Discussion 5B:The Private Sector and Crisis Emergencies: Wal-Mart and Hurricane Katrina

 Read the article and view the video about the activities of Wal-Mart during Hurricane Katrina. Describe a few of the key activities of the WalMart Corp. in response the difficulties encountered by in interfacing with government agencies.  In your opinion and based on this one case study, do large private corporations have advantages over governments in the response to crisis emergencies? 

 
Organizations in Critical Incidents (Flexibility, Emergence, Creativity and Improvisation
Read or Review

Module 3: Organizations in Critical Incident Response: overview, objectives and the following parts of the commentary:

Part I: Organizations in Incident Response

Disaster Research Center Organizational Typologies
Creativity and Improvisation
Inter-organizational Coordination – Emergent Multi-organizational Networks (EMONS) for Critical Incident Response
Inter-organizational Coordination in Hurricane Katrina

In the UMUC Library: Agility and Discipline: Critical Success Factors for Disaster Response By John R. Harrald The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 604, Shelter from the Storm: Repairing the National Emergency Management System after Hurricane Katrina (Mar., 2006), pp. 256-272 (Pay particular attention to the organization typology – page 268)
Pfeifer, J. (2012). Adapting to Novelty: Recognizing the Need for Innovation and Leadership. WNYF. https://ash.harvard.edu/files/adapting_to_novelty.pdf 
Schiller, K. (2011, May) Disaster Response: Technology Makes a Difference. http://www.infotoday.com/it/may11/Schiller-Disaster-Response.shtml
Kendra, J. & Wachtendorf, T. (2003).Creativity in Emergency Response to the World Trade Center Disaster. In Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, Public Entity Risk Institute, and Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems. http://www.riskinstitute.org/peri/images/file/sept11book_ch5_kendra.pdf
Watch video referred to in this article http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg
Beyond September 11th: An Account of Post-Disaster Research. Special Publication No. 39. Boulder, CO: Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center. Creativity in the 9/11 Response http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/publications/sp/sp39/sept11book_ch5_kendra.pdf
Drabek, T. & McEntire, D. (2002). Emergent Phenomena and Multiorganizational Coordination in Disasters: Lessons from the Research Literature, International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 20(2), 197-224. http://www.ijmed.org/articles/574/download/
Barbaro, M. & Gillis, J. (2005, September 6). Wal-Mart at Forefront of Hurricane Relief. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501598.html
AND http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2005/09/04/media-information-wal-marts-response-to-hurricane-katrina
AND http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TJ7Mkw3rME

Watch: Covella, V. (2011, February 23).  Message Mapping, (linked in commentary or full version here – 41:16 minutes), Homeland Security Research http://vimeo.com/20290221 or article http://www.orau.gov/cdcynergy/erc/content/activeinformation/resources/Covello_message_mapping.pdf