The Bias and Suffering after Hurricane Katrina: Trouble The Water, and Zeitoun

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

The failure to adequately prepare for the storm led to increased and more widespread devastation, which in many cases harmed those living in the affected areas. An independent analysis of the reason for such massive chaos was performed and determined that “Most of the damage was due to the failure of the levee system that surrounds the city to protect it from flooding” (Ubilla). Had these levees been properly built, and had there been more of them protecting the city of New Orleans, major flooding could have potentially been lessened. A simple feature of the levee structure which engineers neglected to include is the concrete

Hurricane Katrina was not New Orleans’ first time being hit with devastating effects from a hurricane. New Orleans has been struck by hurricanes six times over the past century. In 1915 was a category 4 hurricane, it killed 275 people and caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage. 1940, 1947, 1965, 1969 and again in 2005. The Mayor of New Orleans issued a first ever mandatory evacuation. With New Orleans being hit multiple times over the past decade surprised me that serious precautions weren’t taken previously, such as better levees or seawalls. Living in a place below sea level, one would think that the levees and seawalls would be stronger, but the levees collapsed below design height during the Katrina storm .

Hurricane Katrina. [Electronic Resource] : Wind Versus Flood Issues. Washington, DC : Office of Inspector General, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, [2008], 2008. EBSCOhost, excelsior.sdstate.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat04225a&AN=sdsu.008408717&site=eds-live.

In august 2005, the State of Louisiana was hit with one of the most devastating natural disasters the United States has ever seen. New Orleans specifically was among the cities who felt the full force of Hurricane Katrina. While the storm itself was very powerful the damage wasn’t caused necessarily by the hurricane but by the failure in the levee system. According to Jennifer Trevedi, In the book, Encyclopedia of Disaster, Jennifer Trevedi describes the extent of the damage through breaches of the levee. Trevedi says, the levees were breached in over fifty different spots flooding the St. Bernard and Plaquemine parish.

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)

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 physical impacts left by this storm, is the central premise to understanding what really happened to this city. The time frame from when the storm hit till now, has caused a significant limitation to really comprehending this historic event. Furthermore, the mass amount of destruction was primarily due to New Orleans being on average 1-2 feet below sea level (NOAA, 2012). Also a lack of scientific accuracy sealed in troubling fate for this city. The duality of being geographically vulnerable as well as the shortcomings of scientific knowledge led to extensive damage to 134,000 housing units, the destruction of multiple bridges along the Gulf Coast, various buildings across the city, which caused harmful chemicals to be leaked into the water system and the disorientation of the main power

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.

The City of New Orleans, Louisiana was particularly vulnerable to the ramifications of Hurricane Katrina. Despite all of the forewarnings, determinants such as socioeconomic status influenced resident’s ability to evacuate their homes. Additionally, topography of the region increased the capability for destruction as nearly half of the city, on average, lays six feet below sea level and is surrounded by water.

On August 29, 2005, one of the largest hurricanes ever recorded hit the city of New Orleans, devastating millions and changing their lives and their city forever. The category 3 hurricane created mass displacement and mass destruction that the city has yet to fully recover from. The residents of this once lively and culture-filled city are still attempting to rebuild what was washed away for them ten years ago.

The city is dead. Without a single person out in the street, and without the bright summer sunshine that wakes people up for another Monday morning. The city was completely gone; the city that used to burst with people and streets that were filled with energy is now empty but filled with filthy water. It was August 29, 2005, when the hurricane entered the warm water of the Gulf and grew to be a monstrous storm. So monstrous, that it destroyed anything in its path. The hurricane that we now call Katrina had swept away the entire city of New Orleans. Many people lost family members and the storm caused an abundance of property damage. It was reported that the hurricane killed about 1,800. The number of damages totaled $108 billion dollars. Just imagine seeing your neighbor, your family members, your loved one and even yourself suffering to survive in the water that swipes away so many of your memories and what you valued. What would you have done the day before the hurricane knowing that it will hit the city? This also questions the characters in the story “A.D: New Orleans After the Deluge”, by Josh Neufeld, a comic book that depicts the moments before, during and after the big disaster. Illustrating different characters within the different status of ranking going through the event differently. Demonstrating how very contrasting the “high up” and “low down” society face the consumer society even in the hurricane. Just as how Bauman describe that there are

Hurricane Katrina was a horrible disaster that made so many people's lives miserable “1.7 million people were affected by the hurricane” ("Hurricane Katrina"). It came through on the South Coast and destroyed anything in its path mainly New Orleans though. The hurricane destroyed billions of dollars worth of homes, businesses, and anything else on the South Coast where it struck. The main reason the flooding was so bad in New Orleans, was because New Orleans was and is under sea level, which makes it very vulnerable to flooding, and hurricanes. New Orleans is also a very poor area so people who didn’t have much already lost everything they owned.

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

Although there were numerous predictions that a category 4 or 5 could hit New Orleans, very little disaster planning or management was accomplished before Katrina hit in August 2005 (Lalwani, et al., 2007, p10). After Katrina made landfall August 29th, several sections of the levee system collapsed including levees protecting the Ninth Ward (Lalwani, et al., 2007, p10). The manmade MRGO channel caused the problems it was predicted; the channel increased the power and the size of the waves that destroyed many levees (Heerden, Kemp, Bea, Shaffer, Day, Morris, Fitzgerald, and Milanes, 2009, p306). By early September, people were forcibly evacuated and the storm displaced more than 1.5 million people (Lalwani, et al., 2007, p10). According to Lalwani, et al. (2007, p10), “Katrina was the most destructive and costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States,” with an estimated $75 billion worth of damage. Months after the hurricane, 3,200 people were unaccounted for and many of the low-lying areas, most of which were poor and minority neighborhoods, were still under water.