Introduction
The primary strength of the crisis plan adopted by the authorities in Mississippi is the commitment of the authorities to safeguard public infrastructure, build temporary and permanent homes, provide emergency health care, and respond faster than they did during Hurricane Katrina. The primary limitation of the crisis plan is that the poor neighborhoods in the region still have limited disaster response capabilities. One of the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina is that the disaster management plan in Mississippi required to be expanded, especially by providing the relevant equipment for life saving, developing sufficient temporary housing facilities, and the ability of the government to create jobs to enable the victims of natural disasters to recover from the financial shock faster.
Strength
Based on the budget of the current crisis plan in Mississippi, the authorities have majored on the development of housing and preparing through the construction of public homes for safety during a disaster. The evacuation capabilities of the emergency response teams are still not adequate for the larger population. However, there have been improvements to ensure that there is a faster response than there was during Hurricane Katrina. Currently, the crisis budget has 62.5% allocated to housing, 21.4% to infrastructure, 13.9% to economic development, and 2.3% to the state administration (Mississippi Disaster Recovery Division, 2017).
The disaster management model dictates that the state must develop centralized control points for disaster response to coordinate the emergency evacuation process (James & Gilliland, 2012). The lack of a centralized control point during Hurricane Katrina led to many people being neglected by the emergency teams, and it is quite sad that the majority of the neglected people belonged to the African American community. The construction of safer permanent houses that are affordable is a positive move toward ensuring that future disasters will not have such a big negative impact on the society as Hurricane Katrina did (Holdeman, 2012).
Weakness
One of the weaknesses of the current crisis plan in Mississippi is that it has not solved the issue of environmental injustice in the region. There is still a deficit in the number of resources allocated to some of the regions, and the most interesting fact is that the minority ethnic groups are still disadvantaged. Most of the rural areas that were hit hardest by the hurricane are yet to be reconstructed, and there are still African American people without employment, and they cannot access health care facilities. The government has allocated funds for the recovery process and crisis plan, but the resources seem to benefit the middle and upper class more.
As the situation stands, the poor neighborhoods are yet to see the development of sufficient permanent housing units, and the infrastructure in the region is still inadequate for the people to feel confident that the crisis plan has considered their needs (Holdeman, 2012).
Recommendations
Solving the current issue of environmental injustice in Mississippi is a function of the development of a better budgeting approach. The poor neighborhoods should receive a higher budget, and the authorities should be actively involved in the creation of employment opportunities by investing in public development projects to enhance the quality of the infrastructure in the region (Crandall, Parnell, & Spillan, 2013). It is particularly important for the crisis management plan to consider increasing the number of permanent housing units in the regions and to locate disaster response points in all neighborhoods in the region.
References
Crandall, W. R., Parnell, J. A., & Spillan, J. E. (2013). Crisis management: Leading in the new strategy landscape. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Holdeman, E. (2012). Hurricane Katrina and the lessons learned from Mississippi’s recovery. Web.
James, R., & Gilliland, B. (2012). Crisis intervention strategies. Scarborough, ON: Nelson Education.
Mississippi disaster recovery division. (2017). Web.