Hurricane Katrina of 2005 was the deadliest hence an emergency medical service response was very important. As a requirement by any organized group that responds to a disaster and provide medical assistance, the emergency Medical services otherwise abbreviated as EMS had to take a lot of precaution in handling the situation (Hogan & Burstein 2007). Emergency medical services are designed to give pre-hospital and in hospital treatment to victims of a disaster just like the hurricane Katrina.
The treatment is to help the victims (ill or Injured) to reach the hospital and get the proper treatment that would enable them to attain the physical capabilities they had before the emergencies. Emergency Medical service is the total combination of services and equipment that help provide medical assistance to the victims, it includes, ambulances, paramedics and other first aid providers like the Red Cross (Hogan & Burstein 2007).
The hurricane Katrina victims greatly benefited from the services by the EMS but the service was challenged by some operational problems that need to be improved. Making comparison with the situation in 2001 when the world trade centre was bombed, the performance of the emergency service providers was quite improved in 2005 Katrina disaster. This improvement could have resulted from the lesson learnt from the previous. The Response to Katrina
The national response plan of the United States identifies the response to any disaster incidence as the responsibility of the local government. Incase the local government runs out of their resources, they can then request assistance from the county level and similarly the request proceeds to the federal government. Some disaster management of Katrina started some time before the hurricane especially by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Other outstanding assistance teams were the coast guard which rescued over 33,000 people stranded in New Orleans, and the armed forces service (Brinkley 2005). The United States Northern command came up with a combined coordination program that helped to control and manage the operation of the Shelby camp in Mississippi. The joint task forces acted as a military on scene command and close to 60,000 security personnel were enlisted to deal with the aftermath of the storm. The troops were drawn from all over the 50 states of the united state.
Most of the assistance that was provided by the government was not an immediate one though it was of great importance to the survival of the victims. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provided help to house more than 700,000 house hold who had been left without homes. It also paid hotel residence for other 12,000 individuals and families. Law enforcement and public safety agencies have also played a crucial role after the disaster especially in Louisiana and some parts of New Orleans by providing man power and equipment for house constructions (Brinkley 2005)…