Hurricane Katrina is known as one of the costliest natural disasters the United States has ever faced. According to Fox News, “Katrina caused an estimated $96 billion in damage.” Additionally, they said, "an estimated 300,000 homes were destroyed, rendering them uninhabitable, and nearly 1,500 people died." On August 23, 2005, Katrina began developing over the Bahamas, heading toward South Florida as a Category 1 hurricane. The hurricane grew stronger and became a Category 5, but the August 29, 2005, just before hitting southeastern Louisiana, the hurricane became a Category 3. Just hours after Katrina made landfall, Louisiana's entire communications system had failed. breakdown. Two of the main companies responsible for routing emergency 911 calls were completely destroyed due to flooding, causing one of the largest losses in and around New Orleans (govinfo). The majority of New Orleans and other surrounding areas of Louisiana suffered considerable damage to their cell sites, with approximately 2,000 cells out of service. Firefighters and police officers lost communications when their radio towers lost their backup generators to flooding. “Massive interoperability – failed, destroyed or incompatible communications systems – was the biggest problem in the response to Katrina, interoperability problems have existed for years” (govinfo). There is a communication gap between our government officials and emergency service agencies. The National Guard should not have to wait for a messenger to tell them to deliver messages. Governors should be able to communicate with their generals and police commanders should be able to communicate easily with their office... middle of paper ... they realize that many things should have been done differently. Richard Clark of the National Security Council said, "It is not possible to evacuate a major metropolitan area in an orderly manner, but we can do better than we have done (pbs.org). Clark went on to say that what seems to happen many times is that local officials choose not to use both sides of the highway during an evacuation. Clark goes on to explain the idea of ​​turning on all traffic lights in one direction to allow for easier evacuation. Every level of government has failed. According to Senator Mary Landrieu, “no state is equipped to respond to a disaster of this magnitude, and for this reason, federal law must step up (Alpert). When a disaster strikes like New Orleans, all levels of government must come together, communicate accordingly, and point fingers at no one..