Best Responders: Post-Katrina Innovation and Improvisation by Wal-Mart and the U.S. Coast Guard

Abstract

The unprecedented impacts of Hurricane Katrina provide an interesting study in how organizations innovate and improvise in the face of the unexpected. Most of the attention paid to organizational performance during the disaster has focused, understandably, on the systematic failures of FEMA. But were there any successes? Yes, in fact. Two of the stand-out responders were Wal-Mart and the United States Coast Guard—one a private-sector firm, the other a part of the federal govern-ment. Wal-Mart's response was crucial in preventing an even worse outcome from the crisis than what was experienced. 1 Wal-Mart was the most notable among sev-eral private-sector firms that arrived quickly with the supplies that people needed to survive after being cut off from the most basic necessities. In turn, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued more than 24,000 people in the two weeks following the storm. While these two organizations are very different, they both succeeded in the demanding environment of post-Katrina response because they had created the right internal incentives for middle managers to take initiative and the right struc-tures of communication to allow local information to determine the nature of the response. " MAKE DECISIONS ABOVE YOUR LEVEL " Wal-Mart arrived in the New Orleans area well ahead of FEMA, with supplies the community needed. Between August 29 and September 16, 2005, Wal-Mart shipped almost 2,500 truckloads of merchandise to the affected areas and had drivers and trucks in place to ship relief supplies to community members and organizations wishing to help out. 2 Wal-Mart also provided a large amount of free © 2009 Steven Horwitz innovations / spring 2009