The problem that separates this storm from others is that this storm was one of those most costly storms in recorded history. In New York City alone, the damage caused by the storm was estimated at $19 billion; which includes all private, public, and indirect costs (Huffington post). This storm destroyed over 305 thousand housing units, resulting in the payout of over $1 billion of assistance money paid out by FEMA to New York City families whose properties were destroyed (Huffington post). “$855 million was used to help survivors with home repairs and temporary rental costs” and the other “$145 million was used for other uninsured hurricane related expenses such: moving costs, personal property, transportation, medical and dental costs, and …show more content…
The final financial impact that resulted from the storm was in the job market (Dun & Bradstreet). Potentially, 1.5 million businesses, both small and large, employing over 9.3 million individuals, were affected by the storm (Dun & Bradstreet). Of those businesses, 73 percent of them are small businesses that barely stayed afloat before sandy hit (Dun & Bradstreet). There is no real number of how much of those businesses closed down and how much of there employees become unemployed, but it is estimated that about 505 thousand businesses will have severe financial difficulties that may be near impossible to come back from (Dun & Bradstreet). In sum, Hurricane Sandy was costly because businesses weren’t making money and required bailout funds, homes and key infrastructure needed insurance and grant money to rebuild, and thousands of dollars were lost in tourism and trade as a result of the …show more content…
One of those problems came from the insurance money needed by families to repair their homes. While FEMA did there job in helping in an emergency situation, the insurance companies did not. As a result of the storm, over two and a half years later, “Thousands of claims have still not been resolved and there is evidence that countless homeowners were victims of what appears to be wide scale fraud where original damage reports were later changed to make it look like the damage wasn't as bad” (Sharyn Alfonsi CBS). Such as in the case of Sharyn Alfonsi’s article in the CBS news, where countless residence of New Yorkers were the victims of insurance companies that changed engineering reports which resulted in the extreme underpayment of insurance policies. On top of that, due to that fact that several businesses had to close down for the storm, and several of those businesses where destroyed, several small businesses had to close their doors since they could no long afford to pay the rents to stay there. Lots of these businesses are still struggling to date form the storm. Moreover, since of the mass destruction the storm did to power lines and fuses, numerous towns in Long Island have begun the very expensive job of building underground power lines. Few towns had it before the storm, but because of the costliness of continued repairs to power lines after powerful storm, it resulted in many residents of
climate change played a part in Hurricane Sandy. More than 8 million homes and businesses lost electricity
Who pays for all these damages? People who live in hurricane prone areas obviously have insurance to fall back on when these disasters strike. It turns out that insurance companies also have insurance for instances like this. When insurance companies get stuck paying out large sums of money to a lot of people, they occasionally need a little help and
Hurricane Katrina, one of the most destructive hurricanes to whirl through the southern states of America in 2005, is probably one of the worst natural disasters of the United States in the 21st century. Damages from the storm were estimated at more than $100 billion . People living in the southern states fled north to reach safety from the storm after hearing about it being a category five hurricane on the news a few mornings before Katrina hit the shore. Authorities were doing what they were supposed to be doing, telling everyone to seek shelter, board up windows, head north and prepare for the storm. Everything in the beginning appeared to be just another
After Hurricane Sandy there was a bunch of damage done to theses states : Jamaica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Bahamas, and the U.S. (“Superstorm Sandy”). “The hurricane left an estimated 200,000 people without shelter” (“Superstorm Sandy”). The property damage was an estimate from between $30-$50 billion (“Superstorm Sandy’’). Many people had no home for a long time nothing to come home to or
In the year 2005, New Orleans was hit by a major natural disaster that took lives and destroyed the homes of many civilians. This wrath of Mother Nature came to be known as Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 hurricane with gusts peaking at 174/mph according to the Safir- Simpson wind scale (SSHS). The mix of both poor geographical characteristics and scientific accuracy resulted in damage costs accumulating up to $108 billion (2005 USD). The high damage costs made this natural disaster to be ranked as the costliest storm ever to hit the United States of America (Blake et al. 2011). The entirety of the damage is exemplified by the plethora of housing units dismembered, the annihilation of several bridges and buildings, which led to petroleum and
Unfortunately, there was a failure of managing the risk factors associated with an actual hurricane affecting New Orleans. The current emergency plan in place at the time of Hurricane Katrina only prepared the area for a Category 3 hurricane. No one anticipated a higher category hurricane could or would hit the area. They took for granted that the probability of a stronger hurricane occurring was low, thus overlooking major risk management identifiers. When Hurricane Katrina actually hit, emergency planners were now being reactive instead of
Some of these critical issues caused major problems then should have been addressed prior to the hurricane many land. The delay by both the Governor and Mayor led to overwhelming issues relating to evacuating. Mayor Ray Nagi refusal to give the order to evacuate, but rather use shelters to house Katrine victims from departing the area. The citizen of Louisiana was unaware of the severity of the storm and they trusted their State leader to ensure the safety of the people. When it came time to get the people out of New Orleans the chaos of the disaster made providing help extremely difficult. Organizations like the Red Cross and Salvation Army were responding to the disaster had no real execution plan, the shelters were in disarray and no logistic
Katrina hit many southern cities. Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi were all hit but the most damage occurred in New Orleans. With the city mostly under sea level this presented much of the problem. The majority of the city was flooded. More than $200 billion dollars in damages were estimated. The loss of life, property, and business were devastating on New Orleans. This was the most costly of all natural disasters in the United States of America in my lifetime. This natural disaster disturbed the economic system of New Orleans, the labor markets around the U.S., and the individual businesses in New Orleans. The trending effect was a loss of 100,000 jobs in ten months and almost 2.9 billion in wages were lost (Effects of Hurricane Katrina, 2012). The storm helped to crush New Orleans and put a devastating effect on the economy of the U.S. Gas prices rose, product prices rose, and the tourism rate in New Orleans went to zero. The port was unable to open, the colleges were closed due to the devastation, and as I stated earlier tourism became null and void.
Thousands of people lay dying, stranded from the deadly Hurricane Katrina, a natural disaster destroyed many homes in New Orleans. This powerful hurricane killed thousands of people and impacted the entire United States economy. Hurricane Katrina cost billions of dollars in damages. Even ten years later, the city continues to recover from the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Many of the hurricanes’ victims still continue to recover from the financial and emotional effects. The severity of Hurricane Katrina’s flooding left the city underwater for weeks, due to issues with the levees. Hurricane Katrina struck land on August 29th, 2005, leaving New
Hurricane Katrina is considered, to this day, one of the costliest and most catastrophic disasters that has hit the United States (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics”). The total amount of damage was estimated to cost more than $123 billion dollars (“Comparing Hurricanes”). This huge amount of money accounts for damage from flooding, destruction of buildings, and helping the needy. Many people needed to flee the areas around the Gulf of Mexico in order to stay safe. Almost 70% of housing in New Orleans was damaged or destroyed because of the hurricane, which forced many people out of the city (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics”). People were likewise forced out of the city and into new areas due to flooding, which in New Orleans, was exceptionally deleterious. In New Orleans, 80% of the entire city was covered in water (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics”). This was a result of the failed levees. Levees are embankments used to keep overflowed water from rivers or streams out of cities (Levee). The levees in New Orleans were obviously not strong enough to hold back the tremendous amounts of water from the hurricane. The levees that were built in New Orleans were only designed for hurricanes going up to a category 3 (“11 Facts”). The city was not protected by these levees because of how intense the storm was. Compared to other hurricanes such as Hurricane Irene that affected the Caribbean region, Hurricane Katrina was much more intense and caused more damage (“Hurricane Irene”). These levees and excessive amounts of water throughout the city resulted in many deaths and hardships for the New Orleanian people. Nearly 40% of the total deaths that occurred in Louisiana were due to drowning (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics”). There was an overall total of nearly 15 million people affected by the hurricane (“11 Facts”). Many people were either: stranded in their homes, had to evacuate, or were missing relatives
It caused countless deaths, displaced hundreds of families throughout the United States, and destroyed thousands of homes. However, not all the consequences of the hurricane were negative. There were several countries that contributed money, supplies, and manpower to help assist the recovery effort almost as soon as Hurricane Katrina dissipated into thin air. It should also be noted that despite all the aid that was rendered to the United States in support of the recovery effort, there are still sections of New Orleans that have not been rebuilt whatsoever. Furthermore, there were funds that went unaccounted for to this very day. “ Allies offered $854 million in cash and oil. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction” (Solomon, 2007).
Human error played a major role in this disaster, because the people at the weather station were not very concerned about this storm. In fact, they didn’t even figure it was a hurricane. Until a young meteorologist did the math and found that the storm was a hurricane and it was coming to New England. But the further experienced meteorologists didn’t believe him and it never got out to the public, so no one evacuated the area or made any safety precautions. Once they found out it was actually a hurricane, they had no time to
This disaster changed the country because it damaged 203,000 houses, but only 12,700 were destroyed. The FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) has paid a total of 378 million dollars to the 738,000 people who have requested financial help. When the storm was
This specific natural disaster took place on August 23, 2005 and lasted until August 31, 2005. This storm occurred in Eastern North America, Ontario, Georgia, Mississippi, and New Orleans (Aboff & Sotirovski, 2012). Hurricane Katrina was the costliest hurricane ever in the United States history. It had a cost of 75 billion in New Orleans and along the coast of Mississippi (NOAA, 2014). An example of the damage was that Hurricane Katrina’s winds demolished businesses and homes near the coast. Nearly 300,000 homes were completely destroyed, and that was only near the coast. In addition, 118 million cubic yards were left behind with a tremendously large amount of debris from destroyed forests and green spaces (NOAA, 2014). In particular, this hurricane caused major flooding that destroyed properties, vehicles, and much more. Afterward, the deaths reported from Hurricane Katrina resulted in a grand total of 1,200 people, and most people that died were senior citizens because they were not prepared. In the meantime, 705 people to this day are still missing because of Hurricane Katrina (NOAA, 2014). For the most part, many families and communities were largely impacted by this hurricane. Such as, many people had to evacuate their homes, gas prices raised, and thousands of local residents were left unemployed by the hurricane. As a result of this devastation, many donations were made by more
Homes were mildewed from the storm, as well people were left cold without heat and there just was not enough descent housing; however, the money that was raised for the victims was being set aside and I feel that this was a problem that the red cross encountered while handling money.