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RAND on Katrina's Wake

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The Storm hit five years ago, but the repercussions continue. In June, RAND released a study that's critical of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and a Louisiana Recovery Authority for failing to successfully help people living in FEMA trailers. The study also includes recommendations for improved state-federal coordination and communication.

Titled, "Navigating the Road to Recovery: Assessment of the Coordination, Communication, and Financing of the Disaster Case Management Pilot in Louisiana," the study was written by Joie Acosta, Anita Chandra, and Kevin Carter Feeney.

From the "Navigating" abstract:

"In light of these challenges, the authors recommend that federal and state governments review the systems used to identify and locate residents in need of disaster case management; these systems performed poorly in the DCMP [Disaster Case Management Pilot - ed.], making it difficult to appropriately plan services. The stop and start of recovery initiatives led to serious discontinuities in client recovery, so the authors also recommend that federal and state governments consider a single, longer-term recovery initiative that seamlessly acknowledges the stages of human recovery. Improvements in how federal and state governments identify and locate affected residents, consider needs and vulnerabilities in planning, and ensure continuity of services are critical to ensure high-quality disaster case management."

Here's the study's research brief. A free-of-charge downloadable .pdf is available here.

Photo Credit: The image accompanying this post was taken by Flickr user look_west. It was used under Creative Commonslicense.

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