The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Dissertations Fall 12-2007 THE NEW ORLEANS POLICE EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA: A CASE STUDY Michael Peter Wigginton Jr. University of Southern Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations Part of the Emergency and Disaster Management Commons, Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons, Policy History, Theory, and Methods Commons, Social Welfare Commons, and the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Recommended Citation Wigginton, Michael Peter Jr., "THE NEW ORLEANS POLICE EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA: A CASE STUDY" (2007). Dissertations. 1343. https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/1343 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The University of Southern Mississippi THE NEW ORLEANS POLICE EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA: A CASE STUDY by Michael Peter Wigginton, Jr. A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Studies Office of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved: December 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. COPYRIGHT BY MICHAEL WIGGINTON, JR. 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The University of Southern Mississippi THE NEW ORLEANS POLICE EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA: A CASE STUDY by Michael Peter Wigginton Jr. Abstract of a Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Studies Office of the University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT THE NEW ORLEANS POLICE EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA: A CASE STUDY By Michael Wigginton, Jr. December 2007 On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, a category 3 storm, with sustained winds of one hundred and twenty miles per hour and a twenty-eight foot tidal surge, roared into the city of New Orleans. The tidal surge caused several breeches in the levee system, which resulted in the flooding of eighty percent of the city. This disastrous storm debilitated the entire criminal justice system. This research project is a case study that will explore the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) emergency response to Hurricane Katrina. While this exploratory study has no formal hypothesis, it seeks to examine the relationship between the independent variables, identified as: training, communications, leadership, higher education, and hiring standards, and the dependent variable which has been identified as the NOPD emergency response to Hurricane Katrina. In this study, structured interviews served as the primary source of data and the participants were asked 15 significant questions. The personal interviews revealed that there is a significant relationship between training, communications, leadership and hiring standards and police performance during critical situations such as a natural disaster. However, the participants indicated that police experience was more important to police performance than a higher education. In addition, this study revealed that training and proper emergency planning are vital to any police emergency response to a critical situation. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to all individuals who assisted me in conducting this study. Special thanks are given to Dr. Thomas Payne for serving as my committee chair. I would like to personally thank Dr. Philip Carlan for providing me with the necessary skills needed for my success. Thanks are also given to Dr. Donald Cabana, Dr. Lisa Nored, and my good friend and mentor, Dr. Joseph Molyneux. I am extremely grateful to NOPD Captain Juan Quinton (Chief of Staff) and Warren Riley (NOPD Superintendent) for their assistance in conducting this study. In addition, I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to the NOPD officers who participated in this study. Their cooperation and candor during the interview process were vital to the integrity of the study. In addition, I commend those NOPD officers who remained on the job and served admirably during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina under extremely adverse conditions. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT............................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................................................iii LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................................ vi CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................1 Statement of the Problem Purpose of the Study Hypothesis Delimitations Limitations Assumptions Justification for Study II. LITERATURE REVIEW.......................................................................... 14 History of Policing NOPD Background Information New Orleans Violent Crime Rate NOPD Corruption/Misconduct Countering Police Misconduct and Corruption NOPD Emergency Response Leadership and Command and Control III. METHODOLOGY........................................................................................51 Research Design Archival Research Variables Time Frame Hypothesis Instrument Setting Population and Sample Analysis of Data IV. FINDINGS..................................................................................................... 60 Demographics Collection Procedure Data Instrumentation Data Analysis iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Summary V. DISCUSSION 124 Relationship of the Variables Training Communications Leadership Education Hiring Standards Other Significant Findings Limitations of the Study Validity and Reliability Recommendations for Further Research Policy Recommendations Conclusion APPENDICES 160 REFERENCES 170 v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES Table 1. NOPD Race/Sex Breakdown ............................................................................................ 60 2. Participant’s Response to Question 10...........................................................................101 3. NOPD Basic Training Curriculum ................................................................................. 126 4. Law Enforcement Basic Police Training Hours............................................................ 127 5. Comparable Starting Police Salaries..............................................................................138 6. NOPD Officers with College Degrees...........................................................................140 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION On August 25,2005, Emergency Management Offices from across the Gulf Coast closely observed Hurricane Katrina as the storm entered the Gulf of Mexico, and they began to mobilize their resources in the event that Katrina would make landfall in their respective states. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) had posted several advisories warning people of the Gulf South that Hurricane Katrina was expected to intensify as she traveled across the Gulf of Mexico’s warm waters. Traditionally, the states of Louisiana and Mississippi have based their level of hurricane preparedness on Hurricane Camille, which severely damaged the Mississippi Gulf Coast region during the summer of 1969. Hurricane Camille was a category 5 storm with winds estimated at 200 mph and a 28 foot tidal surge that wiped away thousands of residences and businesses along the Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf Coast (Zebrowski, Judith & Howard, 2005). In addition, Hurricane Camille sank or beached twenty-four ocean going vessels, precipitated the collapse of six off-shore drilling platforms, and caused the drowning of one hundred and ninety-eight people (Zebrowski et al., 2005). New Orleans residents imagined nothing worse than Hurricane Camille. In addition, the New Orleans populace had become complacent to hurricanes: For several years the city had been spared of direct hits by major storms. Consequently, the city of New Orleans had developed a false sense of security. It was the general belief that Hurricane Katrina would only cause severe wind damage and possible street flooding. New Orleans city officials assumed a “wait and see” posture as the storm approached the Louisiana-Mississippi coastline. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 On August 27,2005, NOPD Superintendent Eddie Compass conducted a NOPD staff meeting. At this meeting, the Commanders were advised that Hurricane Katrina was expected to make a direct hit on the city of New Orleans as a Category 3 or 4 hurricane. Superintendent Compass