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Emergency response isn't specifically addressed, though follow-up aid is the main focus. 

In the aftermath of the hurricane, numerous issues arose for the evacuated citizens of New Orleans.First, the immediate affects of lack of access were apparent, such as lack of schooling, pharmacies, and employment. Then psychological affects appeared as people were told they couldn't return home, even if they were minimally damaged. The combined affects of the physical and mental conditions, combined with the lack of physicians and psychiatrists, led to a massive instability in the people. 

The government further exacerbated this instability by providing limited resources and shelter for victims. More exactly, the resources and shelter were unevenly distributed to the victims, favoring white mid- to upper-class citizens. The funds that otherwise should have gone to essential care facilities and housing, were unseen by the people. Promises of finanicial aid were never fulfilled, and no legislation (such as that in the wake of 9/11) was passed to support victims.

This leads to the creation of "disaster capitalsim" in which private companies benefit from the disaster and state-of-emergency, raising prices and suspending insurance policies. Poor government oversight of the private sector created deficiencies and health crises. 

The article concludes by suggesting the response to Katrina be examined to prevent the same mistakes from occuring in the future. However, there is a lack of optimism, as the system of response is ingrained into American Society. 

The article describes the situation in post-Katrina New Orleans as one where trauma is constantly happening and more work is going into emergency response than recovery. Instead of construction workers, social workers and the like, the military was sent by the government for aid after Katrina. 

This article examines "chronic disaster syndrome," a situation that arises in the wake of a large-scale disaster that perpetuates the life in an emergency through government institutionalized and private-sector supported barriers. The article first looks at some of the physical and mental conditions that were created or exacerbated by the disaster. It then follows up with the government's betrayal of the people, first in providing support to the victims, and then actively barring victims from recovery. The article ends with the future in the wake of this disaster, including the "perpetuating of emergency" and continued institutions in place as a result of the hurricane. 

The article uses statistics from FEMA, other government studies, interviews with New Orleans residents, and other research articles about post-Katrina New Orleans. Some of the data mentioned were percentages of residents that returned to New Orleans, number of residents recieving mail, and average home loan/ assitance amounts given. 

“In particular, the syndrome articulates the powerful way in which displacement is simultaneously recognized as a cause, symptom, and, ultimately, false cure for disasters. Chronic disaster syndrome represents the health outcome of life in an ongoing state of “disaster” or “emergency” (Agamben 1998; Fassin and Vasquez 2005) that, as in this case, is perpetuated by industries of “disaster” capitalism (Klein 2007; Klinenberg and Frank 2005). The total collapse of infrastructure and social services initiated by storm and floods produced what Naomi Klein calls the perfect conditions of “shock”—a collapse so severe as to authorize a new government arrangement in which the state contracts with private firms to provide services it previously provided”

“One of the recurring themes that we heard from those who were still displaced in trailers or temporary living situations (e.g., with relatives), but more so from those who had returned and were, in a few cases, back in their homes, was that, even if the neighborhoods were being rebuilt, people had lost so much that nothing would never be the same.”

“We were, like I said, we were close. No more. Not anymore. And some of it too is that we got away from one another and we realized how little we got in common. Or else the storm took it away. I don’t know which it is, you know. Cause I’m an analyzing person and I’ll try to figure it all out sooner or later. But it’s either we just really don’t have anything to talk about anymore, or we never did, and we just thought we did. It’s weird. …”

“This chain of events prompted residents to say things like: “We all asked, ‘Who was meaner: Katrina, Rita or FEMA? And everybody’s pointing at FEMA.’ Which is worse— Katrina, Rita or FEMA? FEMA””

“Katrina offered an opportunity for disaster capitalism to become entrenched, supported fully by the U.S. government. But the failure of an effective recovery in New Orleans has created yet another kind of “disaster”—the ongoing disaster. New Orleans offers an example of the perpetuation of a “state of emergency” that was initiated by Katrina but has been sustained by ongoing politicoeconomic machinery—a machinery that ultimately needs to “have a disaster” to justify its existence.”

“Hurricane Katrina was an “event” disaster that mobilized a “state of emergency,” which subsequently led to the authorization of a military response to an “ongoing” disaster that the failure of bureaucratic machinery helped to prolong. The “state” was erased as a functioning buffer for the poorest sectors of the socioeconomic hierarchy, and in its place a “free market” in private-sector development contracts emerged. Just as those citizens who were living paycheck to paycheck or welfare check to welfare check were evicted first by the forces of nature and then by the force of the unfettered free market authorized by the “emergency,” so too were the social programs, previously offered by the government to provide safety nets to these populations, eviscerated”

1. “Chronic disaster syndrome” thus refers in this analysis to the cluster of trauma-and posttrauma-related phenomena that are at once individual, social, and political and that are associated with disaster as simultaneously causative and experiential of a chronic condition of distress in relation to displacement.

2. Most efforts to rebuild health care facilities focused on emergency care, routine care, and surgical services rather than psychiatry.

3. For many people, the idea that they had to stay in a state of heightened response to the pending “crisis”—a state they had already been in for over two years—produced huge anxiety and exhaustion.

4. Instead, the notion that New Orleanians themselves were a threat to public or national security circulated and became a rationale for the efforts the government did take to effect change in New Orleans. This change, in effect, targeted the poor. The poor, it seems, were to be evicted from New Orleans as a way to “clean up” the city and help it recover once and for all.

The article uses a combination of sources, such as research, epidemiology, and "ethnograpic portrayals" by affected individuals. These are compared to form a comprehensive view of the aftermath of Katrina, and how the government was not prepared to address the large scale relief efforts neccessary. 

Vincanne Adams is a professor at the UCSF School of Medicine with research done in global health, critical medical anthropology, and Asian medical systems among other topics. Taslim Van Hattum is an artist and social worker, and is currently Director of the Maternal and Child Health Portfolio at the Louisiana Public Health Institute. Diana English is an Assistant Clinical Professor of gynecologic oncology at Stanford Hospital. She has published research on uterine serous carcinoma, but also participates in community/ international service in developing countries.

When it comes to emergency response, they deal with the populations that are most affected by disasters or are socially/ economically disadvantaged and are more often in need of EMS.