The Texas City Disaster

On August 29th, 2005 Hurricane Katrina caused catastrophic damage and flooding in Mississippi, Louisiana, New Orleans and areas in between. It destructed the lives and homes of thousands of people, with a total of 1,883 fatalities (Hurricane Katrina Statistics Fast Facts, 2015). Hurricane Katrina left many homeless and hospitals unprepared for the challenges posed to the healthcare system as a whole. Some of these challenges included gaining access to healthcare facilities, providing expedited care to those most in need, and preventing spread of disease that commonly occurs during natural disasters. Many facilities did not evacuate in time and many were left stranded in flooded waters as patients conditions worsened and access to essential medications and treatments became limited.

In the history of the United States of America, Hurricane Katrina was known as one of the worst hurricanes in the world. The hurricane was a combination of tropical waters and gushing winds. It was the vicious hurricane that caused severe damage to the citizens of the United States of America. The amazing city known for its southern style, Cajun cuisines, jazz music and its celebration of Mardi Gras will never be the same. New Orleans, Louisiana was changed forever in August 2005 when this category five hurricane left the city devastated. The catastrophic storm tore through the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas destroying everything in its path and killing hundreds of people.

Introduction. On 06 January 2005, a cargo train carrying a massive amount of chlorine spilled in Graniteville, South Carolina creating panic and indeed chaos to both citizens and emergency managers on how to properly respond to the hazardous materials released from the train wreckage. The people of the small rural town of Graniteville located just outside of Aiken, South Carolina, where caught in their sleep when Freight train 192 traveling approximately 47 mph struck other consignments spilling a dangerous amount of chlorine gas into the atmosphere. As a result of this disaster, 5,400 individuals were evacuated from their homes whiling causing nine death. The magnitude of such disaster was one that would change any town or city forever.

lives were ended as a result of this unnatural disaster, most of them civilian. The people

In the 1930’s disaster struck the Midwest. The tragic event, known as the Dust Bowl, records the worst man-made and natural ecological disaster in American history. The phenomenon lasted about a decade, ruining over 100,000,000 acres in the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas touching neighboring sections of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. These areas are known for having little rainfall, light soil, and high winds, which was a potentially vicious mixture. The Dust Bowl required thousands of families to abandon their farms, which for most of them was their life. Leaving behind livestock to suffocate, crops to die, and homes to be deserted. This disaster affected American history ecologically, socially, and even medically.

At 12:01, with the echo of the last bell lingering in the air, the one-hundred pounds of dynamite hidden in the wagon exploded (Andrews, 2014). Shrapnel encompassed the immediate area; people were dropping everywhere. The structures nearby shook as the shock wave slammed through the exterior walls. The cloth awnings that overlooked the streets burst into flames (Bellows, 2007). Next, came a rain shower of glass that drenched the streets from the shattered windows. Nearby, World War I veterans experienced a scene of devastation very similar to that of the battlefields. They initially suspected that cause of such destruction had come from the skies (King, 2011). One witness wrote, “ It was a crash out of a blue sky, an unexpected, death dealing bolt which in a twinkling turned into a shamble the busiest corner of Americas financial center” (Gage 2002).

In day to day operations, uncertainties do occur. Henceforth it would be important to have a contingent and well detailed disaster preparedness plan and procedures. Healthcare systems, on a day to day basis, are faced with emergencies in form of disasters. As a result, majority of medical centers have well-structured exit plans in the event of a disaster occurring("Hospital Disaster Preparedness: Your Guide to Getting Started - Emergency Preparedness", 2011). However, this essay will aim at interviewing one of the top disaster preparedness staffat the Houston Methodist Hospital. In the interview, I will seek to identify the top three disasters that the Houston Methodist Hospital is prepared for. Similarly, in the interview, I would seek to identify the top lessons learnt from disaster preparedness at the hospitals.As it concludes it would summarize the findings with regards to the interview stated below. Below is an excerpt from the interview to answer the two aforementioned questions.

Texas has received record amounts of rainfall, causing serious flooding all throughout the state of Texas. According to an article published on June 3rd, Houston is looking at an economic impact of roughly 550 million dollars. This interests me greatly because I live in Texas, and seeing prices going up, especially on local produces, is something that will directly impact me. Because of the record rain falls, local farmers are especially in a world of hurt as their crops were destroyed by the rain. For local farmers markets, and local grocery stores that support local farmers, I think you'll start to see a raise in prices as the farmers will be having to make up their margins somewhere. Also, I think you'll start to see Texas lean on other

Engineers have produced great modern contributions that have changed the world. The designs and technology in society are due to engineered designs and construction. The art of engineering does not only include fancy technology, it also includes the creation of safe and functioning buildings, vehicles, tunnels, and roads in society. Engineered designs have to be reliable, safe, strong, and long lasting to properly function in society. There are many aspects considered when constructing any particular design. In the case of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, the engineering of the city was dated and needed secure designs. New Orleans is built on swamp lands where the foundations are unreliable and mixed with water. The structures and engineering design of New Orleans? levees were inadequate to hold the strength of Katrina. The mass disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans are primarily due to engineering failures. Because of the location and foundation of New Orleans, the inadequate levees and barriers, and the budget and economic issues, New Orleans became America?s most epic engineering failure in history.

My group and I believe that the safest place in America is Las Vegas, New Mexico that is. New Mexico is one of the few states with few to no common natural disasters. We believe this because the only natural disaster in New Mexico is thunderstorms. Thunderstorms occur almost anywhere, they are made by updrafts which is made with warm air rising. Las Vegas is free of hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquake and only has one natural disaster that is common, thunderstorms.

If I do not try to stop this disaster as I walk to my bed.

I feel that the impact of the hurricane was not felt equally through all socioeconomic classes. Knowing the history of New Orleans, I feel like he government official could have done a better job with the evacuation process. However, there is a direct link between environment disaster and poverty. Not only with Hurricane Katina did we see the link between environment disaster, look at such places like Haiti, some part of Africa, Asia and India.

Throughout human history there have been many disasters that have plagued humanity. These disasters have caused an untold amount of damages and an untold number of lives lost. Each disaster is different from each other and each can leave their own impact on human civilization. Many of these disasters are of the nature variety, these typically include your hurricanes, tornados, tsunamis, and many others that can impact humanity. We can’t control these types of disasters, any many of them can strike at any time with little to no warning. The best that we can do is learn from them and our past mistakes, in order to prepare for the next time one of these types of disasters strikes an area. There is, however another type of disaster that plagues mankind, and that is called man-made disasters. One of the biggest man-made disasters to have occurred in more recent time, was the “Event Horizon” disaster or as it is better known as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This was one the worst because millions upon millions of barrels of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, which not only damages the surrounding waters, but also killed marine life, destroyed many fishing businesses’ around the Gulf, and in some cases destroyed the tourism around the gulf as well. In order to get a better understanding of why this event was important we need to look at what caused the event to happen in the first place, could have anything been done to prevent it from happening in the first

Most societal problems can be easy to identify such as a rise in crime or the effects of a natural disaster such as an earthquake. There is a natural disaster that is currently facing the state of California in particular which is much harder to overcome – the drought. According to state government officials, California is experiencing one of the driest decades in recorded history and the drought is so severe that the governor, Jerry Brown, declared a state of emergency in 2014 because of it. Since the state of emergency, governor issued the first regulatory policy through Executive Order B-29-15 on April 1st 2015 to fight the drought. A drought is unique in that it is very hard to determine when the problem actually started and when it is expected to end since periods of wet weather are almost impossible to know for sure. Therefore, policy to fight the drought can be very tricky seeing that officials really don’t know when the problem will end and therefore, how much to spend in time and resources to combat it now. This isn’t the first drought California experiences and therefore there are certainly lessons that can be learned from the past and from other countries that have experienced severe droughts (Saharan Africa and Australia). However, in terms of assessing drought policy, this paper will strictly focus on analyzing the development, implementation, and outcomes of Executive Order B-29-15 following the assumption of Leslie Pal (2014, p. 97) who states that “the core

It all started on a bright and clear morning when the ship in the Texas City Harbor, The Grand Camp, full of ammonium nitrate fertilizers, destined for war torn Europe, was on fire. Ammonium nitrate is a highly dangerous and explosive material if it is unsafely used, the same material was used in Oklahoma bombing. Since the fires in the port weren 't rare, unfortunately people weren 't as alarmed as they should have been. On the contrary those who have noticed the reddish-orange and brown smoke were particularly attracted by the colorful fumes. Kids after school and neighboring pedestrians, rushed to the harbor to watch the fireman use their techniques to put out the fire. Even though that policeman blocked the road with two cars it didn 't stop a crowd of more that 400 people assembling. In addition two airplanes with spectators circled in the sky.