Natural Disasters and Their Impacts Essay

May 31, 1889 was a day that brought terror to the small town of Johnstown Pennsylvania. The small town was established in 1794 as a steel town and had a population on 30,000. The cause of the flood actually starts not at the town but 14 upstream at the South Fork Dam were the Little Conemaugh and Stony Creeks rivers meet as you can see in the image below. At this place is Lake Conemaugh, a 3-mile long lake located up against the side of a mountain, 450 feet higher than Johnstown PA. The construction started in 1840 under the supervision of engineer William E. Morris but wasn't completed till 1852 due to financial difficulties. (Johnstown Historical Society)

The island nation of Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with one in four inhabitants of this small Caribbean nation living in extreme poverty. Plagued by political instability, as well as the devastating aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, the country of Haiti is still struggling for recovery.

Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest hurricanes ever to hit the United States. Hurricane Katrina started out as any other hurricane, as the result of warm moisture and air from the oceans surface that built into storm clouds and pushed around by strong forceful winds until it became a powerful storm. Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005 and crossed southern Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding there before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. The hurricane strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane over the warm Gulf water, but weakened before making its second landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on the morning of Monday, August 29 in southeast

Hurricane Sandy was a tropical cyclone that devastated portions of the Caribbean, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States in late October 2012. The eighteenth named storm and tenth hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, as measured by diameter, with winds spanning 1,100 miles. Sandy is estimated in early calculations to have caused damage of at least $20 billion. Preliminary estimates of losses that include business interruption surpass $50 billion, which, if confirmed, would make it the second-costliest Atlantic hurricane in history, behind only Hurricane Katrina.

The January 12, 2010 Haiti Earthquake caused an enormous destruction in the Caribbean nation. Hospitals and government buildings collapsed along with an unbelievable amount of homes. Tens of thousands of people were killed, and many more were wounded. The disaster added more misery to people already struggling to get by with everyday life. Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world. The January 12 quake demolished almost every major building in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. About 5,000 schools in the city were destroyed or damaged. Throughout Haiti, more than 220,000 people were killed, and more than 1 million were left homeless. A few days after the quake, the number of survivors stood at 121 as hopes of finding more became

“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

Gas prices are considered to be returning to normal as most of the oil refineries are reopening following the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey. Many of the drivers in Houston were affected by the increase in gas prices and long lines at the gas stations when Hurricane Harvey hit. Due to Harvey’s landfall, it caused most of the Texas population to flock to the pumps, in fear of a long-term gas shortage. Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service stated, “The national average gas price has peaked to $2.67, following the hurricane. This was around a 35-cent increase from pre-Harvey levels.” The increase in gas prices was a “result of coastal oil refineries electing to shut down, rather than wanting to

H21: The risk adjusted return of the stock price of the fifteen insurance companies is significantly negatively affected by the effects of Hurricane Katrina and the event period.

system, or one making landfall just a few nautical miles further to the north, would have

Hurricane Andrew is a storm that destroyed South Florida, and the Bahamas, and ripped through Louisiana, costing as much as 26 billion dollars.

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.

Hurricane Katrina hit the southern coast of the United States on August 28, 2005. The center of Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on the morning of August 29, 2005. The devastating effect of this hurricane resulted in more than 1,800 citizens losing their lives, as well as more than an estimated $81 billion dollars in damages occurred. By August 31, 2005, eighty-percent of the city became submerged under water because the storm surge breached the city's levees at multiple points. If the levees are damaged massive water will flood Louisiana from the Gulf Coast, the Mississippi River, and other surrounding bodies of water. Some areas of New Orleans were 15 feet under water. Winds of Hurricane Katrina reached an astounding category 3 as

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is responsible for coordinating the government’s role in preparation, prevention, response and recovery from domestic disaster, whether they be natural or man-made. FEMA.gov lists 1849 total disasters declared since 1953, with an average of 32 each year (13). This particular agency has generated a lot of praise and but just as much criticism. Over the course of FEMA’s history, there are many lessons to be learned and FEMA is always looking for ways to be more effective. This paper will examine the history of FEMA, evaluate its performance over the years and pinpoint lessons to be learned and actions to be taken.

Hurricanes are one of nature’s most natural occurrences and intense phenomenal storms. Yet, as phenomenal as they are, they are still one of the deadliest and disastrous natural occurrences that continue to plague costal residents with fears of their homes being destroyed, their towns wiped out, and loved ones either disappearing or dying.

Natural disasters may be defined as natural catastrophes which cause great damage by disrupting the functioning of a society thus rendering the country incapable of coping through using its own resources as there is a need for outsider assistance in order to effectively preserve lives and the environment. Conversely, Natural hazards are natural phenomena that are potential threats to people within a society, structures or economic assets and may cause disaster. Natural disasters are inevitable and ubiquitous worldwide. Within the Caribbean, they are chiefly present in the forms of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, droughts, and volcanoes. The great damages caused by natural disasters may be divided into three categories: social, economic