How a City Slowly Drowned

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

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 .

This case summarizes events preceding the Hurricane Katrina, which was one of the worst natural catastrophes in the modern history of the USA. It raises questions about the lack of reasonable prevention and preparation actions due to flimsy structure and management of the responsible organizations and persons, invalidity and inconsistence of their actions and incapability of making the decisions in a timely manner. As a result of the unstructured and incoherent activities, we could observe several ineffective and costly attempts to mitigate floods and hurricanes. In the beginning the local officials, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and “White Houses past and present always seem penny-wise and pound-foolish” because of the chain of the wrong

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating disaster that has affected many people in New Orleans. The communication broke down hours after Katrina because of the unexpected fast winds and floods that broke down “3 million phone lines and 1,000 cellular towers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.”( Joch ). Because of the millions of phone lines that were broken down, contacting the government for help was difficult hours after hurricane Katrina. Not only that, the people of New Orleans underestimated the power of Hurricane Katrina causing many to be “ stranded with no food or water” (Narrator, “The Storm”,PBS).

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

The Washington Times opens with a statement describing the path of Hurricane Katrina and also shares the known death toll. This article gives the audience more of a general overview of the first known effects of the hurricane, without having too many newly revealed facts. The article has quotes from the governors of Mississippi, which gives the reader a feeling that

On the morning of August Twenty-ninth, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region. The storm brought the water to about twenty feet high, swallowing eighty percent of the New Orleans city immediately. The flood and torrential rainstorm wreaked havoc and forced millions of people evacuate from the city. According to the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, Katrina caused approximately one hundred and eight billion dollars in damage. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most destructive disasters have ever occurred in the United States, but it also revealed a catastrophic government at all levels’ failure in responding to the contingency.

Hurricane Katrina will forever be noted in United States history as one of the worst natural disasters to hit the states. Within its wake, Hurricane Katrina left thousands of Americans dead and many more homeless with no place to call home. A vast majority of the homeless were already living in poverty in New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina hit the hardest. People that already didn’t have what most Americans have were forced out of their homes and their jobs with nowhere to go. Many have criticized the United States government and President Bush for the lack of response to this disaster, as well as ignoring the fact that the levees in the Lower Ninth Ward were not strong enough to withhold this type of force. Still to this day, many are still rebuilding their lives, homes, and businesses.

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.

Thanks to advanced technology meteorologist were able to warn the people of the Gulf of this world wind stirring up. An immediate evacuation process started as those were informed that the areas affected by the hurricane would be uninhabitable for weeks at a time. Seeing as how New Orleans is completely surrounded by water all eyes were on this area. Due to being surrounded by such bodies of water New Orleans and Mississippi has levees in place some of those that are very reliable and do their jobs well and some who aren't. Such as the levee that broke surrounding Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Borgne, and many swaps and marshes. The breaking in this leevee is what cause the mass amount of flooding. While many things played a factor in this devastating time economically, socially, and politically America was affected the most by Hurricane

The devastating and deeply rooted traumatic effects of Hurricane Katrina will live in the psyches of the people of New Orleans and beyond for generations to come. Katrina was the largest and third strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States barreling in as a Category 5 with up to 175 mile-per-hour winds and a 20-ft storm surge that would create a humanitarian emergency with the likes never before seen in the United States. This hurricane caused unimaginable death, destruction, and displacement, leaving a death toll of 1,836 and an unknown number thought to be washed out to sea. The real truth is we will never know exactly how many people lost their lives during Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina pounded the Gulf Coast with tremendous force at daybreak, August 29, 2005, severely punishing regions that included the city of New Orleans and its neighboring state Mississippi. Resulting in a total of just over 1700 people killed, and hundreds of thousands missing. When we think of Hurricane Katrina stories, we think of stories that were published by the media such as, “Packing 145-mile-an-hour winds as it made landfall, the category 3 storm left more than a million people in three states without power and submerged highways even hundreds of miles from its center. The hurricane's storm surge a 29-foot wall of water pushed ashore when the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast was the highest ever measured in the United States.

Juliet ZhangURST 241Professor Anthony PratoMarch 7, 2018Hurricane katrinaThirteen years ago, the tropical cyclone that struck the southeastern United States,Hurricane Katrina, had a level three ranked on the hurricane scale. This storm killed nearly 2,000people and affected almost 90,000 square miles of the United States. The state of Louisianaevacuated approximately 1.5 million people before the storm made landfall. However, about150,000 to 200,000 individuals still remained during the storm (Hurricane Katrina). This tragedywas ranked as the costliest natural disaster in the U.S. history, because it took the governmentseveral days to notice the disaster and establish an operation. It was hard for people not to blamethe government for being

On August 29, 2005, hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana as a category three storm and brought with it some of the most catastrophic effects that any hurricane has ever left behind. Twenty foot surges of flood water washed into New Orleans after the levees broke, and ended up flooding over 80% of the city. It was now in the hands of the United States government to help the millions of displaced Americans find proper shelter, food, water, and services that were required for their recovery.

Monday morning, 29 August 2005, this is a day most New Orleans residents will never forget. This was the day a category 5 hurricane named Katrina made its catastrophic debut to the Gulf Coast region and killed over 1,300 people. (The White House, 2006, p. 1) After it was all said and done, the nation was shocked at the events that unfolded in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi and people were left wondering, “What went wrong?” National Geographic reported that the storm originated about a week earlier, 23 August, in the Caribbean and worked its up from the Bahamas making landfall Thursday, 25 August, in Miami. Winds at this time were 75-80 mph making it a category 1 hurricane causing some tree damage and killing two people. (Drye, 2005)