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

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)

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. [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 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 deadliest and costliest hurricanes to hit the United States in decades. The economic losses were extraordinary; however, it was the human losses that stuck Americans at their core. The media brought into our homes graphic images of the destruction of New Orleans. Its mayor had ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city and yet 150,000 citizens are said to have stayed. Like most of the nation I asked myself, “Well why did they stay? If a mandatory evacuation is issued, it stands to reason that state officials considered the situation to be precarious.” It is only recently, when I’ve seen reports of New Orleans slow rebuilding, that I have really given thought to the undisclosed factors that lead to such

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 .

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.

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

10 Years ago on the last week in August, one of the most brutal storms the United States has ever had hit Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. On August 28th and 29th, Fifty-five-foot waves crashed down the Mississippi coast leaving total destruction behind. In New Orleans a levee was built to protect the city but failed in 50 different places due to it being poorly designed. FEMA brought many survivors to their camps, but some weren’t that lucky. In New Orleans about 20,000 residents were trapped in the Louisiana Superdome without clean water, medical care, or working toilets. After the floodwaters receded, over 100,000 residents left the city of New Orleans to never return. 10 years later after the hurricane, most of the affected

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

In the year 2005, New Orleans was hit by a major natural disaster that took lives and destroyed the homes of many civilians. This wrath of Mother Nature came to be known as Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 hurricane with gusts peaking at 174/mph according to the Safir- Simpson wind scale (SSHS). The mix of both poor geographical characteristics and scientific accuracy resulted in damage costs accumulating up to $108 billion (2005 USD). The high damage costs made this natural disaster to be ranked as the costliest storm ever to hit the United States of America (Blake et al. 2011). The entirety of the damage is exemplified by the plethora of housing units dismembered, the annihilation of several bridges and buildings, which led to petroleum and

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

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.

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.