Hurricane Katrina Levees Research Paper

Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana on the morning of August 29, 2005. The storm produced sustained winds of up 125 mph when it hit that morning. On that same day Katrina caused 53 different levee breaches in greater New Orleans, spilling the waters of Lake Pontchartrain into the city and flooding an overwhelming majority of New Orleans. The floodwaters destroyed countless homes and lives along the way. Some estimates of the cost of Katrina were up in the 200 billions but according to Kimberly Amadeo, “The actual cost of Hurricane Katrina's damage was between $96-$125 billion, with $40-$66 billion in insured losses.” This

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

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 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 known 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.

“When communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm,” (“Bush”). This is what former president George W. Bush said during his speech in New Orleans concerning the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina was a massive natural disaster that consisted of high powered winds and immense amounts of water. The hurricane was initially a category 3, but gradually rose to the classification of a category 5 storm, which is the largest storm there is (“Hurricane Irene”). In fact, there were accounts of winds recorded at about 127 miles per hour in the Gulf areas such as Grand Isle, Louisiana, and near the Mississippi River (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics”). All of these factors are made

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 is the most expensive natural disaster in American history (Kates et al., 2006). This is supported by the statistics from August 2006, where the death total surpassed 1836 and the cost of the destruction was projected to be near $108 billion (Kates et al., 2006). On August 29, it made landfall in Louisiana as a category 3 Hurricane and its aftermath was devastating

Hurricane Katrina struck the city of New Orleans, Louisiana on August 29th, 2005. The events that followed would leave the whole nation in shock until this day. One of the major topics of discussion after this disaster was whether or not the government's slow reaction time had anything to do with the fact that New Orleans is sixty-seven percent African American. As helicopters circled a wasteland that was once a major tourist attraction, the racism of the Deep South, thought to be extinct, proved it was only dormant. The same racism against African Americans that could be seen on Bourbon Street in the months prior to the hurricane reared its ugly head once more in Gretna, LA and was pointed out on live television by rapper Kanye West.

During the early hours of the morning on 29 August 2005 5:10am, a hurricane of 205km/h struck New Orleans. She was named Hurricane Katrina. Katrina stretched over 400 miles across and was one of the deadliest hurricanes in the United States, killing 1,836 people and millions of others were left homeless. $16.7 million dollars was spent trying to rebuild infrastructure alone. Hurricane Katrina struck a levee in New Orleans so aside from the damage caused by the hurricane, flooding was also a problem. New Orleans levee walls were designed for category 3 hurricanes, and were not prepared for Katrina's category 5 winds. USA and many other country's pulled together to help in any way.

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 hit the southeastern coast of the United States in August of 2005. The eye of the storm went through the city of New Orleans and caused thousands of casualties and more than eighty billion dollars in damage (Schwartz). However, poor engineering and design allowed the immense flooding to breach the levee system and flood most of the metropolitan area. Despite the Delta Service Corps admitting that they knew of the possible failures for over twenty years, they claimed that insufficient budgets set by Congress and local governments prohibited them from restructuring and preserving the levees (Can We Save New Orleans?). Katrina was the third most intense land falling tropical storm in United States history. The combination of

Hurricane Katrina was one of the most destructive hurricanes to ever hit the United States, causing damage across the entire Southeast, with the harshest conditions falling on the city of New Orleans. This hurricane began as the consequence of a tropical wave encountering the traces of an earlier tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico. Once the wave and depression interacted, a new depression formed, located right near the Bahamas. This depression intensified exponentially, developing into a complete hurricane. Katrina wreaked havoc for slightly less than a week before subsiding over the eastern Great Lakes. This hurricane had catastrophic social and economic effects on the Southeast requiring a lengthy reconstruction period.

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.

Hurricanes are among the costliest and the most destructive of natural disasters. Since 1995, the United States has witnessed more intense activities by hurricanes with Mobile County in Alabama experiencing hurricane Ivan and hurricane Dennis in 2004 and 2005 (Link, 2010). In 2005, Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes to have hit the United States and was rated category three in Mobile County (Marchi, 2007). The response to the disaster was poor owing to the lack of proper disaster preparedness as

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.