On August 12, the Americans of Louisiana woke up with water in their houses. A week passed, and now thousands evacuated the flooded regions around Baton Rouge. 40,000 homes were ravaged, and several were found deceased. People were stranded on highways and rooftops, trapped in deep waters infested with rodents and snakes, and floating through the destruction onto mattresses. The state has been declared a disaster area. However, national media seems entirely uninterested with this flooding - after all, it was not the first time Lousiana had to endure through a natural disaster. A multitude of critics advocated for the abandonment of Louisiana. Because Louisiana is prone to natural occurrences due to its location, critics believe that it is wholly pointless to rebuild a state that is always sinking. However, the abandonment of Louisiana would result in the movement of all the …show more content…
The expenses would simply be outrageous to fund and down-right impossible, which every American understands. Since many homes were not in a flood zone, most people did not have flood insurance. They will have to leave because they cannot afford to come back to their homes. Furthermore, people have grown tired of the numerous natural disasters that hit Louisiana. As Zack Kopplin states, “Climate change could sink all of our major coastal cities, but Louisiana is being held to a different standard, because we’ve already been hit with so many disasters”. That is why many media coverages have been particularly weak on the coverage of the flooding, only capitalizing on the disaster porn and other corrupted media coverages. The tunnel vision of the news media and the critics prevent and delay the reconstruction of Louisiana. It is true that it would take an immense amount of funding to completely rebuild Louisiana, but we can not allow money to get in the way of rehabilitating our fellow
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
The case Montgomery v. Louisiana made its way to the Supreme Court after a long process of appeals beginning in Louisiana State District Court. Montgomery had committed a murder in 1963 when he was 17 years old and was later sentenced to life in prison with no opportunity for parole. In recent years, a case (Miller v. Alabama) was decided that declared that mandatory life sentences with no chance of parole are illegal in cases where the criminal is a juvenile. The Miller case cites the 8th Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Montgomery has since sought to challenge his sentence, citing that his sentence would now be considered illegal, and that the precedence set by the Miller case should be enforced retroactively. Montgomery’s
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
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 August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. The results were catastrophic. Katrina and storm-related flooding took more than 1,800 lives and caused an estimated $81 billion in damages. In the storm’s aftermath, there was widespread debate over government response to the disaster. I believe that the bulk of the responsibility lay with the state and local governments. They should have been better prepared ahead of time and had more comprehensive plans in place to minimize danger to citizens. The national government has traditionally only sent its military into a state at the request of that state’s governor. The governors of Louisiana and Mississippi did not immediately request that action (Fraga, L.
While considering rebuilding New Orleans, a good question to ask is what the government would do with the money that it plans to use to rebuild the city if it was diverted to other projects. The best thing to do would be to build another city elsewhere or settling the people and businesses affected away from the city. Another option would be to give a cash settlement to every individual, family or business that suffered a loss and allow them to choose to rebuild in New Orleans or elsewhere. Suppose the federal government would spend $1.818 trillion to rebuild the city but instead gives a cash settlement to the city dwellers who are about $1.3 million people, each resident would get about $1.39 million that is more than enough to pay for a new home and business in a different town.
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 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).
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast at daybreak, “pummeling a region that included the fabled city of New Orleans and heaping damage on neighboring Mississippi. In all, more than 1,700 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of others displaced.” (Laforet, New York Times)
Founded in 1764, St. Louis Missouri is home to many diverse groups, businesses, and corporations. Post American Civil War, local immigration and industrialization contributed to increasing populations. In terms of racial demographics, the majority ethnic backgrounds in St. Louis approximately include Whites, African Americans/Blacks, Latinos/Hispanics, and Asians. Similar to NYC, immigrants and refugees of war settled in St. Louis and created their own subculture. In the early 1990’s after the Bosnian War, more than forty thousand refugees arrived and established St. Louis as the largest Bosnian community aside from their home country of course.
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
At the headquarters of the Louisiana National Guard, located in the lower 9th ward, the soldiers were not yet aware that the canal levees were giving way. The Guard’s commander
Louisiana is a state consisting of about 4,523,628 people. This number taken prior to Hurricane Katrina that occurred in 2005. As of 2015, the estimated population of Louisiana is 4,670, 724. The area of the state of Louisiana is about 43, 562 square miles. With its neighboring states of Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi, Louisiana is located within the southeast part of the United States. The state’s first geologist was Francis V. Hopkins. Along with his assistant, Colonel Charles H. Lockett, Hopkins published the first topographical and geological maps of Louisiana. Louisiana has a variety of natural resources. Some examples of these natural resources are forests, salt, oil reserves, natural gas, and sulfur.
Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana on August 29th, 2005, but the failure of the local government started before this day “by allowing building and growing in areas in low flood lands.” The local government did not regulate these land areas that have always
* On May 9, 2006, Secretary Jackson approved Louisiana’s initial supplemental CDBG Disaster Action Plan and awarded the state $368.4 million to help meet the state’s infrastructure needs, provide interest-free small business bridge loans and support long-term planning efforts. On May 30, 2006, Secretary Jackson approved an amended plan and awarded an additional $4.6 billion of the state’s original $6.2 billion to fund Louisiana’s Road Home Program. This program provides up to $150,000 to eligible homeowners whose primary residences were located outside pre-Katrina designated flood zones and were destroyed or severely damaged following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. (Hurricane Katrina: What Government is Doing, 2006)