1. The role that the National, State, and Local Governments have in preventing, mitigating, and reacting to Hurricane Katrina included being prepared for such an event. They each had their own duties such as the local government should have been able to help citizens evacuate much quicker; transportation should have been ready for everyone. The state government's responsibility included actions such as being able to contact the national government and make them aware of this major crisis (in case they weren't aware of it!!!) and state government should have also let the national government exactly what they are in need of. State government should also have had more rescue teams ready. While the national government should have responded to this crisis much faster. They should've sent troops, transportation, and they should have been prepared with an evacuation plan. In fact, the national government should have made sure that everything was working properly and all plans were being carried out.
2. I believe that once the lowest level of government fails to aid one in need, then the possibilities of higher levels of government to make a mistake increases. In my opinion all levels of government were not ready to respond to Hurricane Katrina. For instance, the local government failed at providing transportation. The local government should have been able to evacuate the city, but due to the fact that they did not have transportation, many people were hopeless of being rescued. However, they did contact the national government as soon as they could, so in that case something right was done. The state government reacted very slowly to what was occurring. The state government failed to communicate with the local government and did not follow up on anything as things were happening; they honestly didn't seem to have done anything. The federal government was not able to have FEMA work quicker. Once again, reaction was very slow and it took them a couple of days to respond and have all the neccesary transportation. It took five days before anyone had water! Mistakes that happened involved FEMA requesting ambulances that do not exist. It took the National Guard arrived two days after they were requested. What happened throughout all of this is that communication did not exist. One mistake lead to another and no one was prepared for Hurricane Katrina although they knew the amount of damage that this hurricane could have.
3. I believe that the federal government should only be involved when it is truly needed. For instance, they cannot continue to respond to every single natural disaster. The public has to understand that the federal government cannot always be there, however, the local and state governments should be very prepared. If help is needed there should never be any hesitation on contacting the federal government, but it should be "emergencies only." Time, effort, and money cannot be spent without any consideration. If the federal government was involved in every natural disaster, imagine how overworked the employees feel and the amount of stress they are under. Communication between these three levels of government could always improve and that is something that they must work on. As long as they all work together, there shouldn't be a reason to why everyone isn't aided when necessary.