Is it worth risking your life to protect your belongings and property when a Category 5 hurricane is barreling towards your city? Is it right to disregard reports about a storm because in past experiences the news has been wrong? In Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, a man named Zeitoun decides to let his family evacuate New Orleans without him so that he can stay behind and protect his several homes, business, and personal belongings from Category 5 hurricane Katrina. Once the hurricane passes, and he survives, the city turns into chaos. The streets turn violent and the great city turns into a third world country. The power goes out for weeks, and there is no water. The breakdown of all authority gets him arrested and he is soon thrown behind bars. Zeitoun should have evacuated New Orleans with his family for not only did he put his business in front of them, but also his shortsightedness almost left his children without a father. Zeitoun’s belongings and business items are all replaceable, but a father is not.
Zeitoun’s stubbornness blinds him from the true power of the storm for he constantly dismisses reports on how strong Hurricane Katrina is. A couple of days before the hurricane his wife decides it is time to leave. She tells him of her plans and he immediately turns her down. As his wife continues to bring up the idea of evacuating he reminds himself of past hurricane threats, “there seemed to be a half-dozen storms every August, and they were rarely worth the trouble. This
One of the most horrific storms that ever hit the United States was Hurricane Katrina. Katrina was classified a category five hurricane, which is the worst category a hurricane can be. Since the winds in this category storm will go faster than 157 miles per hour, a category five hurricane means appalling damage will occur. When such a deadly disaster occurs, people look to their government and local officials for help, however, the local police, the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD), did not do its job. A great number of people disagree with how the NOPD participated in the relief efforts and are criticized for not being ready to handle a disaster of this magnitude.
This case summarizes events preceding the Hurricane Katrina, which was one of the worst natural catastrophes in the modern history of the USA. It raises questions about the lack of reasonable prevention and preparation actions due to flimsy structure and management of the responsible organizations and persons, invalidity and inconsistence of their actions and incapability of making the decisions in a timely manner. As a result of the unstructured and incoherent activities, we could observe several ineffective and costly attempts to mitigate floods and hurricanes. In the beginning the local officials, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and “White Houses past and present always seem penny-wise and pound-foolish” because of the chain of the wrong
The quote, “Sometimes it’s not the people who changed, but the mask that falls off” by an unknown speaker accurately describes a famous man Abdurahman Zeitoun. This man, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, was so popular, a novel was written about his heroic actions during Hurricane Katrina. Zeitoun was a man that was nationally recognized as a hero for his actions during Hurricane Katrina in 2004. Zeitoun is infamously known for paddling around New Orleans in his canoe, rescuing many civilians from their flooded homes and bringing them to safety, and later being wrongly arrested by government officials due to his Islamic faith. However, much controversy was caused after Zeitoun was arrested for abuse charges against his wife. Some people see Zeitoun
In the late summer of 2005, a terrible tragedy occurred that changed the lives of many in the south-east region of the United States. A Category 3, named storm, named Hurricane Katrina, hit the Gulf Coast on the 29th of August and led to the death of 1,836 and millions of dollars’ worth of damage (Waple 2005). The majority of the damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana. Waple writes in her article that winds “gusted over 100 mph in New Orleans, just west of the eye” (Waple 2005). Not only was the majority of the damage due to the direct catastrophes of the storm but also city’s levees could no longer hold thus breaking and releasing great masses of water. Approximately, 80% of the city was submerged at sea level. Despite the vast amount
Hurricane Katrina was a devastating disaster that has affected many people in New Orleans as well as the surrounding areas. It had a stunning “death toll of 1300 people and damage over $100 billion ”( Davlasheridze 94 ). The communication were taken down hours after Katrina because of the unexpected fast winds and floods that broke down “3 million phone lines and 1,000 cellular towers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.”( Joch ). Because of the millions of phone lines that were battered, contacting the government for help was difficult hours after hurricane Katrina. Not only that, the people of New Orleans underestimated the power of Hurricane Katrina causing many to be “ stranded with no food or water” ( Narrator, “The Storm”,PBS ).
When the Hurricane was coming his family left for a safer area, but Zeitoun wanted to stay with his house because he worked hard to get where he was. Zeitoun wanted to try to protect his house in anyway possible. After all the damage was done and New Orleans was submerged in water and nearly completely destroyed, Abdulrahman Zeitoun was asked by his wife to leave the area and go to a safer place. But Zeitoun being the person he is, decided to stay and to help out anyway possible. He canoed around helping those who needed it.
Often, the government responds to natural disasters with thorough preparation and planning. The federal, state, and local levels of government do this in an effort to help reduce injury and property damage as well as ensure the overall safety of the general population. The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season saw the costliest and one of the deadliest storms in United States history. This storm was Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina displaced of an estimated 645,000 Louisiana citizens (Cepeda, Valdez, Kaplan, & Hill, 2010). This paper will examine…
When a disaster strikes, part of FEMA’s duty is to make sure people are prepared with sufficient supplies in order to improve the situation. FEMA’s second failed attempt in response to the storm was with transporting citizens out of the city. Despite the early warnings for New Orleans citizens to evacuate some decided to stay since they themselves lacked the transportation to leave or some believed they could wait out the storm similar to what they had done in the past with other hurricanes. With the amount of citizens that stayed in the city, FEMA
Orleans. Zeitoun, who is the father, goes through imprisonment for unknown reasons until later he was convicted of looting, his family evacuating New Orleans while he stayed behind, and the aftermath of the storm hitting the area forcefully. Even though he had to go through all of this, Eggers portrays Zeitoun as this unbreakable super hero that is willing to
Zeitoun, the hardworking family man from Syria, has an unbelievably altruistic personality, which is one of the reasons that he found himself in such a dire situation later in the book. When news of the storms growth reaches him, Zeitoun is faced with a decision to either stay in New Orleans or go with his family to Baton Rouge in hopes of finding safety. With very little doubt, he decides to stay to make sure that his home as well as the various worksites throughout the city are safe and ready for Katrina. Knowing the magnitude of the storm, Zeitoun decides to attempt to preserve it as best as he can, but ultimately it would not matter.
But Kathy is not an anomaly. There are millions and millions of women in the U.S. and around the world who struggle everyday to protect their families and keep their governments honest. And that includes Muslim women.
Hurricane Katrina resulted in massive loss of life and billions of dollars in property damage. There are many lessons worth learning from this event. Finger pointing started before the event was over. Most of the focus on Hurricane Katrina was on its impact on New Orleans; however, the storm ravaged a much wider area than that. This paper will briefly summarize the event, the impact on the city of New Orleans and the lessons learned to ensure preparedness today.
In today’s world, there has been one disaster or another, and hurricanes are one of those disasters that always happens. But, for one reason or another we are never prepared or understand the danger of any type of hurricane over a category one. Most of us have been through many hurricanes, like this learner who has lived in Miami, Fla. for over 30 years, and experienced her last hurricane which was Hurricane Andrew. Warnings are always given, first responders are trained to all ways be on alert, and FEMA is supposed to be ready to jump in once the storm has done its damage. But we can never be prepared, because hurricanes are unpredictable, and can become deadly for citizens and create millions of dollars in damages. Within this post we will discuss Hurricane Katrina, preparedness and Emergency management before and after the disaster.
Katrina traveled into the Gulf of Mexico on August 26 and started to expand. When the storm reached the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane however, deteriorated before making it to Louisiana to a Category 3 on August 29 with winds at 145mph. Due to the 20 to 30 foot storm surge and levee failure, it resulted with the infrastructure critically damaged from Florida to Texas. State and local agencies use the Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model to know whom and when to evacuate to include what routes people should take. There was argument on who failed the devastated areas, since the assistance needed could not get to the certain areas due to massive flooding and bridges destroyed. Even though there was no one agency to blame through the lack of coordination and communication from local agencies up through the Federal Government, the lessons learned where noticed within hours and days after the storm arrived, the local population felt as being neglected or forgotten.
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