Wal-Mart, the Coast Guard, and Hurricane Katrina

In my relentless attempts at self-promotion, I'm happy to announce that my policy study for the Mercatus Center on the role of the private sector (and the Coast Guard) during Hurricane Katrina, focusing on Wal-Mart, is now available on the web. This study is part of Mercatus' larger project on Katrina, all of which is well worth perusing. Here's the link and the executive summary:

"Making Hurricane Response More Effective: Lessons from the Private Sector and the Coast Guard During Katrina"

Many assume that the only viable option for emergency response and  recovery from a natural disaster is one that is centrally directed.  However, highlighted by the poor response from the federal government  and the comparatively effective response from private retailers and the  Coast Guard after Hurricane Katrina, this assumption seems to be  faulty. Big box retailers such as Wal-Mart were extraordinarily  successful in providing help to damaged communities in the days, weeks,  and months after the storm. This Policy Comment provides a framework  for understanding why private retailers and the Coast Guard mounted an  effective response in the Gulf Coast region. Using this framework  provides four clear policy recommendations:

1.Give the private  sector as much freedom as possible to provide resources for relief and  recovery efforts and ensure that its role is officially recognized as  part of disaster protocols.

2. Decentralize government relief to  local governments and non-governmental organizations and provide that  relief in the form of cash or broadly defined vouchers.

3. Move the Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) out of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

4. Reform "Good Samaritan" laws so that private-sector actors are clearly protected when they make good faith efforts to help.

If  disaster situations are to be better handled in the future, it is  important that institutions are in place so that actors have the  appropriate knowledge to act and incentives to behave in ways that  benefit others. The framework and recommendations provided in this  paper help to provide a good understanding of the appropriate  institutions.

Crossposted at Liberty and Power.

Comments

[happyjuggler0]

Why not simply abolish FEMA? It is not only a taxpayer boondoggle, but its very existence serves to wrongly make people think the government is on the job and therefore they don't need to do anything in the way of private charitable efforts.

Government and charity are substitutes. people won't give money to a cause when they think it is something the government does or will do, correctly or incorrectly thinking that private action is thus superfluous.

[Christine Gorman]

Wal-mart's greatest advantages were in having an excellent supply chain management system and in being able to offer a better response than the hollowed-out FEMA (a very low bar). I seriously doubt they want to be in the business of responding to natural disasters.