My Experience With Hurricane Katrina

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.

In the history of the United States of America, Hurricane Katrina was known as one of the worst hurricanes in the world. The hurricane was a combination of tropical waters and gushing winds. It was the vicious hurricane that caused severe damage to the citizens of the United States of America. The amazing city known for its southern style, Cajun cuisines, jazz music and its celebration of Mardi Gras will never be the same. New Orleans, Louisiana was changed forever in August 2005 when this category five hurricane left the city devastated. The catastrophic storm tore through the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas destroying everything in its path and killing hundreds of people.

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.

Without doubt, Hurricane Katrina has been the major catastrophe of the century suffered in the United States. The category 5 hurricane which at first was on course to hit Florida drifted into the Gulf of Mexico taking a direct route to New Orleans. On his way, the hurricane left hundreds of dead, affected hundreds of thousands and left billions of dollars in damage. The largest number of deaths occurred in New Orleans where the hurricane hit the hardest and which was flooded because its levee system failed, collapsing many of them several hours after the hurricane had continued inland. Environmental damage and serious threats to public health were among the other results of Hurricane Katrina. Given the magnitude

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

On August 29th, 2005 Hurricane Katrina, also known as Katrina, made landfall along the Gulf Coast. It hit states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. As of today Hurricane Katrina is one the most destructive hurricanes to ever hit the United States. In total Katrina caused over one hundred billion dollars worth of damage. It left people homeless, starving, and in some cases dead. New Orleans, Louisiana was hit the hardest, “New Orleans will forever exist as two cities; the one that existed before that date, and the one after.” Even over a decade later, the effects of Hurricane Katrina can still be felt as the south continues to rebuild their lives and return to some normalcy.

Hurricane Katrina was one of the most devastating natural disasters on record in the United States (Skinner, 2006) In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast destroying buildings, homes and communities (Skinner, 2006). Storm surges and levee failures resulted in an estimated $108 billion in physical property damage, specifically in the areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama (Skinner, 2006). Furthermore, Katrina proved itself to be one of the deadliest disasters in U.S. history as it claimed the lives of more than 1,800 people (Skinner, 2006).

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.

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.

On the morning of August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina made landfall bringing with it winds between 100-104 miles per hour. Upon landfall the storm stretched approximately 400 miles across and was rated a category 3 hurricane (History.com Staff, 2009). The aftermath of the storm left the areas of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana with flooding displacing hundreds of thousands of residents and caused more than $100 billion in damages (Townsend, 2006). The events of the hurricane and its aftermath including government response or rather the perceived lack of was widely broadcasted. Hurricane Katrina provoked an enormous response from all levels of government, the private sector, and foreign countries, however even with the vast resources the response

Hurricane Katrina was one of the most “destructive storms ever to strike the United States”. In August 2005, the hurricane started off as a tropical storm in the Caribbean Sea. Then it picked up speed and hit Florida in the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall near the Louisiana and Mississippi border on Aug. 29, 2005. The hurricane brought lots of winds, huge waves, and a lot of flooding that caused a lot of damage in Florida and widespread destruction in parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The storm killed approximately 1,800 people, and caused about 100 billion dollars in damage.It left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. New Orleans, which lies below sea level, suffered some of the worst damage out of all the states that were

“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 at first a category 3, but gradually got bigger making it into a category 5, which is the largest storm that there is (“Hurricane Irene”). In fact, there were accounts of winds recorded at about 127 mph in the Gulf areas such as Grand Isle, Louisiana, and near the Mississippi River (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics”). All of these factors are made worse because of the area that New Orleans

Hurricane Katrina not only tore the city apart and forever changed the lives of the people living in New Orleans, but truly hit home for the rest of America as well. Nothing of this brutal disaster had really hit the nation before August 23th, 2005, so the shock of it all struck the nation at an all time high. The after math of Katrina was catastrophic on the worst levels. Families were torn apart, homes and vehicles swept away or completely ruined by the massive amounts of water, and all that was planned to save lives was partly ironically what drown them. In a situation like this one would expect a hospital to be sophisticated and more equipped to keep it together, but it ultimately the opposite happened entirely. When the lives lost were

Hurricane Katrina resulted in massive loss of life and billions of dollars in property damage. There are many lessons worth learning from this event. Finger pointing started before the event was over. Most of the focus on Hurricane Katrina was on its impact on New Orleans; however, the storm ravaged a much wider area than that. This paper will briefly summarize the event, the impact on the city of New Orleans and the lessons learned to ensure preparedness today.

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.