FEMA Disaster Response to Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Ike and the 2010 Nashville Floods

The Full Story

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, whose promary purpose is to coordinate the response to disasters that overwhelm local and state resources.  Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadlist and the costisest natural disaster to hit the United States, which ravaged coastal towns along the Lousiana, Mississippi, and Alabama gulf coast in 2005.  In 2001, Hurricane Ike made landfall along the Texas coast and was the costliest hurricane in Texas history and the third in United States history.  The 2010 Nashville floods were a 1000-year flood that resulted in a number of deaths and widespread property damage.  For all of these events, FEMA requested imagery of these sites due to the severe nature of these storms, having large economic impacts on these regions.  Air Ameica Flight Center aircraft, using imaging vendor's state-of-the-art sensors, were tasked to acuire data for these missions.  Air America Flight Center was able to respond to these disaster areas within hours of the request from FEMA, complete the missions within 24 hours of being assigned, and get the data to the imaging vendors so they could provide FEMA with vital data needed for immediate damage assesment.