Case Study: Engineering Ethics and the Hurricane Katrina Disaster

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Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Outline:............................................................................................................................................2
Effect of Katrina Hurricane.........................................................................................................2
Formation of Hurricane Katrina external Review Panel.............................................................2
Recommendations about the future:............................................................................................3
Conclusion of the future and corporate responses:......................................................................3
Ethical lessons that can be drawn................................................................................................4
References:......................................................................................................................................5

Topic: Engineering challenges of Katrina- a case study for engineering ethics
Introduction:
The topic for this report is “Engineering challenges of Katrina- a case study for engineering
ethics”. Katrina was a hurricane that hit Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi in August 2005.
This took the life of more than 1000 people, damaged thousands of homes and residential and
non-residential property. This damaged the city of New Orleans most severely which cause loss
of around 100,000 jobs. To review the work of USACE’s interagency Performance Evaluation
Task Force, ASCE created the Hurricane Katrina external review Panel. The report mainly
focused on “what went wrong and why”. The resulting report was a detailed description of the
ethical responsibilities of engineers for the protection of public welfare, health, and safety. The
focus of the paper is to understand the value of engineering ethics with the help of a case study
about hurricane Katrina. The structure of the paper covers several topics which are what was the
effect of Katrina hurricane, a formation of Hurricane Katrina external review Panel,
recommendations about the future, conclusion of the panel and corporate responses.
Outline:
Effect of Katrina Hurricane
In the history of the United States, Hurricane Katrina was one of the disastrous situations. The
uniqueness of this disaster was that it was a result of the failure of engineering related policies.
Design and engineering issues are the main reasons behind the devastating impact of Katrina.
Hurricane Katrina tore along the U.S. Gulf Coast and that cause damage of more than $100
billion. In the city of New Orleans, the destruction was huge and that proved the system was
inadequate to handle the huge storm. Due to the failure within New Orleans engineered hurricane
protection system the event turned into a more severe situation. In that situation, the forensic
investigation uncovered many issues and problems that are related to engineering work
(Newberry, 2019). Some of the issues are faulty assumptions, unanticipated failure modes,
misuse or lack of information, the effect of time, risk perception, the importance of resiliency,
balancing competing interests, etc.

Formation of Hurricane Katrina External Review Panel
On the request of the (USACE) U.S Army Corp of Engineers, Hurricane Katrina External
Review Panel was formed. The objective of this Panel was to review the work of USACE’s
interagency performance evaluation Task Force. The resultant report described the engineers’
ethical responsibilities for the protection of public welfare, health, and safety. The ASCE report
included failures of engineering, Organization, and policy and learned lessons. The panel
declares that due to the underestimation of the strength of soil make levees more susceptible. The
problem was to not satisfy the safety standards in the design of pumps and levees and to
determine and clear communication of the level of the hurricane to the public. The panel
concluded that a single person can not be blamed for this, the failure was a result of decisions
taken by many people. The panel used hindsight to make future recommendations. From the
report of the ASCE, it was clear that Hurricane Katrina was different from the other natural
disasters as it occurs due to the mistake of engineers. It was a result of the failure of engineering
policy.
Analysis
According to the panel, hurricane Katrina occurred due to the underestimation of the strength of
soil that rendered the levees weak. Also, the standards were not fulfilled by the engineers during
the design phase of pumps and levees. Another reason behind this massive destruction was lack
of communication to the public about the level of the hurricane. The management choice and
engineering decisions were questionable. Also, the interfaces between and within the
organizations are inadequate. These all reasons contributed in Hurricane Katrina. This is not a
result of one person’s mistake. It occurred because various inadequate engineering decisions
were taken by multiple people.
Recommendations about the future:
The panel made 10 recommendations that are critical actions that are necessary. These actions
and recommendations are generalized into 4 categories or shifts. These shifts are:
 Repair the protection system of hurricane
 Insist or focus on engineering quality
 Recognize the hurricane protection system management
 Improve and enhance the risk understanding and commitment to safety

The first recommended action is that safety decision should be made by keeping public priorities
in mind, prepare for the future possibility of a hurricane.
The second and third recommendation states that risk estimations should be clear and
quantifiable and communicate them to the public. So that nonexperts can determine the
acceptability or unacceptability of the risk.
Next recommendations set say that a highly qualified or licensed engineer should be appointed
along with the full authority in order to oversee the system. This set of recommendation is
concerned with the replacement of the uncoordinated and haphazard protection system of
Hurricane with a coherent and organized system. The authority should offer good leadership,
segregation of roles and responsibilities, strategic vision, communication, funding prioritization,
maintenance, critical construction coordination, and operations. It is recommended by the panel
that a panel of highly level licensed engineers should be selected to look after the system.
The seventh recommendation of the panel is to make interagency coordination better. The people
who are responsible to maintain the hurricane protection system should coordinate the work and
plans with constructors, system designers and operations to upgrade the inspection, to make sure
that system is ready to handle flood or hurricane (Dyrud, 2014).
Eighth and ninth recommendation of Panel was to upgrade and review the procedures of design.
This is based on the public projects peer review. The panel concluded that this peer review can
help to reduce the amount of destruction of hurricane Katrina.
The final recommendation by the panel is to place safety first which is very essential.
Other recommendations that can be drawn with the case study is that engineers should take care
of the health, safety, and welfare of the public. It is recommended that every project should be
integrated with the man-made and the natural environment. It is recommended that in case of the
low budget, political ramifications and tight time schedule engineers should be strong and never
compromise with public safety.

The conclusion of the future and corporate responses:
The conclusion of the panel was an appeal to a bigger application of first Fundamental Canon of
ASCE’s code of ethics. The code of ethics should be applied to each aspect of the engineer’s task
and work. To the Katrina hurricane supportive corporate was swift. By mid-September 2005,
major corporation donated help of $312 million. Canon 1 offers services to remind the
engineers, the basic roles and responsibilities to maintain safety in all professional duties. It
should be clear what responsibilities professional engineers possess to the community and what
should be done to make the community better and a better place to live. The final objective of
this is the successful assessment of the project team that includes various logistical challenges
Challenges
These challenges define the key failures during the process of federal response to the Katrina
Hurricane. There are the following challenges:
Communication: hurricane Katrina caused the destruction of core communication
infrastructure. The communication plans and assets of the state and local agencies were not
sufficient to immediately respond in the disaster situation. The communication assets were not
fully utilized.
Impact assessment and critical infrastructure: Hurricane Katrina gave a major impact on the
various critical infrastructure mainly the energy field. Shortage of Crude oil and production of
natural gas caused by this. There were 4 problems in this and those were interconnected.
Public communication: The communication system was not proper to flow that information to
the public. Although there was a weather warning system that is connected with the emergency
alert system more efforts and initiatives were required as EAS was not fully utilized by the
officials.
Human services: During the disaster, the capacity of the local and state resources was exceeded.
A proper system was not there to deliver the human services in the situation of disaster.
National preparedness: The system was not able to provide the required framework for the
management of the challenges. 4 critical flaws were identified to in the national preparedness
that is process, control and command structure within the federal government, preparedness
plans knowledge, regional planning, and coordination (Guidotti, 2006).

Strategies to overcome the challenges
 Implement and finalize the national preparedness goal
 ensure the proper organization, training of the executive branch agencies
 laws, plans, policies should be reviewed by the Homeland security that is related to
communication, A national emergency communication strategy should be developed that can
support the communication interoperability and operability.
 Health and human service department should have coordination with the organizations and
departments of the executive branch in order to create a comprehensive, robust and integrated
system that can deliver proper human services in case of disaster (Vanderford, 2007).
 The homeland security department should work with the private sector in a collaborative
manner. The national response plan should be revised and finalization of the national
infrastructure protection plan should immediately measure the disaster impact on the critical
infrastructure.
 An integrated public communication plan should be developed to guide, inform and reassure
the public in case of any disaster.
 Department of Homeland security Region should be developed that is able to coordinate and
manage the preparedness activities.
 The department of Health and human services should be strengthened to rapid respond in
case of disaster.
 Preparedness functions should be synchronized and integrate within the homeland security
department.
 A national reporting system should be established.
 A national disaster response group should be established (Kilpatrick & Dermisi, 2007).
Ethical lessons that can be drawn
Hurricane Katrina was a result of a series of decisions that are faulty and made by the people
who were dealing with the design and management of the system. the combination of this
decision with design flaws will lead to a tragic result. There are some reasons behind the
hurricane Katrina such as wrong calculation of soil strength, nonconservative interpretation of
sample data, faults in the design of the levee system, the wrong height of the levee structure. The
lessons that can be learned from the failure of the levee system of the New Orleans during a
hurricane is that engineers should give priorities to the public welfare, health and safety in the

professional duties (G. Kainer, 2015). Engineers should understand that safety of the public is
dependent on the decisions of the judgment, practices, and decisions of engineers. Engineers
should preserve the interest of people that may be affected by the actions of engineers. It is
important for engineers to recognize ethical measurement. It is clear that the government should
work to revise the existing plans and ensure a functional operation structure and establish an
accountable and clear process for national preparedness efforts. In order to do so, the National
Preparedness Goal should be implemented and finalized.

References:
Newberry, B. (2019). Katrina: Macro-Ethical Issues for Engineers. Science And Engineering
Ethics, 16(3), 535-571. doi: 10.1007/s11948-009-9167-9
Dyrud, M. (2014). Cases for teaching engineering ethics. IEEE Xplore, 18(5), 890-911. doi:
10.1109/FIE.2004.1408693
G. Kainer, H. (2015). The lessons of Katrina. Retrieved from https://www.asce.org/question-of-
ethics-articles/july-2015/
Guidotti, T. (2006). Hurricane Katrina: an American tragedy. Occupational Medicine, 56(4),
222–224. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqj043
Kilpatrick, J., & Dermisi, S. (2007). The Aftermath of Katrina: Recommendations for Real
Estate Research. Ournal Of Real Estate Literature, 15(2), 56-90. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228845011_The_Aftermath_of_Katrina_Recommendat
ions_for_Real_Estate_Research
Vanderford, M. (2007). Kilpatrick, J., & Dermisi, S. (2007). The Aftermath of Katrina:
Recommendations for Real Estate Research. Ournal Of Real Estate Literature, 15(2), 56-90.
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228845011_The_Aftermath_of_Katrina_Recommendat
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https://doi.org/10.1080/00909880601065649