The Effect Of Hurricane Katrina On New Orleans

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.

“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

One Weather Service meteorologist even voiced a very prophetic Katrina announcement, stating that: "Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks."

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.

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, two days later roughly eighty percent of New Orleans was underwater. This hurricane ranked number three in the thirty deadliest US Hurricanes (Weather Underground, 2007). This disaster has had a ripple effect on the economy, the environment, the population of New Orleans, and the habitats of animals in that area. It also put to death over 1,500 people in Louisiana, more than half were senior citizens. In New Orleans, 134,000 housing units —70% of all occupied units — suffered damage from this Hurricane.

Like most states and countries positioned near large bodies of water, natural disasters and global epidemic have taken a toll on Louisiana’s climate and environments. Hurricane Katrina had a major effect on Louisiana. For example, its coastline, and environment was effected. Hurricane Katrina is one of the deadliest hurricanes that ever hit the United States. It hit a couple of cities, but it hit the city of New Orleans, Louisiana the hardest. New Orleans was very popular for tourists before Katrina hit, and still is (Jervis, 2015). After it hit New Orleans, it left many people devastated; killing an estimated amount of 1,833 people. Many of people were left homeless. There are still places

Day by day, New Orleans slowly builds up the economy, the houses, and the people it had destroyed. No matter how much is rebuilt and regained, nothing will ever compare to the day Hurricane Katrina hit and destroyed the lives of thousands. Nothing will ever be replaced—it is only

Hurricane Katrina is considered, to this day, one of the costliest and most catastrophic disasters that has hit the United States (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics”). The total amount of damage was estimated to cost more than $123 billion dollars (“Comparing Hurricanes”). This huge amount of money accounts for damage from flooding, destruction of buildings, and helping the needy. Many people needed to flee the areas around the Gulf of Mexico in order to stay safe. Almost 70% of housing in New Orleans was damaged or destroyed because of the hurricane, which forced many people out of the city (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics”). People were likewise forced out of the city and into new areas due to flooding, which in New Orleans, was exceptionally deleterious. In New Orleans, 80% of the entire city was covered in water (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics”). This was a result of the failed levees. Levees are embankments used to keep overflowed water from rivers or streams out of cities (Levee). The levees in New Orleans were obviously not strong enough to hold back the tremendous amounts of water from the hurricane. The levees that were built in New Orleans were only designed for hurricanes going up to a category 3 (“11 Facts”). The city was not protected by these levees because of how intense the storm was. Compared to other hurricanes such as Hurricane Irene that affected the Caribbean region, Hurricane Katrina was much more intense and caused more damage (“Hurricane Irene”). These levees and excessive amounts of water throughout the city resulted in many deaths and hardships for the New Orleanian people. Nearly 40% of the total deaths that occurred in Louisiana were due to drowning (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics”). There was an overall total of nearly 15 million people affected by the hurricane (“11 Facts”). Many people were either: stranded in their homes, had to evacuate, or were missing relatives

On a normal August day, Hurricane Katrina inflicted massive damage on 3 of the poorest states in the United States. Mississippi, with a poverty rate of 22 percent; Louisiana, with a poverty rate of 20 percent; and Alabama, with a poverty rate of 22 percent (Rodriguez, H. & Aguirre, B, E.). Katrina was the cause of one of the biggest evacuations of any major American city in history. These cities also housed a major socio-economic gap with over 23 percent of the residents living in some form of poverty (Schneider, 2007). Over 1 million Americans were forced to leave their ruined homes, especially in areas like New Orleans where the majority of the affected citizens were forced to relocate elsewhere. As many as half of a million people have been relocated to other states of refuge, like Texas and many of which have high rates of poverty themselves like the 22 percent of Texans (Schneider, 2007).

Another questionable aspect of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans is the police’s interactions public. Although the topic was not very heavily reported, the locals all had very different opinions about how the police handled the situation and communicated with the locals.

In October of 2012, a post-tropical cyclone swept its way through the Caribbean. The name of this cyclone is better known as Sandy. It began its journey to the East Coast as that of a tropical wave in the Caribbean, and in a matter of 6 hours turned into a tropical storm and then eventually a hurricane. The winds increased to up to 74 miles per hour. Sandy was a 5.8 out of 6 on NOAA’S s scale causing nearly 285 deaths, and costing nearly $367 billion. Although, this was a devastating hurricane, it could have been more destructive if the proper precautions were not taken before and during the storm. However, there are certain procedures that need to be improved in order to ensure the coasts are better protected.

Unfortunately, the challenges that result from hurricanes are multifaceted. When large bodies of water surround the area of impact, flooding becomes an additional cause for concern. For the city of New Orleans, the primary goal was to prevent these floodwaters from breaching people's homes. Such a task was, by no means, easy. The storm surge that resulted from Katrina's wrath was 20 ft high. Instead of the expected outcome of holding back floodwaters, many of the levees failed miserably. With nothing to stop the raging waters, much of the city was left vulnerable to the flood and was consequently

Hurricane Katrina is considered as one of the worst hurricanes ever recorded in the history of the United States. It was the sixth strongest Atlantic hurricane ever and the third strongest on record that had reached the United States (Chambers, 2007). According to Brinkley (2006), the hurricane occurred on August 29th, 2005, and had a massive physical impact on the land and to the residents of New Orleans City .Before the hurricane; there was massive destruction of the wetlands besides construction of canals which increased the erosion rates in the lands. After the floods, much of the city’s water was contaminated leading to the loss of the aquatic lives and indigenous plants (Galea & Brewin, 2007).

Hurricane Katrina was the most horrific natural disasters in 2009. It was one of the most deadly disasters since 1928. In 1928 the hurricane that shocked everyone by having many fatalities was hurricane Okeechobee that hit Florida. Since hurricane Okeechobee Florida hadn’t experienced a hurricane like that one until hurricane hit in 2009. Hurricane Katrina was considered a category level five hurricane, which is the highest number of category levels for a hurricane. Only 3 category five level hurricanes have ever hit the United States. Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Katrina being two out of the three to ever hit the United States. For the hurricane Irma that took place in 2017 (this year) that most of us are familiar with, although it was a category five level, America was far more aware and prepared for hurricane Irma that for hurricane Katrina that accord in 2009. For hurricane Katrina sadly America wasn’t prepared, therefore they didn’t warn the people of Louisiana that their was a category five level hurricane a going to hit, sadly many those from Louisiana and those states new by where left in shock and left to find out for themselves how horrific and disasters this monster hurricane was going too be. A numerous amount of people were not able to evacuate due to lack of transportation and no funds, which caused more people to stay behind and get sick/die. The total number of deaths due to the devastating hurricane Katrina was 1,836 and which also includes 1577 deaths in

Before we discuss disaster management, it is important to briefly sum up the events of the events that began on August 25, 2005 to fully understand the brevity of the situation. Meteorologists began warning inhabitants of the regions that were hit by Katrina on August 23, 2005. By the 28th, evacuations were under way, that day, the National Weather Service predicted that after the storm hit, “most of the [Gulf Coast] area will be uninhabitable for weeks…perhaps longer.” (Spowart, 2015) New Orleans was particularly vulnerable. More than half of the city was built below sea level, and the levees protecting it were built on porous sand. The poorest parts of the city were completely unprepared for a storm surge. Many of these citizens lacked transportation and could not evacuate, and were left to wait out Katrina in their