All the best laid plans…conditions impeding proper emergency response

Which conditions make it difficult to effectively respond to an emergency? The literature shows that even if emergency response plans are in place, the emergency response could still be hampered by a myriad of factors. What these factors are, however, remains unclear as authors provide different ideas on what can go wrong. Sometimes these ideas overlap, but sometimes they do not. In this article, we provide an overview of the factors impeding emergency response. We will illustrate each factor with examples drawn from the emergency responses in New Orleans following the Katrina hurricane and in Indonesia following the Tsunami.