice, water, food, fuel, 

and medical supplies. However, because FEMA lacked the capability to 

maintain visibility—from order through final delivery—of the supplies 

and commodities it had ordered, DOD did not know the precise 

locations of the FEMA-ordered supplies and commodities when it 

assumed FEMA’s logistics responsibilities. As a result of its lack of 

visibility over the meals that were in transit, DOD had to airlift 1.7 

million meals to Mississippi to respond to a request from the Adjutant 

General of Mississippi, who was concerned that food supplies were 

nearly exhausted. 

DOD is beginning to take actions to address lessons learned from 

Hurricane Katrina and to prepare for the next catastrophic event. The 

GAO/NSIAD-93-180, and GAO, Disaster Management: Improving the Nation’s Response 

to Catastrophic Disasters, GAO/RCED-93-186 (Washington, D.C.: July 23, 1993). 

Page 7 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 

6 
department has been conducting its own lessons learned reviews and is 

also examining the lessons and recommendations in reports from a White 

House review panel and congressional oversight committees, and it is 

beginning to take actions to address them. While it is too early to fully 

evaluate the effectiveness of the DOD actions, many appear to hold 

promise for improving future responses. For example, to improve 

interagency coordination, DOD is placing specially trained military 

personnel into FEMA regional offices. It is also establishing two command 

posts capable of deploying as joint task forces for catastrophes. In 

addition, DOD officials stated that the department is currently updating its 

emergency response plan and plans to use a contingency plan rather than 

a less detailed functional plan to guide its military support to civil 

authority missions. However, some problems, like the damage 

assessments and logistics visibility are long-standing, and were reported 

after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Addressing these problems will be 

difficult because they are complex and cut across agency boundaries. 

Thus, substantial improvement will occur only if the actions receive 

sustained management attention at the highest levels of DOD, and from 

the key officials from across the government. 

We are making four recommendations to improve the military’s response 

to catastrophic events. First, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense 

provide the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security with 

proposed revisions to the NRP that will fully address the proactive 

functions the military will be expected to perform during a catastrophic 

incident, for inclusion in the next NRP update. Second, we recommend 

that the Secretary of Defense establish milestones and expedite the 

development of detailed plans and exercises to fully account for the 

unique capabilities and support that the military is likely to provide to civil 

authorities in response to the full range of domestic disasters, including 

catastrophes. The plans and exercises should specifically address the 

• use of reconnaissance capabilities to assess damage, 

• use of communications capabilities to facilitate support to civil 

authorities, 

• integration of active component and National Guard and Reserve 

forces, 

• use of search and rescue capabilities and the military’s role in search 

and rescue, and 

• role the military will be expected to play in logistics. 

Page 8 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Background

The National Response 

Plan 

Third, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Chief of the 

National Guard Bureau to work with the state governors and adjutants 

general to develop and maintain a list of the types of capabilities the 

National Guard will likely provide in response to domestic natural 

disasters under state-to-state mutual assistance agreements, along with the 

associated units that will provide these capabilities. In addition, we 

recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Chief of the National 

Guard Bureau to make this information available to Northern Command, 

U.S. Joint Forces Command, and other organizations with federal military 

support to civil authority planning responsibilities. Finally, we recommend 

that the Secretary of Defense establish milestones and identify the types of 

scalable federal military capabilities and the units that will provide those 

capabilities in response to the full range of domestic disasters and 

catastrophes covered by DOD’s military support to civil authorities plans. 

In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD partially concurred with our 

recommendations and stated that the report was thorough and made a 

significant contribution to DOD’s plans to improve the department’s 

support to civil authorities during domestic disaster incidents. In addition, 

DOD provided technical comments, which we incorporated as 

appropriate. 

The National Response Plan (NRP) was issued in December 2004 to 

establish a single, comprehensive framework for the management of 

domestic incidents, including natural disasters. The NRP is the federal 

government’s plan to coordinate its resources and capabilities across 

agencies and integrate them with other levels of government, as well as 

private sector organizations, for prevention of, preparedness for, response 

to, and recovery from natural disasters, terrorism, or other emergencies. 

According to the plan, the NRP serves as the foundation for the 

development of detailed supplemental plans and procedures to effectively 

and efficiently implement federal assistance for specific types of incidents. 

The heart of the NRP is its base plan, which outlines planning 

assumptions, roles and responsibilities, and incident management actions. 

The NRP also contains 15 emergency support function annexes, which 

describe the mission, policies, structure, and responsibilities of federal 

agencies in an incident. Appendix II contains a table that shows 

Page 9 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Catastrophic Incidents

organizational responsibilities for the 15 emergency response functions. It 

shows that DOD does not have sole primary responsibility for any 

emergency function, and its role is primarily that of a supporting agency. 

While multiple agencies support each emergency support function, DOD is 

the only agency with supporting responsibilities for all 15 emergency 

support functions.7

 The NRP also contains seven incident annexes 

describing responsibilities, processes, and procedures for specific types of 

incidents. One of these annexes addresses catastrophic incidents. 

The catastrophic incident annex establishes the strategy for implementing 

an accelerated, proactive response when a catastrophic incident occurs. 

The NRP defines a catastrophic incident as any natural or manmade 

incident that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or 

disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, 

economy, national morale, or government functions. 

In terms of its combined casualties, damage, and disruption to the 

population, environment, and economy, Hurricane Katrina was clearly a 

catastrophe and it was arguably the most devastating natural disaster in 

United States’ history. More than 1,300 people lost their lives; damage 

stretched over a 90,000 square mile area; more than a million people were 

driven from their homes; buildings, bridges, roads, and power and 

communications infrastructure were destroyed or severely damaged; and 

millions of gallons of oil were spilled into the environment. We may never 

fully know the financial cost of Hurricane Katrina but one projection has 

put it at more than $200 billion. 

Military Support During disasters and catastrophes, the military may provide support at two 

different levels. First, the military may provide support at the state level 

through its National Guard personnel and units. The governor of a state 

may call the National Guard forces within that state to active duty in 

response to a local or statewide emergency. In these cases, the state pays 

7

 Other agencies have supporting responsibilities for most of the emergency support 

functions. For example, both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of 

Commerce have supporting responsibilities for 13 of the 15 functions. The Department of 

Homeland Security is also involved in the remaining two functions where it is not a 

supporting agency. It is the coordinating agency for the external affairs function, and is the 

departmental head of FEMA, which is a supporting agency for the firefighting emergency 

support function. 

Page 10 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
the salaries of the National Guard members. Under an existing Emergency 

Management Assistance Compact that establishes a framework for mutual 

assistance, governors may also call their National Guard forces to active 

duty in a state status and then send them to another state that is facing a 

disaster.8

 The governor of the affected state, through the state’s adjutant 

general, commands both the National Guard forces from the affected state 

and the out-of-state National Guard forces that may flow into the affected 

state under emergency management assistance compacts. National Guard 

troops also respond to disasters under Title 32 of the United States Code.9 

Under Title 32, National Guard troops continue to report to the governor 

of the affected state but they receive federal pay and benefits. In response 

to Hurricane Katrina, National Guard forces were generally activated in a 

state active-duty status and then eventually placed in Title 32 status.10 

The military can also respond to disasters at the federal level. The federal 

military response can consist of active component or Reserve or National 

Guard personnel. Active component troops that deploy to disaster areas 

remain under the control of the President and the Secretary of Defense, 

but they usually deploy in response to a request from an affected state. 

The President can also send Reserve and National Guard troops to a 

disaster area in a federal status under Title 10 of the United States Code. 

However, federal laws place certain limitations on the use of federal 

troops.11 For Hurricane Katrina, the federal military response consisted of 

active component troops and Reserve volunteers. 

The use of the military for disaster relief is authorized by the Robert T. 

Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act.12 Under 

8

 Before the National Guard troops are actually sent to another state, the emergency 

management assistance compact is generally implemented through a specific 

memorandum of agreement that is signed by the sending and receiving states. 

9

 Title 32 U.S.C. §502(f). 

10 On September 7, 2005, the Deputy Secretary of Defense authorized the placement of 

National Guard personnel into Title 32 status, retroactive to August 29, 2005. 

11 Section 12304 of Title 10 of the United States Code prohibits the involuntary activation of 

National Guard and Reserve members for domestic disaster operations. Under 10 U.S.C. 

§12302, the President must declare a national emergency before he can involuntarily 

activate National Guard and Reserve members, but under 10 U.S.C. §12301 (d) he can 

activate National Guard and Reserve volunteers for any purpose. The Posse Comitatis Act 

and DOD policy prohibit the use of federal military forces to perform law enforcement 

functions. 18 U.S.C. §1385, DOD Directive 5525.5. 

12 Title 42 U.S.C. § 5170b(c). 

Page 11 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Military Roles and 

Responsibilities 

procedures to implement the Stafford Act, the military provides support to 

civil authorities through a specific request process. However, under its 

immediate response authority, which is outlined in DOD directives, a local 

military commander can assist civil authorities or the public without prior 

approval if the action is necessary to save lives, prevent human suffering, 

or mitigate great property damage under imminently serious conditions. 

On March 25, 2003, DOD established the office of the Assistant Secretary 

of Defense for Homeland Defense to oversee homeland defense activities 

for DOD, under the authority of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, 

and as appropriate, in coordination with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff. This office develops policies, conducts analysis, provides advice, 

and makes recommendations on homeland defense, support to civil 

authorities, emergency preparedness and domestic crisis management 

matters within the department. Specifically, the assistant secretary assists 

the Secretary of Defense in providing policy direction to the United States 

Northern Command and other applicable commands to guide the 

development and execution of homeland defense plans and activities.13 

This direction is provided through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense also 

serves as the DOD Domestic Crisis Manager. In this capacity, he 

represents the department on all homeland-defense-related matters with 

all levels of government, ranging from state and local officials to the 

Department of Homeland Security and the Executive Office of the 

President. 

In 2002, following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the 

United States, DOD established the United States Northern Command with 

a dual mission of homeland defense and civil support. Northern Command 

receives policy direction on both missions from the Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Homeland Defense. Northern Command’s civil support 

activities are triggered by the President or the Secretary of Defense, 

generally in response to requests for federal assistance. Following a 

catastrophic incident, DOD may provide extensive lifesaving and 

sustaining support to civil authorities. However, DOD may also provide 

smaller scale support for other incidents such as wild fires, floods, 

13 Northern Command has responsibility for the major homeland defense and military 

support to civil authorities plans for the 48 contiguous states and Alaska. However, other 

commands have responsibilities for the military support to civil authorities plans that cover 

Hawaii, U.S. territories, and some specific functional areas, such as medical support. 

Page 12 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
tornados, blizzards, or other disasters. The United States Joint Forces 

Command generally provides Northern Command the military resources 

and forces it needs to assist civil authorities. 

The National Guard Bureau is the federal military coordination, 

administrative, policy, and logistical center for the Army and Air National 

Guard and serves as the channel of communication between the United 

States Army, the United States Air Force, and the National Guard in 54 

states and territories. The Bureau is responsible for formulating, 

developing, and coordinating policies, programs, and plans affecting Army 

and Air National Guard personnel. However, the Bureau does not have 

operational control over National Guard forces that are operating in either 

a state or federal status. 

The governor is the commander in chief of all National Guard units within 

the state’s jurisdiction that are not in active federal service. Command is 

normally exercised through the state’s adjutant general. During military 

support to civil authority operations, the National Guard Bureau provides 

policy guidance and facilitates assistance, when needed, by locating and 

coordinating out-of-state National Guard assistance. However, the actual 

execution of mutual assistance agreements between the states does not 

involve the National Guard Bureau. 

Past GAO Work Over the years, we have completed a number of reviews related to disaster 

preparedness and response, and a list of our related reports and 

testimonies is included at the end of this report. Two reports that we 

issued in 1993 following Hurricane Andrew are of particular note.14 In the 

first, we identified problems related to inadequate damage assessments 

and coordination. In the second, we also addressed coordination issues. In 

both, we suggested that to improve DOD’s ability to respond to 

catastrophic events, the Congress might wish to consider amending Title 

10 of the United States Code to allow reserve component units to be 

involuntarily activated to provide military assistance during catastrophes. 

14 GAO/NSIAD-93-180 and GAO/RCED-93-186. 

Page 13 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Pre-Katrina 

Preparations Did Not 

Fully Address the 

Military Capabilities 

Needed during a 

Catastrophic Natural 

Disaster 

Prior to Hurricane Katrina, disaster plans and training exercises involving 

the military were insufficient, and did not incorporate lessons learned 

from past catastrophes to fully delineate the military capabilities that 

could be needed to respond to a catastrophic natural disaster. The military 

had responded to numerous natural disasters and catastrophes in the past 

but these prior experiences were not reflected in key planning documents 

or in the disaster exercises that had been conducted prior to Hurricane 

Katrina. For example, the NRP contained few details about the specific 

military capabilities that would likely be needed in a natural disaster, even 

if the natural disaster were catastrophic. DOD’s emergency response plan 

also did not fully address the military capabilities that could be needed to 

respond to a catastrophic natural disaster. DOD’s primary planning 

document, Functional Plan 2501, was inadequate because it did not 

address the functions DOD could be asked to perform as a supporting 

agency for all 15 NRP emergency support functions. National Guard state 

plans, which had been sufficient for past smaller disasters, were also 

insufficient for large-scale catastrophes and did not adequately account for 

the outside assistance that could be needed during a catastrophe. 

Moreover, disaster plans had not been tested and refined with a robust 

exercise program. As a result of the inadequate plans—and the lack of 

realistic exercises to test those plans—a lack of understanding existed 

within the military and among federal, state, and local responders as to the 

types of assistance and capabilities that the military might provide, the 

timing of this assistance, and the respective contributions of the activeduty and National Guard components. 

Disaster Experience Was 

Not Reflected in the NRP’s 

Planned Use of Military 

Capabilities during 

Catastrophes 

Disaster plans in place prior to Hurricane Katrina did not adequately 

delineate military capabilities that could be needed to respond to a 

catastrophic event. Over the years, the military has been frequently called 

upon to provide assistance in the aftermath of hurricanes and other 

disasters. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, the largest disaster-relief deployment 

of military forces was in 1992 when Hurricane Andrew swept across south 

Florida. The military also provided extensive support to civil authorities 

following other catastrophes, such as the 1989 earthquake in the San 

Francisco area and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The 

National Guard has even more experience, albeit typically with smallerscale disasters. In fiscal year 2001, the National Guard responded to 365 

requests for disaster assistance following hurricanes, floods, fires, ice 

storms, tornadoes, and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and 

Pentagon. 

Page 14 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
None of these prior disasters compared to the devastation wrought by 

Katrina, and the military was not prepared for what would be needed in 

her wake. Overall, plans proved to be insufficient because they did not 

identify the military capabilities that could be needed to respond to a 

catastrophic natural disaster of this magnitude. The NRP, which guides 

planning of supporting federal agencies, lacks specificity as to how DOD 

should be used and what resources it should provide in the event of a 

domestic natural disaster. For example, the NRP makes little distinction 

between the military response to smaller, regional disasters and the 

military response to large-scale, catastrophic natural disasters, even 

though past disasters have shown that the military tends to play a much 

larger role in catastrophes. The NRP states that DOD has significant 

resources that may be available to support the federal response to an 

incident of national significance, but it lists very few specific DOD 

resources that should be called upon even in the event of a catastrophic 

natural disaster. Given the substantial role the military is actually expected 

to play in a catastrophe—no other federal agency brings as many 

resources to bear—this lack of detailed planning represents a critical 

oversight. 

The NRP contains a catastrophic incident annex that addresses the need 

for accelerated, proactive federal responses during catastrophic incidents. 

The annex contains principles and guidelines but few details about the 

anticipated proactive federal response. The details were to be contained in 

the NRP’s catastrophic incident supplement and in detailed supplemental 

plans and procedures. A draft version of the NRP catastrophic incident 

supplement was released in September 2005, but it still has not been 

finalized. It contained a 12-page execution schedule with many details 

about the tasks that many agencies are expected to accomplish in 

response to a catastrophic event. However, despite extensive deployments 

of military capabilities for past catastrophes like Hurricane Andrew, the 

draft supplement lists very few specific tasks that DOD should perform 

during a catastrophe. The only specific DOD actions it addresses are 

deploying a coordinating officer and team to the affected region, making 

bases available as operational staging areas, and preparing for medical 

evacuation missions. The additional detailed planning was left for DOD to 

develop. 

The NRP represents a planning framework, not the detailed planning that 

would be necessary to support the plan. In addition to designating primary 

agencies for each of its 15 emergency support functions, the NRP 

designates an emergency function coordinator. The coordinator, which is 

also a primary agency, is responsible for coordinating all activities related 

Page 15 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
DOD’s Supporting Plan 

Lacked Details About the 

Military Response to 

Catastrophic Natural 

Disasters 

to catastrophic incident planning. Since the NRP generally places DOD in 

a supporting role rather than in a coordinator role, DOD relied on other 

agencies to take the lead in coordinating the overall response within each 

functional area. However, according to DOD officials, coordinated 

emergency support function plans were generally not completed when 

Katrina struck. Lacking coordinated plans to clearly identify the 

capabilities that other agencies would provide during a catastrophe, DOD 

was forced to anticipate which capabilities the primary agencies and other 

supporting agencies would provide as it developed the details in its 

supporting plan. After evaluating the use of military capabilities during 

Hurricane Katrina, the White House report recommended, among other 

things, that DOD plan and prepare to have a significant role during 

catastrophes, and develop plans to lead the federal response for events of 

extraordinary scope and nature. 

While the military’s approach to planning is well defined, prior to 

Hurricane Katrina, DOD did not develop a detailed plan to account for the 

full range of tasks and missions the military could need to provide in the 

event of a catastrophe. DOD planners typically use one of three different 

types of plans for its missions. From most to least detailed, they are 

operations plans, contingency plans, and functional plans. Combatant 

commanders, like Northern Command, have some discretion to determine 

what type of planning is necessary for their assigned missions. For its 

emergency response plan to provide defense assistance to civil authorities 

during disasters or catastrophes, DOD opted to use its least detailed type 

of plan, the functional plan. Functional plans are generally used to address 

peacetime operations in permissive environments. DOD’s plan is called 

Functional Plan 2501.15 Even though functional plans are less detailed than 

the two other types of plans, according to DOD’s joint planning guidance, 

a functional plan must be adequate and feasible. Adequate means that the 

scope and concept of the plan satisfy the specified task and accomplish 

the intended mission, and feasible means the plan accomplishes the 

assigned tasks with resources that are available within the time frames 

contemplated. 

15 The United States Northern Command Functional Plan 2501 was originally issued by the 

United States Atlantic Command as Commander, United States Atlantic Command 

Functional Plan 2501-97, Military Support to Civil Authorities, on February 2, 1998. 

Page 16 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
While Functional Plan 2501 was adequate for most disasters, it was not 

adequate or feasible for a catastrophe. The existing plan was nearly 9 

years old, and was undergoing revision when Katrina struck. It had not 

been updated since the Northern Command was established in 2002, nor 

was it aligned with the recently published NRP. Just as the NRP did not 

differentiate between military tasks in a disaster and a catastrophe, 

Northern Command’s Functional Plan 2501 lacked the details necessary to 

address issues that emerge in a catastrophe but not in smaller-scale 

disasters. The plan did not account for the full range of tasks and missions 

the military could need to provide in the event of a catastrophe, despite 

the NRP requirement that agencies incorporate the accelerated response 

requirements of the NRP’s catastrophic incident annex into their 

emergency response plans. It did not anticipate that DOD, as a supporting 

agency for the 15 emergency support functions outlined in the NRP, could 

be called upon by the primary agencies to assume significant 

responsibilities for those functions—from search and rescue to 

communications to transportation and logistics. 

In addition, DOD’s plan had little provision for integrating active and 

reserve component forces. In general, a feasible plan would anticipate the 

personnel and resources that might be required in response to a 

catastrophic event. This would include the emergency support function 

tasks to which DOD was committed in a supporting role. Resources likely 

to be employed in a catastrophic event include reserve component forces– 

the National Guard and Reserves—and yet the plan did not fully address 

the division of tasks between National Guard resources under the 

governors’ control and federal resources under Presidential control. The 

2005 DOD Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support called for 

focused reliance on reserve component capabilities for civil support 

missions, but Functional Plan 2501 did not envision the large-scale 

employment of National Guard and Reserve assets and did not outline a 

concept of operations using National Guard/Reserve capabilities. It did not 

address key questions of integration, command and control, and the 

division of tasks between National Guard resources under state control 

and federal resources under U.S. Northern Command’s control. Moreover, 

the functional plan did not establish time frames for the response. 

Functional Plan 2501, created in 1997, was written without the benefit of 

numerous strategies, directives, and publications that directly bear upon 

military support to civil authorities. For example, the 2005 DOD Strategy 

for Homeland Defense and Civil Support identified the need for improved 

communications capabilities in domestic incidents, but Functional Plan 

2501 does not specifically address this issue. Furthermore, the strategy 

Page 17 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
National Guard Plans Were 

Also Inadequate 

envisions effective surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities in support 

of homeland defense operations and again, the functional plan does not 

sufficiently address this capability. In contrast, the Northern Command 

has more detailed and operationally specific plans for other homeland 

defense missions, like its response missions following a terrorist attack. 

Understandably, development of these plans was given priority after the 

terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. While specifics about these plans 

are classified for national security reasons, DOD officials told us that many 

of the capabilities and procedures used in these plans could be adopted 

for civil support operations conducted after natural disasters. 

Two related problems were evident with respect to the National Guard’s 

planning prior to Katrina. First, the National Guard Bureau and Northern 

Command had not planned a coordinated response. Second, at the state 

level, the plans of the National Guard in Louisiana and Mississippi were 

inadequate for a catastrophic natural disaster. 

The National Guard civil support plans were not integrated with DOD’s 

Functional Plan 2501. While the Chief of the National Guard Bureau does 

not have operational control of National Guard personnel in the states and 

territories, he does have overall responsibility for military support to civil 

authorities programs in the National Guard. However, the bureau had not 

coordinated in advance with the governors and adjutants general in the 

states and territories to develop plans to provide assistance for 

catastrophic disasters across the country. Specifically, the bureau had not 

identified the types of units that were likely to be needed during a 

catastrophe or worked with the state governors and adjutants general to 

develop and maintain a list of National Guard units from each state that 

would likely be available to meet these requirements during catastrophic 

natural disasters. In addition, the Northern Command and the National 

Guard Bureau had not planned which disaster response missions would be 

handled by National Guard members and which would be handled by 

reservists and active component members. 

Prior to Katrina, the Mississippi and Louisiana National Guard plans were 

not synchronized with DOD’s plans, and they were also inadequate for a 

catastrophe of Katrina’s magnitude. Like DOD’s Functional Plan 2501, the 

Mississippi and Louisiana National Guard plans were adequate for smaller 

disasters but insufficient for a catastrophe, and did not adequately account 

for the outside assistance that could be needed during a catastrophe. For 

example, Joint Forces Headquarters Louisiana modified its plan and 

reassigned disaster responsibilities when thousands of Louisiana National 

Page 18 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Exercise Programs Did 

Not Adequately Test 

Disaster Plans 

Guard personnel were mobilized for federal missions prior to Hurricane 

Katrina. However, the Louisiana plan did not address the need to bring in 

thousands of military troops from outside the state during a catastrophe. 

Similarly, Mississippi National Guard officials told us that even their 1969 

experience with Hurricane Camille, a category 5 storm that hit the same 

general area, had not adequately prepared them for a catastrophic natural 

disaster of Katrina’s magnitude. For example, the Mississippi National 

Guard disaster plan envisioned the establishment of commodity 

distribution centers but it did not anticipate the number of centers that 

could be required in a catastrophic event or following a nearly complete 

loss of infrastructure. 

Disaster plans had not been tested and refined with a robust exercise 

program. The Homeland Security Council has issued 15 national planning 

scenarios—including a major hurricane scenario—that provide the basis 

for disaster exercises throughout the nation. While DOD sponsors or 

participates in no less than two major interagency field exercises per year, 

few exercises led by the Department of Homeland Security or DOD 

focused on catastrophic natural disasters and none of the exercises called 

for a major deployment of DOD capabilities in response to a catastrophic 

hurricane. According to DOD officials, DOD has been involved in only one 

catastrophic hurricane exercise since 2003—Unified Defense 2004. This 

exercise, which simulated a nuclear detonation along with a category 4 

hurricane, revealed problems with situational awareness and operational 

control of forces that still had not been resolved when Katrina made 

landfall in August 2005. In addition, although DOD has periodically held 

modest military support to civil authorities exercises, the exercises used 

underlying assumptions that were unrealistic in preparing for a 

catastrophe. For example, DOD assumed that first responders and 

communications would be available and that the transportation 

infrastructure would be navigable in a major hurricane scenario. Finally, 

the First U.S. Army conducted planning and exercises in response to six 

hurricanes in 2005. These exercises led to actions, such as the early 

deployment of Defense Coordinating Officers, which enhanced disaster 

response efforts. However, DOD’s exercise program was not adequate for 

a catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina’s magnitude. 

As a result of the inadequate plans and exercises, when Hurricane Katrina 

struck, a lack of understanding existed within the military and among 

federal, state, and local responders as to the types of assistance and 

capabilities that the military might provide, the timing of this assistance, 

Page 19 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
The Military’s 

Response to 

Hurricane Katrina 

was Massive but 

Faced Several 

Challenges 

and the respective contributions of the National Guard and federal military 

forces. 

Even though there was a lack of detailed planning, the military mounted a 

massive response to Hurricane Katrina that saved many lives and greatly 

assisted recovery efforts, but several factors affected this response. During 

the response to Katrina, a number of interrelated factors affected the 

military’s ability to leverage its resources to gain situational awareness and 

effectively organize and execute its response efforts. Some factors that 

affected the military response were: a lack of timely damage assessments, 

communications difficulties, problems integrating the use and capabilities 

of active-duty and National Guard forces, uncoordinated search and 

rescue efforts, and challenges with the significant logistics functions that 

FEMA unexpectedly turned over to DOD. 

The Military Response Was 

Massive 

The military response to Hurricane Katrina reached more than twice the 

size of the military response to the catastrophic Hurricane Andrew in 1992. 

Military officials began tracking Hurricane Katrina when it was an 

unnamed tropical depression and took steps to proactively respond as the 

storm strengthened to a category 5 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Prior 

to landfall, anticipating the disruption and damage that Hurricane Katrina 

could cause, the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi activated their 

National Guard units. In addition, National Guard officials in Louisiana 

and Mississippi began to contact National Guard officials in other states to 

request assistance. By the time Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005, 

the military was positioned to respond with both National Guard and 

federal forces. For example, commands had published warning and 

planning orders and DOD had already deployed Defense Coordinating 

Officers to all the potentially affected states. After landfall, the governors 

and National Guard officials in Louisiana and Mississippi requested 

additional support from other states. The governor of Louisiana also 

requested federal military assistance to help with response and recovery 

efforts. 

Figure 1 shows the buildup of forces as the military supported response 

and recovery operations with engineering, communication, and military 

police units as well as helicopter search-and-rescue and ship crews, and 

personnel with many other critically needed capabilities. Active-duty 

forces were alerted prior to landfall and the initial buildup of active-duty 

forces shown in figure 1 reflects the deployment of key active-duty 

capabilities such as aviation, medical, and engineering forces. Growing 

Page 20 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
concerns about the magnitude of the disaster prompted DOD to deploy 

large active-duty ground units beginning on September 3, 2005, 5 days after 

Katrina’s landfall. 

0 

10,000 

20,000 

30,000 

40,000 

50,000 

60,000 

70,000 

Figure 1: Buildup of Military Forces Supporting Hurricane Katrina Operations 

Number of troops 

Thu 

Fri 

Sat 

Sun 

Mon 

Thu 

Fri 

Sat 

Sun 

on

Sun 

Mon 

d 

ed

e 

d 

e 

e

u

e

u

e

u

 T

 W

 T

 W

T

 W

 M

Sep 2,

Sep 3,

Sep 9,

Sep 10,

Sep 6,

Sep 13,

g 30,

Sep 1,

Sep 4,

Sep 8,

Sep 11,

g 28,

Sep 5,

Sep 12,

g 29,

Sep 7,

Sep 14,

u

g 31,

u

u

A

u

A

A

A

Active duty 

National Guard 

Source: GAO analysis of DOD data. 

Figure 1 also indicates that the military response, which began prior to 

Katrina’s landfall on August 29, 2005, peaked at more than 70,000 troops— 

over 50,000 National Guard and over 20,000 active federal personnel. This 

reliance on the National Guard was based on DOD’s Strategy for 

Homeland Defense and Civil Support, which was issued in June 2005. The 

strategy called for a focused reliance on the National Guard and Reserves 

for civil support missions because, among other things, they have key civil 

support capabilities and are located in 3,200 communities throughout the 

nation. The reliance on the National Guard and Reserves represents a 

departure from past catastrophes when active-duty forces played a larger 

Page 21 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
role in the response. For example, during the military response to 

Hurricane Andrew, the National Guard provided less than 20 percent of 

the more than 30,000 military responders. 

Most of the National Guard response to Hurricane Katrina came from 

outside Louisiana and Mississippi, with the National Guard Bureau acting 

as a conduit to communicate requirements for assistance in Louisiana and 

Mississippi to the adjutants general in the rest of the country. The 

adjutants general of other states, with the authorization of their state 

governors, then sent their National Guard troops to Louisiana and 

Mississippi under emergency assistance agreements between the states. 

Requirements for out-of-state National Guard or federal assistance were 

increased because thousands of National Guard personnel from 

Mississippi and Louisiana were already mobilized for other missions and 

thus unavailable when Hurricane Katrina struck their states. The National 

Guard troops that had been mobilized from within the affected states were 

able to quickly deploy to where they were needed because they had 

trained and planned for disaster mobilizations within their states. The 

deployment of out-of-state forces, though quick when compared to past 

catastrophes, took longer because mobilization plans were developed and 

units were identified for deployment in the midst of the crisis. By Monday, 

September 5, 2005 (a week after Katrina made landfall), over 13,800 out-ofstate National Guard troops were in Louisiana assisting with response and 

recovery efforts. However, when the Superdome bus evacuations began on 

Thursday, September 1, 2005, only about 1,600 out-of-state National Guard 

troops were in Louisiana, fewer than the number of Louisiana National 

Guard members who were mobilized for other missions and unavailable 

when Katrina made landfall. At the peak of the military’s response, nearly 

40,000 National Guard members from other states were supporting 

operations in Louisiana and Mississippi—an unprecedented domestic 

mobilization. 

In the days after the hurricane passed, considerable confusion surrounded 

the employment of military support and many questioned why more 

federal ground troops were not sent sooner. According to senior DOD 

officials involved in executing DOD’s response to Katrina, DOD was aware 

that the situation warranted significant military support and they noted 

that the department took steps to proactively deploy federal military 

capabilities from all the services to the region. For example, DOD 

deployed a joint task force, medical personnel, helicopters, ships from 

Texas, Virginia, and Maryland, and construction battalion engineers. Many 

of these capabilities were providing assistance or deploying to the area 

within hours of Katrina’s landfall. Given the current DOD homeland 

Page 22 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Several Factors Affected 

the Military Response 

Comprehensive Damage 

Assessments Were Not 

Completed Promptly 

defense strategy, which calls for “focused reliance” on the reserve 

components for civil support missions, DOD officials told us that they also 

began working with the National Guard Bureau to ensure the mobilization 

of National Guard forces from across the country. As the situation 

unfolded during the week, concerns about the magnitude of the disaster 

led to discussions about the need to deploy additional active-duty forces to 

supplement the National Guard forces. After visiting the region and 

meeting with the Louisiana Governor on Friday, September 2, 2005, the 

President, on the next day, ordered the deployment of over 7,000 activeduty ground troops to the region. 

Data concerning the military response were not always fully documented 

in the midst of the Hurricane Katrina crisis, but it is clear that the military 

had a huge impact on response and recovery operations. Data from the 

active-duty military task force that headed the federal response indicate 

that the military 

• flew thousands of helicopter sorties, rescuing tens of thousands of 

people and carrying thousands of tons of cargo, including sandbags to 

repair breeches in the levees around New Orleans; 

• delivered millions of meals ready to eat, gallons of water, and pounds 

of ice; 

• searched hundreds of thousands of houses in the affected regions; 

• provided medical treatment to tens of thousands of civilians; and 

• conducted mosquito spraying missions over more than 1 million acres. 

Despite the significant contribution of its massive response, a number of 

interrelated factors affected the military’s ability to leverage its resources 

to gain situational awareness and effectively organize and execute its 

response efforts. Without detailed plans to address each of the following 

factors, the military risks being unprepared for the next catastrophe that 

strikes the United States. 

Hurricane Katrina response efforts were hampered by the federal 

government’s failure to fully use its available assets to conduct timely, 

comprehensive damage assessments in Louisiana and Mississippi. The 

failure to quickly assess damage and gain situational awareness had also 

been a problem during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The NRP notes that 

following a disaster, state and local governments are responsible for 

conducting initial damage assessments, but it also notes that state and 

local officials could be overwhelmed in a catastrophe. The NRP addresses 

Page 23 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Communications Difficulties 

Affected the Military Response 

this incongruous situation, where state and local officials who may be 

overwhelmed have critical functions to perform during the initial stages of 

disaster recovery efforts, by stating that the federal government should 

provide a proactive response when state and local officials are 

overwhelmed during a catastrophe. However, the NRP does not specify 

the proactive means or capabilities the federal government should use to 

conduct damage assessments and gain situational awareness when the 

responsible state and local officials are overwhelmed. 

The military has significant capabilities to conduct damage assessments 

using reconnaissance aircraft and satellite imagery, but our analysis shows 

that neither the NRP nor DOD’s Functional Plan 2501 specifically called 

for the proactive use of these assets to meet the NRP catastrophic incident 

annex’s requirement for a proactive response to catastrophic incidents. In 

addition, DOD did not initially receive significant requests for these 

capabilities. At FEMA’s request, DOD initially provided three helicopters 

to assist in damage assessments. About 4 days after Katrina’s landfall, the 

military began providing imagery data from some of its reconnaissance 

assets to its forces and civilian agencies. However, the process for sharing 

information proved difficult for several reasons. Some information was 

classified due to its source and could not be shared directly with civilian 

agencies. In addition, some agencies were not able to access some of the 

available information because the data files were too large to download to 

the agency computers. A National Guard Hurricane Katrina after-action 

review reported that the adjutants general (in Mississippi and Louisiana) 

required real time imagery that the military community should have been 

able to provide, but did not. 

Because state and local officials were overwhelmed and the military’s 

extensive reconnaissance capabilities were not effectively leveraged as 

part of a proactive federal effort to conduct timely, comprehensive 

damage assessments, the military began organizing and deploying its 

response without fully understanding the extent of the damage or the 

required assistance. According to military officials, available 

reconnaissance assets could have provided additional situational 

awareness. In contrast, DOD officials told us that almost immediately after 

Hurricane Rita struck Louisiana and Texas in September 2005, 

considerable surveillance assets were made available to assess damage, 

primarily because of lessons learned from Katrina. 

Hurricane Katrina caused significant damage to the communication 

infrastructure in Louisiana and Mississippi, which further contributed to a 

lack of situational awareness for military and civilian officials. Katrina 

Page 24 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
destroyed or severely degraded many commercial landline and cellular 

telephone systems, and emergency radio systems were oversubscribed, 

making it difficult to establish necessary connections between officials 

and responders at the local, state, and federal levels. As a result, it was 

difficult for officials to gain situational awareness. Even when local 

officials were able to conduct damage assessments, the lack of 

communications assets caused delays in the transmitting of the results of 

the assessments. Communications problems, like damage assessment 

problems, have been long-standing problems that were also highlighted 

following Hurricane Andrew in 1992. 

The military, other agencies, and public companies all have extensive 

communications assets and capabilities, but the Department of Homeland 

Security16 has responsibility for coordinating the communications portion 

of disaster response operations under the NRP. However, neither the NRP, 

the Department of Homeland Security, nor DOD fully identified the 

extensive military communication capabilities that could be leveraged as 

part of a proactive federal response to a catastrophe. In addition, DOD’s 

emergency response plan, Functional Plan 2501, addressed internal 

military communications requirements, but it did not address the 

communication requirements of communities affected by a catastrophic 

natural disaster. It also did not address coordination with civilian 

responders. Typically, military equipment cannot communicate with 

civilian police, fire, and emergency medical systems unless it is augmented 

with specialized equipment. While the military and civilian agencies 

deployed mobile communication vans that were able to connect different 

communications systems that are normally incompatible, the placement of 

these vans was not coordinated and some areas had multiple systems 

while other areas had no systems at all. Because state and local officials 

were overwhelmed and the Department of Homeland Security and DOD 

waited for requests for assistance rather than deploying a proactive 

response, some of the military’s available communication assets were 

never requested or deployed. 

In addition to the coordination challenges, communications challenges 

arose within the military response. Some deployed National Guard assets 

were underutilized because the states that sent the assets placed 

restrictions on their use. The equipment was sent solely to support the 

 Department of Homeland Security/Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection/ 

National Communications System. 

Page 25 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 

16
The Military Encountered 

Problems Integrating Its 

Response 

sending states’ units and thus was unavailable for priority use. As a result, 

a number of mobile communications vans were collocated at a single site 

while other areas remained without communications. In addition, some 

National Guard responders were short of equipment. For example, one 

National Guard unit deployed to the area of operations with only 5 percent 

of its communications personnel and 50 percent of its communication 

equipment. As a result of these problems, military forces lacked good 

communication between headquarters units and troops on the ground. 

While subordinate military commanders are trained to complete their 

missions even when they do not have communications with their 

headquarters, this lack of communication made it difficult for senior 

military leaders to determine which missions had been completed, which 

were still ongoing, and what new missions may have surfaced. 

The integration of the military response to Hurricane Katrina was affected 

by inadequate planning and by a key mobilization statute that limited 

DOD’s reserve component members from being involuntarily ordered to 

active duty for disaster response. The military did not adequately plan for 

the integration of large numbers of deployed troops from different 

commands during disaster response operations. For example, a Louisiana 

plan to integrate military responders from outside the state called for the 

reception of not more than 300 troops per day. However, in the days 

following Hurricane Katrina, more than 20,000 National Guard members 

from other states arrived in Louisiana to join the response effort, and on 

one single day—September 5, 2005—more than 8,500 National Guard 

members from other states arrived in Louisiana to join the Katrina 

response effort. 

One critical issue that needs to be resolved in any large, integrated 

operation is the decision concerning command and control of the forces. 

This issue had not been resolved prior to Hurricane Katrina and was a 

subject of discussion during the critical first days after Katrina made 

landfall. Ultimately, the military took a pragmatic approach to deconflict 

the operation with separate active-duty and National Guard chains of 

command. The federal forces—the active component and mobilized 

Reserve volunteers—were under the command and control of Northern 

Command’s Joint Task Force-Katrina, while the National Guard forces, 

including those from other states, were under the command and control of 

the governors in Mississippi and Louisiana. While response operations 

were coordinated across the several chains of command, they were not 

integrated, which led to some inefficiencies and duplication of effort. For 

example, many responding military units from outside the states were 

assigned missions within established geographic boundaries, but the 

Page 26 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard units had functional missions 

that cut across these geographic boundaries. Furthermore, in New 

Orleans, the geographic boundaries were not the same as the city district 

boundaries. This made coordination with local responders more difficult. 

Despite the lack of prior planning to address integration issues, many 

efforts were made to integrate the response. For example, active military 

representatives were assigned to state emergency operations centers and 

the commander of the active forces traveled daily throughout the affected 

region coordinating and collaborating with National Guard, and federal, 

state, and local civilian officials. 

Because the military had not specifically planned nor decided which parts 

of the military response would be handled by the National Guard and 

which parts would be handled by the active component and mobilized 

reservists, many of the force flow decisions and integration efforts were ad 

hoc in the midst of the crisis. Because military plans and exercises had not 

provided a means for integrating the response, no one had the total picture 

of the forces on the ground, the forces that were on the way, the missions 

for which forces had been allocated, and the missions that still needed to 

be done. For example, National Guard commanders in Mississippi and 

Louisiana were not prepared to receive the division headquarter elements 

that were sent from Indiana and Kansas to command the out-of-state 

National Guard forces that were arriving in the two states from around the 

country. 

A key mobilization statute17 also affected the integration of the military 

response. Title 10 of the United States Code currently limits a unit or 

member of a reserve component from being involuntarily ordered to 

federal active duty for disaster response. While this restriction applies to 

both National Guard and Reserve forces, National Guard forces were 

mobilized under both state active duty and Title 32 for Hurricane Katrina. 

No similar provisions exist to specifically mobilize Reserve forces for 

disaster response, although it is conceivable that if the President declares 

a national emergency, reserve component forces could become available 

for involuntary activation. As a result, all the Reservists who responded to 

Hurricane Katrina were volunteers, and Reservists constituted a relatively 

small portion of the response when compared to the National Guard and 

active component portions of the response. 

 10 U.S.C. §12304. 

Page 27 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 

17
Search and Rescue Plans and 

Efforts Were Not Coordinated

If the military continues to rely on Reserve volunteers it will have difficulty 

fully executing DOD’s 2005 civil support strategy that calls for a focused 

reliance on both the National Guard and the Reserves. 18 The strategy notes 

that the National Guard is particularly well suited for civil support 

missions because it is routinely exercised with local law enforcement and 

first responders, experienced in supporting neighboring communities in 

times of crisis, and accessible in state active duty and Title 32 status. 

However, the strategy also emphasizes the use of the Reserves for 

domestic missions. The strategy specifically states that “the nation needs 

to focus particular attention on better using the competencies of National 

Guard and Reserve” organizations, and notes that Reserve forces currently 

provide many key capabilities. The process of lining up volunteers can be 

time-consuming and is more appropriate for mobilizing individuals than it 

is for mobilizing entire units or capabilities that may be needed during a 

catastrophe. 

In 1993, after Hurricane Andrew, the military was facing a drawdown in 

force size and increasing mission requirements, and we issued two reports 

related to disaster assistance that addressed the Title 10 limitation. One of 

the reports19 said that, to improve DOD’s response to catastrophic events, 

the Congress may want to consider amending Title 10 of the United States 

Code to allow reserve component units to be involuntarily activated to 

provide disaster assistance. Such a change would have provided DOD with 

more flexibility in the use of its total force. However, the limitation has 

remained in place. While the mobilization restriction did not limit the 

military’s ability to respond to Hurricane Katrina, it could limit DOD’s 

ability to respond to future catastrophes if large portions of the active-duty 

and National Guard forces are unavailable due to other mission 

requirements. 

While tens of thousands of people were rescued after Katrina through the 

efforts of military, civil government, and private rescuers, the lack of 

clarity in search and rescue plans led to operations that, according to 

aviation officials, were not as efficient as they could have been. The NRP 

18 Department of Defense, Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support, June 2005. 

19 GAO/NSIAD-93-180 noted that the legislative intent of the Title 10 limitation was to 

prevent Reserve personnel from being activated frequently, which could cause problems 

with their employers, but noted that we would expect Reserve units would be activated for 

disaster assistance only when there is a catastrophe. We further stated that any changes to 

the call-up authority may need to consider limitations on the number of units/personnel 

that can be activated as well as the period of activation. 

Page 28 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
addressed only part of the search and rescue mission, and the National 

Search and Rescue Plan had not been updated to reflect the NRP. Under 

the United States National Search and Rescue Plan, which was issued in 

1999, the Coast Guard ordinarily has responsibility for providing or 

arranging maritime search and rescue services, and the Air Force 

ordinarily has responsibility for providing or arranging nonmaritime 

search and rescue services in the continental United States. The plan also 

calls on DOD to support civil search and rescue efforts when the efforts do 

not interfere with DOD’s primary military duties, and it states that DOD 

and Coast Guard commands should provide their facilities for civil search 

and rescue to the fullest extent practicable. While the NRP acknowledges 

the existence of the National Search and Rescue Plan, the NRP does not 

specifically address how the Coast Guard and the Air Force organizational 

responsibilities in the National Search and Rescue Plan coincide with the 

NRP’s urban search and rescue annex. That annex lays out organizational 

responsibilities for search and rescue during a disaster, but it focuses on 

ground rescues. While the NRP includes DOD and the Coast Guard among 

the many supporting agencies, it lists the Department of Homeland 

Security’s Emergency Preparedness and Response and FEMA as the 

primary and coordinating agencies for urban search and rescue. 

As a result of the lack of clear search and rescue guidance, the aviation 

portion of military search and rescue operations was not fully integrated 

with the helicopter search and rescue operations of the Coast Guard and 

other rescuers. At least two different locations were assigning search and 

rescue tasks to military helicopter pilots operating over New Orleans and 

no one had the total picture of the missions that had been resourced and 

the missions that still needed to be performed. In accordance with the 

National Search and Rescue Plan, the Air Force established a Joint Search 

and Rescue Center at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, to manage 

Hurricane Katrina search and rescue missions; however, this center was 

not set up until September 4, 2005, 6 days after Katrina’s landfall. 

Furthermore, the center did not have radar coverage over New Orleans. 

After Katrina made landfall, search and rescue helicopters operating in the 

New Orleans area were receiving their tasks from either the Coast Guard, 

which was based at Belle Chase, Louisiana, or from a task force led by the 

Louisiana National Guard, which was operating at the Superdome. 

According to Louisiana National Guard officials, they worked with the 

Coast Guard to deconflict the aviation operations, but the search and 

rescue efforts that were being directed from the two sites were not 

integrated. For example, some military aircraft received their direction 

from the task for at the Superdome, while others received their direction 

from the Coast Guard or the Joint Task Force that was in command of the 

Page 29 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
DOD Assumed an 

Unanticipated Logistics Role 

active troops on the ground. Neither the Coast Guard nor the Louisiana 

National Guard had visibility of all the aircraft operating over the city of 

New Orleans in the initial days after Katrina made landfall. According to 

military officials, better integration of search and rescue efforts could 

reduce duplications of effort for search and rescue aircraft. 

Another factor that affected the military response was the large and 

unanticipated logistics role it was asked to assume when FEMA became 

overwhelmed. Under the NRP, FEMA is responsible for coordinating 

logistics during disaster response efforts but during Hurricane Katrina, 

FEMA quickly became overwhelmed. Supplies that had been positioned 

prior to Katrina’s landfall were quickly exhausted. As a result, FEMA 

placed orders for more than 9 million meals-ready-to-eat and then, 4 days 

after landfall, asked DOD to assume a significant portion of its logistics 

responsibilities. Specifically, FEMA gave DOD responsibility for 

procurement, transportation, and distribution of ice, water, food, fuel, and 

medical supplies and it authorized DOD to spend up to $1 billion to 

accomplish this mission. According to DOD officials, all of the 9 million 

meals that FEMA had ordered were shipped to the region by September 4, 

2005. However, because FEMA lacked the capability to maintain 

visibility—from order through final delivery—of the supplies and 

commodities it had ordered, DOD had difficulty gaining visibility over the 

supplies and commodities when it assumed FEMA’s logistics 

responsibilities. As a result of its lack of visibility over the meals that were 

in transit, DOD had to airlift 1.7 million meals to Mississippi to respond to 

a request from the Adjutant General of Mississippi, who was concerned 

that food supplies were nearly exhausted. 

We recently issued a report that examined how the food provided by 

foreign nations was managed,20 and we have additional work planned to 

look at the entire logistics process to best determine how the federal 

government can provide support in the future. 

20 GAO, Hurricane Katrina: Comprehensive Policies and Procedures are Needed to 

Ensure Accountability for International Assistance, GAO-06-460 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 

6, 2006). 

Page 30 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
DOD Has Begun 

Taking Actions to 

Address Catastrophic 

Disaster Response 

Problems, Some of 

Which are Complex 

and Long-standing 

DOD is aware of disaster response problems described in this report and is 

beginning to take actions to address the lessons learned from Hurricane 

Katrina and to prepare for the next catastrophic event. The department 

has been conducting its own lessons-learned reviews and is also 

examining the lessons and recommendations in reports from a White 

House review panel, congressional oversight committees, and other 

sources. As a result, DOD is taking some actions to address catastrophic 

disaster response problems. While it is too early to fully evaluate the 

effectiveness of these ongoing and planned actions, many appear to hold 

promise for improving future responses. However, the issues identified 

during the aftermath of Katrina are often complex, cross agency 

boundaries, and are, in some cases, long-standing. Substantial 

improvement to the military’s disaster and catastrophe response will 

require sustained attention from management at the highest levels of DOD 

and from key officials across the government. 

Military Lessons Learned 

Are Emerging 

DOD has collected lessons learned following Hurricane Katrina from a 

variety of sources. Within the department, DOD has a formal set of 

procedures to identify, capture, and share information collected as a result 

of operations in order to enhance performance in future operations. Even 

in the midst of the Hurricane Katrina response operation, officials from 

various military organizations were collecting information on lessons 

learned and this continued well after most operations had ceased. For 

example, communications issues that had surfaced were studied by both 

active and National Guard commands that had responded to Hurricane 

Katrina. DOD also formed a task force to study the response and is 

compiling and analyzing various military and other lesson learned reports 

to help design an improved response to future natural catastrophic events. 

In addition, the DOD Inspector General’s Office and the service audit 

agencies are reviewing aspects of the Hurricane Katrina response. 

Other organizations have also been gathering lessons learned. According 

to DOD officials, they have reviewed White House and congressional 

reports identifying lessons to be applied or challenges to be addressed in 

future response operations. While the assessments were different, many 

common themes emerged and are similar to the issues we describe in this 

report. For example, a February 2006 White House report21 also recognized 

21The White House, The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, 

February 23, 2006. 

Page 31 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
DOD Is Taking Initial Steps 

to Improve Future Military 

Response to Catastrophes 

the significant role that the military plays in catastrophes, and it even 

recommended that DOD work with the Department of Homeland Security 

to identify those extraordinary circumstances when it is appropriate for 

DOD to temporarily lead the federal response. That report also noted the 

lack of a unified command structure for active and National Guard forces 

and suggested that DOD work on ensuring integration of those forces in 

future responses. It further recommended that DOD seek ways to leverage 

Reserve members’ civilian skills in disaster relief efforts. In addition, an 

over 500-page congressional report22 found numerous issues with the 

Katrina response, including the lack of integration of National Guard and 

active-duty forces, which hampered the military response. 

To address the challenges highlighted in these lessons learned reports, 

DOD is currently planning numerous actions to improve its ability to 

respond to a catastrophic event. For example, DOD officials stated that 

the department is currently updating its emergency response plan and 

intends to use a contingency plan rather than a less detailed functional 

plan to guide its military support to civil authority missions. Recognizing 

the urgency of preparing for catastrophic events, the department hopes to 

complete many of its initial steps by June 1, 2006, the start of the next 

hurricane season. Since details about many of the department’s actions 

were still emerging as we completed our review we were unable to fully 

assess the effectiveness of DOD’s actions. However, many actions appear 

to offer promise for improving future responses. Several additional 

examples of DOD’s planned efforts follow. 

• To improve situational awareness and assist in damage assessment 

after a catastrophe, DOD is working on a plan to coordinate and 

synchronize surveillance and reconnaissance requests and assets. 

• To improve integration of responders, DOD is planning several steps, 

including (1) expanding its training programs to accommodate 

planners from other agencies and (2) conducting new homeland 

defense and civil support exercises. 

• To improve coordination between National Guard and active forces, 

and, specifically, avoid duplication of effort by military forces during an 

22 A Failure of Initiative: Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate 

the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, U.S. House of Representatives, 

February 15, 2006. 

Page 32 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Complex and Longstanding Issues Will 

Require Sustained 

Management Attention to 

Resolve 

incident, NGB officials will work with the states to build a database of 

current and planned state-to-state agreements for sharing National 

Guard forces. 

DOD also has an organizational realignment underway that military 

officials believe should improve the response to future disasters and 

catastrophes. This realignment gives a single Army organization, the Fifth 

United States Army, responsibility for domestic disaster response. When 

Katrina made landfall in August 2005, disaster responsibilities within the 

Army were split between two organizations.23 Under the change, the Fifth 

Army becomes a subordinate (U.S. Army, North) to the Northern 

Command and will focus on homeland defense and disaster response. 

According to military officials, Army, North, is establishing two command 

posts that will be capable of deploying within 18 hours as joint task forces 

for catastrophes anywhere in the United States. The command posts will 

be available when Army, North, reaches its full operating capability in 

October, 2006. Furthermore, to improve interagency coordination, 

specially trained defense coordinating elements are being established and 

co-located within each of FEMA’s 10 regional offices. Army, North, also 

has a number of training and planning efforts underway to improve its 

support to civil authorities. 

While DOD’s efforts to address the Katrina lessons learned appear to be 

steps in the right direction, some of the issues DOD is facing are complex 

and long-standing and cut across agency boundaries. As a result, 

substantial improvement will occur only if the actions receive sustained 

management attention at the highest levels, both within DOD and within 

the other responsible agencies. Many of the problems encountered during 

the Katrina response were also reported after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. 

For example, in a 1993 report,24 we found that the practice of assigning 

responsibility for conducting damage assessments to state and local 

officials under the Federal Response Plan25 was not suitable for 

23 The First United States Army had responsibility for responding to hurricanes and other 

disasters in Minnesota and states east of the Mississippi River, including Mississippi, 

Alabama, and Florida. The Fifth United States Army had responsibility for responding to 

hurricanes and other disasters in the remaining states, including Louisiana and Texas. Both 

commands had mobilization and training responsibilities as well. 

24 GAO/NSIAD-93-180. 

25 The Federal Response Plan was issued in 1992 and was replaced by the National 

Response Plan in 2004. 

Page 33 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Conclusions

catastrophic situations and it contributed to the lack of timely damage 

assessments during Hurricane Andrew. Our report also found supply 

distribution delays caused by a lack of visibility over FEMA-ordered 

supplies, and found confusion over the command and control 

relationships, which had not been fully resolved prior to Andrew’s landfall. 

Due to the complexity and long-standing nature of these problems, DOD’s 

planned and ongoing actions must receive sustained top-management 

attention in order to effect needed improvements in the military’s ability to 

support civil authorities. 

Part of DOD’s challenge in moving forward is the complexity of the 

problems, especially given the uncertainty of potential events and the 

sheer number of organizations at all levels of government that are 

involved. Coordinating improvements across the various parts of the 

military, alone, will be a challenge. The National Guard and active-duty 

forces have complicated chains-of-command, especially in peacetime 

when the National Guard typically serves the state governors. Other issues 

require close coordination with state and local governments. For example, 

conducting damage assessments, a critical early step in developing an 

appropriate response to an event, can involve many different agencies at 

all levels of government. Damage assessments are normally to be 

conducted by local or state officials during a disaster. However, local and 

state officials who are overwhelmed in a catastrophe are unlikely to be 

able to conduct timely and comprehensive damage assessments. 

Paradoxically, without timely, comprehensive damage assessments federal 

responders may not realize the extent to which local and state official are 

overwhelmed. While the issues are complex, they are also urgent, and 

experience has illustrated that the military has critical and substantial 

capabilities that are needed in the wake of catastrophic events. 

Clearly, Hurricane Katrina was one of the most devastating natural 

disasters in our nation’s history, and because of its size and strength, it will 

have long-standing effects for years to come. By their nature, major 

catastrophic events involve extraordinary levels of casualties, damage, or 

disruption that will likely immediately overwhelm state and local 

responders—circumstances that make sound planning for catastrophic 

events all the more crucial. Prior disasters and the actual experience of 

Hurricane Katrina show that the military is likely to contribute substantial 

support to state and local authorities. More detailed planning would 

improve officials’ understanding of the support the military could be 

expected to provide following a catastrophic incident, including the types 

of capabilities that might be provided, the actions that might be taken 

Page 34 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Recommendations for 

Executive Action 

proactively and in response to specific requests, and the integrating of the 

National Guard and active-duty response. Further, while the limited 

participation of Reserve members after Katrina did not affect response 

efforts, under current law, DOD’s ability to respond to future catastrophes 

may be limited if it cannot involuntarily mobilize reserve component 

members—particularly if large portions of the active and National Guard 

forces are unavailable due to other mission requirements. The devastation 

of Katrina and the issues it revealed serve as a warning that actions are 

needed to clearly identify the military capabilities that will be required 

from the National Guard, Reserve, and active forces as part of a proactive 

federal response following a catastrophic natural disaster. Without urgent 

and detailed attention to improve planning, the military and federal 

government risk being unprepared for the next catastrophe. 

We recommend that DOD take the following four actions: 

First, given the expected heavy reliance on the military during 

catastrophes, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense provide the 

Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security with proposed 

revisions to the NRP that will fully address the proactive functions the 

military will be expected to perform during a catastrophic incident, for 

inclusion in the next NRP update. 

Second, in view of the fast approaching 2006 hurricane season and other 

natural and man-made threats that could result in a catastrophe at any 

instant, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense establish milestones 

and expedite the development of detailed plans and exercises to fully 

account for the unique capabilities and support that the military is likely to 

provide to civil authorities in response to the full range of domestic 

disasters, including catastrophes. The plans and exercises should 

specifically address the 

• use of reconnaissance capabilities to assess damage, 

• use of communications capabilities to facilitate support to civil 

authorities, 

• integration of active component and National Guard and Reserve 

forces, 

• use of search and rescue capabilities and the military’s role in search 

and rescue, and 

• role the military might be expected to play in logistics. 

Page 35 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Matter for 

Congressional 

Consideration 

Third, since National Guard troops can join response efforts as part of the 

federal response or as part of the state response under mutual assistance 

agreements, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Chief 

of the National Guard Bureau to work with the state governors and 

adjutants general to develop and maintain a list of the types of capabilities 

the National Guard will likely provide in response to domestic natural 

disasters under state-to-state mutual assistance agreements along with the 

associated units that could provide these capabilities. In addition, we 

recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Chief of the National 

Guard Bureau to make this information available to the Northern 

Command, U.S. Joint Forces Command, and other organizations with 

federal military support to civil authority planning responsibilities. 

Finally, based on the above action by the National Guard Bureau to 

identify the National Guard units that are likely to respond to domestic 

disasters under state-to-state mutual assistance agreements, we also 

recommend that the Secretary of Defense establish milestones and 

identify the types of scalable federal military capabilities and the units that 

could provide those capabilities in response to the full range of domestic 

disasters and catastrophes covered by DOD’s defense support to civil 

authorities plans. 

In a 1993 report26 we suggested that the Congress may want to consider 

removing the statutory restriction on DOD’s authority to involuntarily 

activate Reserve units for catastrophic disaster relief. In view of the 

significant military downsizing that has occurred since we first raised this 

matter and the need to actively engage the total force in order to meet 

missions at home and abroad, we continue to believe that the Congress 

should consider lifting or modifying the mobilization restriction—10 U.S.C. 

§12304 (c)(1)—that limits reserve component participation in catastrophic 

natural disasters. 

Agency Comments In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD stated the report was 

thorough and made a significant contribution to DOD’s plans to improve 

and Our Evaluation the department’s support to civil authorities during domestic disaster 

incidents. In addition to partially concurring with our recommendations, 

DOD’s made several comments about the report that fell into two broad 

26 GAO/RCED-93-186. 

Page 36 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
categories, DOD’s role during domestic disaster response and its preKatrina planning and exercise schedule. 

First, DOD believed the report called for a greater DOD role during 

domestic disaster response but noted that it must strike a balance between 

its warfighting role overseas and the need to support civil authorities at 

home. While DOD said it would continue to work as part of a unified 

interagency effort, it said that the goal is to enhance the domestic disaster 

response capacities of other agencies. Until that goal is achieved, DOD will 

be prepared to respond even more rapidly with more resources to another 

catastrophe in the United States. We recognize the need to balance DOD’s 

overseas warfighting mission and its domestic response missions. In the 

report, we note DOD’s role is primarily that of a supporting agency under 

the NRP, and that the nature of the military response will vary depending 

on the nature of the emergency. However, given the military’s capabilities, 

its response and level of support to civil authorities is likely to be more 

significant during large disasters and catastrophes. 

Second, DOD said that the title of the report is misleading because it does 

not recognize DOD’s extensive planning and exercise schedule prior to 

August 29, 2005, such as specific preparations in response to six 2005 

hurricanes. We added additional information about these efforts. However, 

we continue to believe that the title accurately reflects the report’s 

findings and recommendations. As stated in the report, DOD had 

periodically held modest military support to civil authorities exercises but 

the exercises used underlying assumptions that were unrealistic in 

preparing for a catastrophe. We also note that DOD’s comments 

acknowledge the need to improve its plans and exercises. In fact, DOD’s 

comments acknowledged the need to conduct at least one fully integrated 

major exercise with the Department of Homeland Security each year 

rather than the separate exercises that have been conducted in the past. 

DOD also commented on our four recommendations, partially concurring 

with each of them. With respect to our first recommendation—to revise 

the NRP to fully address the proactive functions that the military will be 

expected to perform during a catastrophic incident—DOD said that 

proactive military functions can be identified in all 15 major disaster 

scenarios and said it is working with the Department of Homeland 

Security to revise the NRP. While DOD stated that the long-term focus of 

the U.S. government should be to develop more robust domestic disaster 

capabilities within the Department of Homeland Security, it acknowledged 

that DOD will need to assume a more robust response role in the interim 

Page 37 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
period, and when other responders lack the resources and expertise to 

handle a particular disaster. 

With respect to our second recommendation that concerned the 

development of detailed plans and exercises, DOD listed a number of steps 

it is taking to improve its disaster response planning and exercises and 

said that consistent with its Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil 

Support the active component should complement, but not duplicate, the 

National Guard’s likely role as an early responder. The DOD comments 

also said that planning and exercises should include local, state, and 

federal representatives and should stress the responders with the highest 

degree of realism possible—to the breaking point if possible. However, the 

comments said that logistics planning and execution is the clear 

responsibility of FEMA and individual states, and DOD would remain 

ready in a supporting role. We agree with DOD that effective disaster plans 

and exercises require stressing scenarios with the active participation of 

representatives from all levels of government. We also agree that FEMA 

and states have logistics responsibilities. However, we continue to believe 

that DOD should plan and prepare to assume additional emergency 

support function responsibilities during catastrophes when other 

responders may be overwhelmed. 

DOD also partially concurred with our third recommendation—that the 

Chief of the National Guard Bureau work with the state governors and 

adjutants general to develop and maintain a list of the types of capabilities 

the National Guard will likely provide in response to domestic natural 

disasters under state-to-state mutual assistance agreements, along with the 

associated units that will provide these capabilities. DOD said that it was 

not feasible to identify the specific units that would provide these 

capabilities and requested that we modify our recommendation to say 

units that “could” provide these capabilities rather than units that “will” 

provide those capabilities. We agree and have adjusted our 

recommendation. In addition, DOD listed steps the U.S. Northern 

Command is taking to better understand the capabilities of National Guard 

units and it stated that the National Guard is creating a database to 

facilitate planning its employment in support of the homeland. As part of 

the database implementation, the National Guard Bureau has identified a 

need to place a contractor in each of its Joint Force Headquarters-State 

locations. 

Finally, DOD partially concurred with our recommendation that it identify 

the types of scaleable federal military capabilities and units that will 

provide those capabilities in response to the full range of domestic 

Page 38 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
disasters and catastrophes covered by DOD’s defense support to civil 

authorities plans. DOD noted that it has developed scalable capability 

packages in conjunction with pre-scripted requests for assistance and 

Northern Command’s Contingency Plan 2501, which is scheduled to be 

signed in the spring of 2006. However, because DOD’s forces can be used 

to meet many different types of missions, DOD requested that we modify 

our recommendation to say identify the types of scaleable federal military 

capabilities and units that “could” (rather than “will”) provide those 

capabilities. We agree and have adjusted our recommendation. 

DOD also provided technical comments, which we incorporated as 

appropriate. DOD’s written comments are reprinted in their entirety in 

appendix III. 

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional 

committees; the Secretary of Defense; the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, 

and Air Force; the Commandant of the Marine Corps; the Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Commander, U.S. Northern Command; the Chief 

of the National Guard Bureau; the Director of the Defense Logistics 

Agency; the Director, Office of Management and Budget; and other 

interested parties. In addition, this report will be available at no charge on 

the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please contact 

me at (202) 512-9619 or pickups@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of 

Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page 

of this report. GAO staff who made major contributors to this report are 

listed in appendix IV. 

Sharon L. Pickup 

Director, Defense Capabilities and Management 

Page 39 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
List of Congressional Committees 

The Honorable John Warner 

Chairman 

The Honorable Carl Levin 

Ranking Minority Member 

Committee on Armed Services 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Susan M. Collins 

Chairman 

The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman 

Ranking Minority Member 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Ted Stevens 

Chairman 

The Honorable Daniel K. Inouye 

Ranking Minority Member 

Subcommittee on Defense 

Committee on Appropriations 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Duncan L. Hunter 

Chairman 

The Honorable Ike Skelton 

Ranking Minority Member 

Committee on Armed Services 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable Tom Davis 

Chairman 

The Honorable Henry A. Waxman 

Ranking Minority Member 

Committee on Armed Services 

House of Representatives 

Page 40 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
The Honorable C. W. Bill Young 

Chairman 

The Honorable John P. Murtha 

Ranking Minority Member 

Subcommittee on Defense 

Committee on Appropriations 

House of Representatives 

Page 41 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Office of The 

Secretary Of Defense 

To address our objectives, we interviewed officials from DOD, the 

National Guard, the military services, and defense agencies that 

participated in the response to Hurricane Katrina. In addition, we 

reviewed military time lines, after-action reports, lessons learned studies, 

briefings, congressional testimonies, and other documents. During our 

review, we met with and obtained information from officials in the 

following organizations. 

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller, Arlington, Va. 

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Arlington, Va. 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of the General Counsel,

Arlington, Va. 

Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy, 

Arlington, Va. 

Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Logistics & Material 

Readiness, Arlington, Va. 

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, Arlington, 

Va. McHale-Mauldin Hurricane Katrina Task Force, Arlington, Va. Joint 

Staff Director of Military Support, National Military Command Center, 

Arlington, Va. 

Defense Logistics Agency, Ft. Belvoir, Va. DOD Agencies Office of the Inspector General, Logistics Management Division, Arlington,

Va.

Defense Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C. 

Commands U.S. Strategic Command, Joint Functional Component Command for 

Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance, Bolling Air Force Base, 

Washington, D.C. 

U.S. Northern Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, 

Colo. 

U.S. Joint Forces Command, Atlantic Fleet Compound, Norfolk, Va. 

U.S. Transportation Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill. 

Page 42 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Military Services 

U.S. Army U.S. Army Forces Command, Headquarters, Fort McPherson, Ga. 

First U.S. Army, Fort Gillem, Ga. 

Fifth U.S. Army/ Army North, Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Tex. 

U.S. Army Reserve Command, Fort McPherson, Ga. 

Surface Distribution and Deployment Command, Alexandria, Va.

2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Tex. 

13th Corps Support Command Fort Hood, Tex. 

82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.

U.S. Navy Fleet Forces Command, Naval Station Norfolk , Norfolk, Va. 

Joint Force Maritime Component Command, Naval Station Norfolk,

Norfolk, Va. 

2nd Fleet, Naval Station Norfolk, Norfolk, Va. 

USS Iwo Jima 

USS Truman

USS Bataan

Military Sealift Command, Washington, D.C. 

First Naval Construction Division, Little Creek Amphibious Base, Norfolk, 

Va.

Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Norfolk, Va. 

U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters Marine Corps Plans, Policies, and Operations Department, 

Arlington, Va. 

Marine Corps Forces Command, Naval Station Norfolk, Norfolk, Va. 

2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C. 

24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Camp Lejeune, N.C. 

U.S. Air Force Operations Group, Arlington, Va. 

National Security Emergency Preparedness, Arlington, Va. 

Joint Force Air Component Command, 1st Air Force, Tyndall Air Force 

Base, 

Panama City, Fla. 

Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill. 

Air Combat Command, Langley Air Force Base, Va. 

Page 43 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Joint Task Force Katrina, New Orleans, La. Task Forces Task Forces Pelican and Eagle, Louisiana National Guard, Camp 

Beauregard, La. 

National Guard National Guard Bureau, Arlington, Va. 

Louisiana National Guard, Baton Rouge, La. 

Louisiana National Guard, Carville, La. 

Assistant Adjutant General, Mississippi Army National Guard, Gulfport,

Miss.

186th Air Refueling Wing, Mississippi Air National Guard, Meridian, Miss. 

172nd Airlift Wing, Mississippi Air National Guard, Jackson, Miss.

Joint Forces Headquarters, Indiana National Guard, Indianapolis, In. 

38th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Indianapolis, In. 

Joint Forces Headquarters, Kansas National Guard, Topeka, Ks. 

35th Infantry Division (Mechanized) Ft. Leavenworth, Ks. 

Joint Force Headquarters, Jackson, Ms. 

To assess the extent to which pre-Katrina plans and training exercises

reflected the military assistance that might be required during a 

catastrophic, domestic, natural disaster, we analyzed planning and 

directive documents related to military support to civil authority, such as 

the Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support, and the Military 

Support27 and Assistance28 to Civil Authorities directives, and state plans. 

In analyzing these documents and others, we determined the extent to

which they addressed a mechanism for the integration of forces and 

established a process to identify and communicate the military capabilities 

available to civil authorities or those that could be sent by DOD following 

a disaster or catastrophic event. We also reviewed after-action reports 

from training exercises to determine whether assumptions for the 

exercises were realistic in light of recent catastrophic disasters, to 

establish the level of military involvement in recent disaster planning 

exercises, and to determine whether the training scenarios exercised 

available military capabilities. We discussed our analysis with officials 

from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland 

Defense, Northern Command, the National Guard Bureau, and others to 

determine the extent to which the directives, plans, and lessons from 

27 DOD Directive 3025.1, Military Support to Civil Authority. 

28 DOD Directive 3025.15, Military Assistance to Civil Authority. 

Page 44 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
29

exercises adequately supported the military’s response to civil authority 

after Hurricane Katrina. 

To examine the support that the military provided in responding to Katrina 

and factors that affected that response, we obtained briefings and reports 

describing the military’s response to Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and 

Mississippi. We compared and contrasted data collected and resolved 

discrepancies through interviews with officials from DOD, state National 

Guard forces, Joint Task Force Katrina, and service, and state officials. We 

specifically examined the time line of the military’s response, the size and 

nature of the forces that responded, and the challenges faced in 

supporting civil authorities. To compare this response to prior military 

responses, accounting for differences in storms, we analyzed testimony 

and reports about the military’s response to other natural disasters.29 We 

analyzed relevant documents and lessons learned reports from the military 

to specifically examine the damage assessment, logistics, communication, 

search and rescue, and security/law enforcement response to determine if 

previously identified concerns had been addressed prior to Hurricane 

Katrina. 

Additionally, to determine what actions, if any, the military is taking to 

address lessons learned from Katrina, we collected and analyzed briefings 

and lessons learned reports from organizations participating in the 

response. We discussed recommended actions from lessons learned 

reports and how the military plans to improve its response to future 

disasters with officials from DOD and the National Guard Bureau. 

 GAO, Disaster Assistance: DOD’s Support for Hurricanes Andrew and Iniki and 

Typhoon Omar, GAO/NSIAD-93-180 (Washington, D.C.: June 18, 1993), Disaster 

Management: Improving the Nation’s Response to Catastrophic Disaster, 

GAO/RCED-93-186 (Washington, D.C.: July 23, 1993), and Disaster Management: Recent 

Disasters Demonstrate the Need to Improve the Nation’s Response Strategy, 

GAO/RCED-93-46 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 27, 1993). 

Page 45 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
We conducted our work from September 2005 through April 2006 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Page 46 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix II: NRP Emergency Support Appendix II: NRP Emergency Support Function Responsibilities

Function Responsibilities 

Supporting 

agencies or 

Emergency support function Primary agencies or organizations organizationsa 

#1- Transportation Department of Transportation DOD and 10 others 

#2- Communications DHS/Information Analysis and Infrastructure DOD and 7 others 

Protection/National Communications System 

#3- Public works and engineering DOD/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers DOD and 16 others 

DHS/Emergency Preparedness and Response/FEMA 

#4- Firefighting Department of Agriculture/Forest Service DOD and 5 others 

#5- Emergency management DHS/Emergency Preparedness and Response/FEMA DOD and 25 others 

#6- Mass care, housing, and human DHS/Emergency Preparedness and Response/FEMA DOD and 15 others 

services American Red Cross 

#7- Resource support General Services Administration DOD and 9 others 

#8- Public health and medical services Department of Health and Human Services DOD and 15 others 

#9- Urban search and rescue DHS/Emergency Preparedness and Response/FEMA DOD and 10 others 

#10- Oil and hazardous materials Environmental Protection Agency DOD and 14 others 

response 

#11- Agriculture and natural resources Department of Agriculture DOD and 12 others 

Department of the Interior 

#12- Energy Department of Energy DOD and 11 others 

#13- Public safety and security DHS DOD and 12 others 

Department of Justice 

#14- Long-term community recovery and Department of Agriculture DOD and 10 others 

mitigation Department of Commerce 

DHS/Emergency Preparedness and Response/FEMA 

Department of Housing and Urban Development 

Department of the Treasury 

Small Business Administration 

#15- External affairs DHS/Emergency Preparedness and Response/FEMA DOD and 25 others 

Source: GAO analysis of the National Response Plan.

DHS = Department of Homeland Security.

FEMA = Federal Emergency Management Agency.

a The Army Corps of Engineers was included with DOD and not counted as a separate agency. 

Page 47 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the Appendix III: Comments From the Department of Defense

Department of Defense 

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear at 

the end of this appendix. 

See comment 1. 

See comment 1. 

Page 48 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

Page 49 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

See comment 1. 

See comment 2. 

Page 50 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

See comment 3. 

See comment 4. 

Page 51 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

See comment 5. 

Page 52 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

Page 53 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

See comment 6. 

See comment 7. 

See comment 8. 

Page 54 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

See comment. 1. 

See comment 9. 

See comment 10. 

See comment 11. 

Page 55 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

See comment 12. 

See comment 13. 

Page 56 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

Page 57 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

See comment 1. 

See comment 14. 

See comment 9. 

See comment 15. 

Page 58 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

See comment 14. 

See comment 12. 

Page 59 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

See comment 16. 

Page 60 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

See comment 17. 

See comment 9. 

Page 61 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

See comment 18. 

See comment 12. 

See comment 19. 

See comment 20. 

Page 62 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

See comment 20. 

See comment 9. 

Page 63 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

The following are GAO’s comments on the Department of Defense letter 

dated May 5, 2006, and its attachments. 

1. See the “Agency Comments and Our Evaluation” section, which begins GAO Comments on page 36. 

2. Many of the actions DOD cites were not completed when we ended 

our review, and several are still not completed, so we cannot evaluate 

their effectiveness. We continue to believe that “DOD is beginning to 

take action” is accurate. 

3. Our report distinguishes between disasters and catastrophes and 

emphasizes the need to plan for extensive use of DOD capabilities 

during catastrophes, when other responders are overwhelmed. Our 

report does not call for expanded use of DOD capabilities during 

disasters. 

4. See the comments on our first recommendation in the “Agency 

Comments and Our Evaluation” section. 

5. See the comments on our second recommendation in the “Agency 

Comments and Our Evaluation” section. 

6. See the comments on our third recommendation in the “Agency 

Comments and Our Evaluation” section. 

7. USTRANSCOM is one of the agencies that would be included in our 

recommendation that the National Guard Bureau make the 

information available to “other organizations with federal military 

support to civil agency planning responsibilities.” 

8. See the comments on our fourth recommendation in the “Agency 

Comments and Our Evaluation” section. 

9. We have addressed this comment in the report. 

10. Our report makes reference to DOD’s use of reconnaissance assets 

during Hurricane Rita. 

11. While we have added additional information about DOD’s integration 

efforts, these additional efforts do not diminish our finding that 

integration problems led to inefficiencies and duplication of effort. 

Page 64 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix III: Comments From the 

Department of Defense 

12. Although aviation officials expressed safety concerns to us, we agree 

that the fact that military search and rescue efforts were conducted 

under extreme conditions without any aviation accidents constitutes a 

considerable accomplishment, so we have revised our search and 

rescue section. 

13. We evaluated these technical comments and incorporated them as 

appropriate. 

14. Our report recognizes that the military forces, which responded to 

Hurricane Katrina, were operating within existing regulatory and 

policy guidelines, such as the NRP, DOD’s Strategy for Homeland 

Defense and Civil Support, and the current mobilization authorities, 

and the report recommends adjustments to some of these guidelines. 

15. The focus of this report was the preparation for and response to 

Hurricane Katrina, not Hurricanes Rita and Wilma. However, where 

appropriate, we have incorporated information about lessons learned 

from Katrina, such as the use of reconnaissance assets to assess 

damage from Hurricane Rita. 

16. We modified the report to show that commands had issued planning 

and warning orders prior to Katrina’s landfall. However, our report 

emphasizes the need for deliberative, advanced planning in addition to 

crisis action planning. 

17. We continue to believe that the solution to long-standing damage 

assessment problems requires military involvement. 

18. The First Army comments provide additional information about the 

aviation picture over New Orleans, but as stated in the report, search 

and rescue tasks were being assigned from two sites that were not 

integrated. This led to some duplication of effort. 

19. Military officials told us that many of their troops worked directly 

with local officials and performed whatever tasks were most needed. 

They said that many of these tasks were not captured in official 

statistics or mission assignments. 

20. We agree that some operational overlap was inevitable, but limitations 

in planning led to inefficiencies and some duplication of effort. 

Page 65 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Appendix IV: 

A

GAO Contact and Staff Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff cknowledgments

Acknowledgments 

Sharon Pickup (202) 512-9619 GAO Contact 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

In addition to the contact named above, the following individuals also 

made contributions to this report: John Pendleton, Assistant Director; 

Krislin Bolling; Ann Borseth; Alissa Czyz; Amy Dingler; Michael Ferren; 

Richard Geiger; Kenya Jones; Tina Kirschbaum; Patricia Lentini; Brian 

Mateja; Thomas Mills; Elizabeth Morris; Robert Poetta; Gina Saylor; 

Natalie Schneider; Frank Smith; Leo Sullivan; and Steve Woods. 

Page 66 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina 
Related GAO Products Related GAO Products 

Preparedness Reserve Forces: Actions Needed to Better Prepare the National Guard for 

Future Overseas and Domestic Missions. GAO-05-21. Washington D.C.: 

November 10, 2004. 

Reserve forces: Observations on Recent National Guard Use in Overseas 

and Homeland Missions and Future Challenges. GAO-04-670T. 

Washington D.C.: April 29, 2004. 

Homeland Defense: DOD Needs to Assess the Structure of U.S. Forces for 

Domestic Military Missions. GAO-03-670. Washington D.C.: July 11, 2003. 

Chemical Weapons: FEMA and Army Must Be Proactive in Preparing 

States for Emergencies. GAO-01-850. Washington D.C.: August 13, 2001. 

Federal Response Military Personnel: Full Extent of Support to Civil Authorities Unknown 

but Unlikely to Adversely Impact Retention. GAO-01-9. Washington D.C.: 

January 26, 2001. 

Military Operations: DOD’s Disaster Relief Assistance in Response to 

Hurricane Mitch. GAO/NSIAD-99-122R. Washington D.C.: March 29, 1999. 

Hurricane Katrina: GAO’s Preliminary Observations Regarding 

Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. GAO-06-442T. Washington D.C.: 

March 8, 2006. 

Command and 

Control 

Disaster Management: Improving the Nation’s Response to Catastrophic 

Disasters. GAO/RCED-93-186. Washington D.C.: July 23, 1993. 

Disaster Management: Recent Disasters Demonstrate the Need to 

Improve the Nation’s Response Strategy. GAO/T-RCED-93-46. Washington 

D.C.: January 27, 1993. 

Disaster Assistance: DOD’s Support for Hurricane Andrew and Iniki 

and Typhoon Omar. GAO/NSIAD-93-180. Washington D.C.: January 18, 

1993. 

Recovery Interagency Contracting: Problems with DOD’s and Interior’s Orders to 

Support Military Operations. GAO/T-RCED-93-46. Washington D.C.: 

January 27, 1993. 

Page 67 GAO-06-643 Hurricane Katrina (350755) 
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