Good Essay On Similarities Between World War Z And Fema’s Response To Hurricane Katrina

The first two chapters of World War Z outline the warning signs and beginnings of the Zombie World War through the narratives of various doctors, former government administrators, company owners, and ex-infantrymen. Through the interviews of these characters, the narrator presents the experiences and points of views of each person. The writing realistically portrays the Zombie War as if it were a real historical event. As such, it has many similarities to the implementation and consequences of the USA’s Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) response to the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Hurricane Katrina is considered one of the biggest natural disasters in US history, and the government response is stifled with controversy. Critics of the federal response to the catastrophe argue that
Similarly, the beginning chapters of World War Z describe instances in which both policy makers and civilians were given assurance from the federal government that the zombie situation was less than what it was in reality. In addition, resources and money were given to fund products not necessarily helpful or significant to fighting off the growing epidemic. One instance of this is when the US government in the story pushed the Phalanx drug through the FDA knowing that it was ineffective at fighting the unknown disease (Brooks, p. 60). Consequently, people were given false hope and were left unprepared for the catastrophe that followed.
In addition, there has been an enormous backlash towards FEMA’s emergency response, with critics arguing from a standpoint of disaster politics, which in essence, argues that the Bush administration “used the Katrina disaster as a pretext for the administration’s crony capitalism, corporate agenda and disregard for the urban poor” (Drier, 2006). In the second chapter, the narrator interviews former White House chief of staff, Grover Carlson. The interview is abruptly halted when the narrator tries to call out the former administration’s mismanagement of national security by his clarifying statement
So you figured that the threat was small enough to be “managed” by both the Alpha teams abroad and some additional law enforcement training at home even though you’d received warnings to the contrary, that it could never just be woven into the fabric of public life and that it actually was a global catastrophe in the making (Brooks, p. 63).

This compares to the severe deficiencies in FEMA’s emergency response plan that Katrina ended up exposing (Ahlers, 2006).

Lastly, in the introduction, the narrator notes that his first interviewee, a doctor who had seen the beginnings of the disease in China was arrested without formal charges. This can be related to the incarcerations during the aftermath of Katrina, for example with the arrest and imprisonment of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a native Syrian who was suspected as a terrorist while helping others during the flood (Pilkington, 2010). Although this man was helping his neighbors, he was wrongfully assumed as a threat to national security and imprisoned. This arrest was under the guise of the federal government’s War on Terror, but instead of fighting terror, it imprisoned an innocent man who was merely helping his neighbors.

References

Ahlers, Mike. "Report: Criticisms of FEMA's Katrina Response Deserved."CNN. Cable News Network,
2006. Web. 22 Jan. 2015..
Brooks, Max. World War Z. An Oral History of the Zombie War. New York: Crown, 2006. Print.
Drier, Peter. "Katrina: A Political Disaster." Katrina: A Political Disaster. N.p., 2006. Web. 22 Jan.
2015.
Pilkington, Ed. "The Amazing True Story of Zeitoun." The Guardian. N.p., 2010. Web. 21 Jan. 2015.