Critique: Hurricane Katrina (myths and News Quotes

What happened in New Orleans was devastating and it had a huge impact on what Americans think about our government and elected officials. Communicating with the public is one of the most important tasks that elected officials, perform in the time of devastation.I agree with the author in the book of "Disaster Communication" that the public needs to have concise, accurate timely information to know what to do , and to be reassured that local government is responding appropriately (Haddow,2008). Americans were mortified by what they saw. Now the question seems to be who was the blame? In actuality everyone is at fault for what happened over there. The media for releasing inaccurate information, elected officials for not collaborating timely response and rescue and New Orleans engineers for not inspecting levies and setting up evacuation plans for this type of disaster. There were many things that could have been done to save more lives. Instead we continue to bicker over who did what and who they could put the blame on. Certainly I don't think that Americans are ready to deal with any major disasters. For one thing officials/governments needs to step up and admit that they did not collaborate or have and efficient plan of rescue. I believe that American citizens did more to help then those of authority. Elected officials/government relied on other sources of information rather than to go their and access the situation for themselves to make a timely recovery. This article looks at the myths and news quotes that only add fuel to the fire. Although in their recovery efforts they pulled together and did save lives. I liked this article because it makes you look at this situation from every side of the fence. Truly I think that the best was done considering the miscommunication and delayed response. Hopefully this was a big lesson taught and learned.