Building And Use Community Resilience

New Orleans itself is 10 feet below sea level. This only makes me wonder why even build a city there when there wont even proper conditions for one yet alone live there after experiencing the first hurricane that had hit them. When they were first told of that Hurricane Katrina would be hitting them, FEMA aka Federal Emergency Management Agency said they were ready for the news. Making people feel more relaxed about what was about to come. After being announced that Katrina had turned into a category five people started cleaning up their yards and boarding up the windows. The citizens were ordered to evacuate a bay before the storm and if they didn’t evacuate they were on their own. Along with that they were also told to write their social security on their arm with permanent marker in order to identify their bodies. I was definitely shocked about this information, why wouldn’t they

People behave differently in times of war and hardship. Some choose to stay stuck in the past, following the same stereotypes and treating everyone the same, while others change along with the times. Some people, however, like Henry Lee stay loyal and helpful to the ones they love. Some are like Keiko Okabe, who take what comes to them with their heads held high. Everybody reacts to negative events variously but some unlike others take a more successful approach.

In the late summer of 2005, a terrible tragedy occurred that changed the lives of many in the south-east region of the United States. A Category 3, named storm, named Hurricane Katrina, hit the Gulf Coast on the 29th of August and led to the death of 1,836 and millions of dollars’ worth of damage (Waple 2005). The majority of the damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana. Waple writes in her article that winds “gusted over 100 mph in New Orleans, just west of the eye” (Waple 2005). Not only was the majority of the damage due to the direct catastrophes of the storm but also city’s levees could no longer hold thus breaking and releasing great masses of water. Approximately, 80% of the city was submerged at sea level. Despite the vast amount

The failure to adequately prepare for the storm led to increased and more widespread devastation, which in many cases harmed those living in the affected areas. An independent analysis of the reason for such massive chaos was performed and determined that “Most of the damage was due to the failure of the levee system that surrounds the city to protect it from flooding” (Ubilla). Had these levees been properly built, and had there been more of them protecting the city of New Orleans, major flooding could have potentially been lessened. A simple feature of the levee structure which engineers neglected to include is the concrete

Hurricane Katrina was not New Orleans’ first time being hit with devastating effects from a hurricane. New Orleans has been struck by hurricanes six times over the past century. In 1915 was a category 4 hurricane, it killed 275 people and caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage. 1940, 1947, 1965, 1969 and again in 2005. The Mayor of New Orleans issued a first ever mandatory evacuation. With New Orleans being hit multiple times over the past decade surprised me that serious precautions weren’t taken previously, such as better levees or seawalls. Living in a place below sea level, one would think that the levees and seawalls would be stronger, but the levees collapsed below design height during the Katrina storm .

The failure of the local government to respond to Hurricane Katrina that the emergencies plan of the government were lacking. The city official responsibility for evacuation of its citizens and the intent was to assist those who needed transportation for the incoming storm but had no actual plan to implement that intent. When the hurricane Katrina made a landfall in New Orleans on 29 August 2005, heavy rain battered the area and the storm surge measuring as high as 30 feet and moving toward inland and breached several levees intended to protect New Orleans from the water of the lake. The water poured through the breaks in the days following the storm, covering approximately 80% of the city with water as deep as three meters. The flooding, wind, and waves it caused the city major damage to building and infrastructure. There is a lot of people stranded on the rooftops of their houses and people wading through the water. The communities suffered from the disaster, particularly the city of New Orleans. Most of their first responders like

Throughout all of history, there has been a plethora of women’s rights activists. Although it might not seem like it, each and everyone of them has made a difference for women. One woman in particular once said “There will never be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers.” This was a very wise and helpful woman- Susan B. Anthony. She was herself a women’s activist and was also a social reformer.

New Orleans was originally founded on high ground overlooking the Mississippi River, above sea level. Also surrounded by Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne, New Orleans was susceptible to hurricanes that would come up the coast into the Gulf. Originally New Orleans was naturally protected by “coastal swamps that helped absorb the energy of storm surges before they reached dry land.” (Stillman 228) At this point Americans were more concerned with the floods that happened annually from the Mississippi River. In the early days, settlers built a mile long levee to block overflows from the mighty Mississippi while landowners constructed their own levees.

History will affirm that from the beginning of the settlement of New Orleans in 1717, it was then and continues to be a location destined to periodic flooding caused by the Mississippi river and rising storms. Throughout time, New Orleans would challenge nature by primarily fortifying the river’s natural levees to periodically engineering levees to combat issues of flooding, only to return to reinforcing or rebuilding according to damages inflicted as time progressed. Each attempt to fight nature from overwhelming New Orleans kept setting engineers back. Refusal to abandon the coastal areas became more costly over time; the intent to preserve the coast became more valuable than the value of life and property.

New Orleans as time has progressed has become more susceptible than most cities when it comes to the detrimental power of hurricane force and storm surges. There are two reasons for this. The first is that New Orleans has a very low elevation relative to the surrounding sea level, the second is the lack of Louisiana’s natural defense against storm surges; that is the coastal wetlands and its barrier islands.

In the year 2005, New Orleans was famously hit a major natural disaster that took lives and destroyed the homes and civilians. This wrath of Mother Nature became to be known as Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 hurricane with gusts peaking at 174/mph according to the Safir- Simpson wind scale (SSHS). With this Hurricane having its path directly on a city only being on average 1-2 feet below sea level, it created conditions for serious havoc (NOAA, 2012). The aftermath left a serious physical imprint on the city, which has the potential to never be removed. This imprint left by Hurricane Katrina caused extensive damage to 134,000 housing units, destroying multiple bridges along the Gulf Coast, as well as various buildings across the city, which led to harmful chemicals leaking into the water system, such as petroleum and natural gas. Finally, Hurricane Katrina also caused the main power grid to be disoriented for a number of weeks. As a result, the damage costs from the storm added up to be about $108 billion (2005 USD), which according to Eric Blake was the costliest storm ever to hit the United States (Blake et al. 2011). Hurricane Katrina perpetuated all of these tribulations, as it drastically altered the lives of the many inhabitants of New Orleans and they continue to face the repercussions of the storm in their day-to-day lives.

Hurricane Katrina resulted in massive loss of life and billions of dollars in property damage. There are many lessons worth learning from this event. Finger pointing started before the event was over. Most of the focus on Hurricane Katrina was on its impact on New Orleans; however, the storm ravaged a much wider area than that. This paper will briefly summarize the event, the impact on the city of New Orleans and the lessons learned to ensure preparedness today.

Numerous different aspects were altered due to the ruckus of Hurricane Katrina. The first major aspect was housing and location. Katrina nearly demolished 300,000 homes. The ascending sea level along the coast resulting from onshore winds is a storm surge. With a twenty-two foot storm surge in New Orleans and a twenty-seven foot storm surge in Mississippi, Hurricane Katrina averaged a shocking twelve foot storm surge. As a storm surge’s footage increases, the surge will continue to move inland farther and farther. Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge is documented as moving inland a total of twelve miles into the state of Mississippi (FAQS, 2013). Hurricane Katrina impacted a total of seven states. Five of these states were Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Kentucky and Ohio were two more states affected but in a different way. Because of the tremendous amount of water, Kentucky and Ohio were victims of the Mississippi River flooding. Some states experienced more extreme destruction than others. Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana experienced Hurricane Katrina’s wrath firsthand. These three southern states were affected the worst by the massive storm (FAQS, 2013). Mississippi’s forest industry experienced a great amount of destruction losing 1.3 million acres of valuable forest land. The main cause of destruction in New Orleans was blamed on the failure of the levee system to stand its ground

“ The greedy and selfish sixties” a time period where women were seen as housewives and nothing more. Women were not expected to get a career, but rather be a stay at home mom that made sure the house is clean and the children are taken good care of. In the book The Fifth Child, women play a traditional mother manipulated by society's standards. When Harriet became pregnant with her fifth child, her family questioned her lifestyle. After realizing that Ben was destroying the perfect family David and Harriet dreamt of having when they met at the office party.

Before we discuss disaster management, it is important to briefly sum up the events of the events that began on August 25, 2005 to fully understand the brevity of the situation. Meteorologists began warning inhabitants of the regions that were hit by Katrina on August 23, 2005. By the 28th, evacuations were under way, that day, the National Weather Service predicted that after the storm hit, “most of the [Gulf Coast] area will be uninhabitable for weeks…perhaps longer.” (Spowart, 2015) New Orleans was particularly vulnerable. More than half of the city was built below sea level, and the levees protecting it were built on porous sand. The poorest parts of the city were completely unprepared for a storm surge. Many of these citizens lacked transportation and could not evacuate, and were left to wait out Katrina in their