preview

The Possible Causes Of Hurricane Katrina

Decent Essays

Weather Disasters Earth is the only planet known to support life, but has a dark side that is demonstrated every year. Whether by earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, or hurricanes, the Earth is an extremely active planet, and humans living upon it must heed the potential for danger. One of the worst of these disasters to occur came in the form of Hurricane Katrina during an 8 days span in August of 2005. Hurricane Katrina impacted the coast of Louisiana and changed the area immensely, not only at that time, but the changes can still be seen today, nearly a decade later. From Tropical Depression to Hurricane Not every tropical depression becomes a hurricane, but when a tropical depression is discovered, it is watched with great intent due to the …show more content…

On the morning of August 29, 2005, the rain had already been falling for hours as Katrina churned closer to land (Hurricane Katrina, n.d.). Before making landfall, Hurricane Katrina was officially downgraded to a category 3 storm, with wind speeds in excess of 111 miles per hour, and the storm surge reaching the shore approached 30 feet, and quickly overwhelmed the unstable levees (Amadeo, …show more content…

Bernard Parish were under several feet of water, forcing those remaining to seek shelter on rooftops and in attics (Hurricane Katrina, n.d.). By the time the flooding was complete, over 80 percent of New Orleans was under water, with an estimated 300,000 homes destroyed or uninhabitable, nearly 120 million cubic yards of debris littered the entire area (Plyer, n.d.). Over 1,800 people lost their lives during the devastation, 40 percent of those were due to drowning, 25 percent due to trauma and injuries, and 11 percent due to heart failure, with nearly 70 percent of all the victims 60 years of age and older (Hurricane Katrina, n.d.). In addition, over 100 offshore oil and gas platforms were destroyed, over 400 oil and gas pipelines were damaged, and the resulting oil spill nearly reached the levels of the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 (Hurricane Katrina, n.d.). Beyond the devastation, Hurricane Katrina displaced more than one million residents living near the Gulf Coast, many of them returning within a few days, but over a month later over half a million residents remained displaced (Plyer, n.d.). The population of New Orleans decreased from nearly 485,000 in the year 2000, to only 230,000 in July, 2006, and in 2012 the population numbers were still only 76 percent of the total in the year 2000 (Plyer,

Get Access