Hurricane Dolly

A natural disaster has the capability to cause large scale damage and destruction to an area. Seismic events have been known to alter landscapes and affect the livelihoods, health and development of communities. No two earthquake events are the same and the level of threat posed by an earthquake can vary due to both the human and physical factors of an area. The 2010 magnitude - 7.0 earthquake that occurred in Haiti is an example of where a natural disaster caused a previously vulnerable area to suffer tremendous loss and debilitating socio-economic impacts, to an already poverty-stricken nation.

“There are natural hazards, but disasters are the result of human actions that put people and property in harm’s way” (Cigler 2007: 64). Throughout history New Orleans has been continuously altered by the presence of humans through the creation of levees and canals, the introduction of artificial irrigation systems, and through human induced processes that have ultimately accelerated the process of land degradation and erosion. While a natural hazard struck New Orleans in 2005, the disaster portion resulting from Hurricane Katrina was a result of human induced interactions throughout the history of New Orleans.

55). This is because things like a small flood would effect croplands differently than an urban center. A crop my actually benefit from silt deposits but the New York Stock Exchange would not. However, when disasters increase in scale they almost always have a significant impact on the economy (World Bank & United Nations, 2010, p. 55). Unfortunately, even though these impacts may be short-term there are third order effects on the economy. After Hurricane Katrina many areas were completely abandoned but many more were bought by developers pushing out the lower income populations, completely changing the local economy. This also highlights the different effect that disasters have on different demographics. As an example, the economies of developing countries are effected more by disasters then those of developed nations (World Bank & United Nations, 2010, p. 56). Although this may be because of population density or lack of infrastructure, it shows that demographics as well as the disaster itself have influence over the impact on local economy and

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).

Hurricanes Katrina is a catastrophic natural disaster and a mortal hurricane. Being one of the five biggest hurricane no one could control communication, every device was under distraction. Hours after the hurricane Katrina the communication broke down because of the aftershock, and nobody was expecting hurricane Katrina to be that bad .It is mentioned that over 100 radio stations were destroyed and up to 2000 cell phones towers were forced off the air. The wire lines of network communication were strongly damaged as a result of the hurricane. Almost all phones were not on service. For that all communication was forced to be off just after the hurricane as most of the cities were covered with water.

On August 26th, 2017, Hurricane Harvey crashed into Texas and devastated Houston and the surrounding area. Harvey battered cities along the Gulf of Mexico, hitting primarily low income communities, and leaving 52 inches of rainfall, destroying about 22,000 homes, and displacing thousands in its wake. The image discussed in this essay depicts a Red Cross relief center in Houston providing shelter for residents unable to evacuate. The aforementioned image is of a domestic event, but the people, objects, and context demonstrate the complex social processes of globalization. Details in this image of Hurricane Harvey illustrate the harmful effect of the globalizing market in leading developed nations to be more focused on short term economic gain rather than long term environmental protection.

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating disaster that has affected many people in New Orleans as well as the surrounding areas. It had a stunning “death toll of 1300 people and damage over $100 billion ”( Davlasheridze 94 ). The communication were taken 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 battered, 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 ).

B. Thesis: The government should have help Hurricane Katrina, through additional money, supplies, and community help.

In the article “For Houston’s Homeless, a Terrifying Night Under Siege by Hurricane Harvey” by Julie Turkewitz, the main focus is the harsh reality of a hurricane this string for those who are homeless in Houston. First, Turkewitz sets the harsh reality by telling the readers about Roy Joe Cox- a homeless man in Houston- who is preparing to cope for the Hurricane with what little he has. She then builds her claim by writing about what the effects of Hurricane Harvey are, and what officials are expecting to happen. Next, Turkewitz suggests that any homeless person who is in Houston at this time should seek shelter at the available locations. Finally, she brings the harsh and sad reality for the homeless men and women in Houston by quoting Roy Joe Cox as he asks, “I’ve never experienced a hurricane. Is it going to rain out that bad? Is it going to flood me out? I mean, I don’t want to die over a hurricane . . . I’d rather not die.” (Turkewitz, 2017).

In December of 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, tearing through the levee systems, and resulting in massive flooding that eventually covered 80% of New Orleans (1), leading to the most significant number of deaths by the storm. As images of Hurricane Katrina were displayed on front pages and television sets across the counry, Katrina became a strategic research site for sociological theory and research of how identity shapes a natural disaster (1). In this essay, I want to explore the fate of New Orleans. How will climate change affect human populations and which human populations will it affect? To do this, I will need to review both scientific and socially scientific papers to understand what the future of New Orleans and southern Louisiana will look like. Though this concept is technically broad for the limitations of this paper, I will review several pieces of literature to begin to gain an understanding of the social and ecological situations at play.

Often, the government responds to natural disasters with thorough preparation and planning. The federal, state, and local levels of government do this in an effort to help reduce injury and property damage as well as ensure the overall safety of the general population. The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season saw the costliest and one of the deadliest storms in United States history. This storm was Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina displaced of an estimated 645,000 Louisiana citizens (Cepeda, Valdez, Kaplan, & Hill, 2010). This paper will examine…

Crisis information during Hurricane Katrina was immediately available through mass media; television, radio, the emergency broadcast system, and social media. During emergencies, the importance of our country’s communications systems becomes clear. These

The textbook says that United States of America is a country that bears “an elevated exposure to hazards” but because it is not vulnerable, it does not face as much destruction (Boyle 274). The precocity presented in Ocean Village in the Rockways, was poverty, poor governance, mega urbanization and environment degradation. According to the textbook, “Poverty alone is perhaps the greatest progenitor of precarity”, and it is clearly visible in the Rockways (Boyle 271). While it is not exactly poverty that hits the Rockways, the people there are on the lower end of the income level, and that shows in their style of living as they are recovering. The apartment building does not have an elevator that works and the hallways and staircases are all dark as the lights do not work a month after the hurricane. Nilejawel Stora, a teenage girl who is staying at Ocean Village speaks of how she is scared for her safety to walk down the dark stairs. This is a very minute example of poor governance. Boyle defines poor governance as “Poor governance, in contrast, heightens the precarity of vulnerable groups, militates against long-term planning, and reduces the capacity of communities to prepare for, to cope with, and to recover from a hazard event.” which is what the residents of Ocean Village are facing (Boyle 272). Their everyday lives are very dependent on the generator in the building and even that generator is not strong enough to keep the power on. It would be understandable if this was the situation a little bit after the hurricane, but the fact that it is still the situation after one month has one thinking that perhaps the government has forgotten about the people there, or that maybe it does not care enough as the residents are of low income. Lastly, environment degradation is present as the environment plays a significant role in how the residents there will recover. As the Rockways are already a lower income community, they do not recover as fast as they would have if they were middle class or part of the upper class because they are more vulnerable due to the lack of resources and lack of government aid. Boyle writes about how “underdevelopment and poverty in lesser developed countries was viewed as a key source

As the Marxist approach puts it, “underlying states of human marginalisation are conceived as the principle cause of disaster.” (Pelling, 2001, p. 179). This resource exclusion to particular categories of people within society creates their vulnerability to risk, and in turn disaster. McLaughlin and Dietz (2007) suggest there are three dimensions that make up vulnerability including exposure, sensitivity and resilience. An example displaying the vulnerability of lower classed social categories is in North Bihar, India, where floods have been managed through engineering works to create embankments. While the Government appears to be reducing the hazard, this has increased the vulnerability of the local people. Soil fertility has decreased reducing agricultural success, dangerous flash floods are occurring due to embankment walls collapsing and communities have settled on apparently safe embankments and are now highly exposed (Pelling, 2001). The natural flood hazard was dangerous, but these works by society have created a natural disaster (Pelling, 2001). Power inequalities have created this disastrous situation where lower classes are at high exposure to floods due to profit hungry management bodies. This technological approach is clearly failing but the Government and other managing groups make large profits off flood engineering works and have the power to decide how to control the issue (Pelling, 2001). This has resulted in creating

On August 29, 2009, Hurricane Katrina struck the United States Gulf Coast. It was a Category 3 Hurricane, according to the Saffir Simpson Scale. Winds gusted to up to 140 miles per hour, and the hurricane was almost 400 miles wide . The storm itself did a tremendous amount of damage, but the storm’s aftermath was cataclysmic. Many claimed that the federal government was slow to meet the needs of the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the storm. This paper will examine the four elements of disaster management – preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation – as well as an analysis on the data presented.