Hurricane Katrina in New Orlean and its Consequences - Essay Example

When the levees broke, Hurricane Katrina had come and gone and the residents of New Orleans hoped and believed that the worst was behind them, as thesunlight was peeking through the clouds. The city was already devastated, with roofless buildings dotting the landscape, millions without power and 35 people dead (Pietras, 2008, p. 7). The hurricane had been large, a category 5, and the city had prepared for the worst (Brinkley, 2006, p. 3). However, on this day in August, 2005, the residents of New Orleans looked at the sky and hoped that the devastation that Katrina had left behind would be the end of the miseries, and life could go back to normal somewhat – the residents could pick up the pieces, fix their roofs if they had to, seek shelter if necessary, and breathe a bit easier. What many of the residents did not know, yet the city and state leaders did know, was that the city’s levees were dangerously old, fragile and poorly designed (Pietras, 2008, p. 7). If these levees became compromised, they would rip and flood the city, making the city an underwater aquarium, which is exactly what happened. To understand what happened to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast during Katrina, however, one must first understand a bit about hurricanes, tropical storms, and their classifications. Storm occur when there are four specific weather conditions present – low air pressure, warm temperatures, moist ocean air and tropical winds blowing near the equator (Pietras, 2008, p. 22). Hurricanes begin as a tropical depression, with wind speeds of 23-39 mph, and falling air pressure (Pietras, 2008, p. 22). Once the wind reaches speeds of 39-73 mph, it upgrades to a hurricane. Category 1 hurricanes have winds from 75-94 mph, which does not cause real damage to structures, only to mobile homes, trees and shrubs, and flooding is kept to a minimum (Brinkley , 2006, p. 17). Category 2 hurricanes have winds from 96-100 mph (Fradin & Fradin, 2010, p. 14). Category 3 is much stronger, with winds from 111-130 mph, which causes some structural damage to small residence, destroys mobile homes, and more flooding (Brinkley, 2006, p. 15). Category 4 hurricanes have winds from 131-155 mph (Fradin & Fradin, 2010, p. 14). Category 5 has winds in excess of 155 mph, which causes “complete roof failure on many residences and industrial buildings. Some complete building failures with small utility buildings blown over or away. Major damage to lower floors of all structures located less than 15 feet above sea level and within 500 yards of the shoreline. Massive evacuation of residential areas on low ground within five to ten miles of the shoreline may be required” (Brinkley, 2006, p. 17). Beginning as a tropical depression over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005, then gaining strength while hitting landfall in Florida (Hoffman, 2005, p. 4), Hurricane Katrina began hitting the Gulf Coast as a Category 3 Hurricane, with winds up to 141 mph (DesRoaches, 2006, p. 1). The original reports were that Katrina might only hit the Gulf Coast as a Category 1, which is the lowest grade of Hurricane, but, even while reports were that she was a Category 1, there was apprehensiveness that she would pick up fury and steam before hitting the Gulf region (Reid & Theiss, 2005, p. 4). As Hurricane Katrina hit the mainland of America, in Florida, she was only a Category 1, with wind gusts of 80 MPH, but picked up strength as she passed the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which put the Gulf states of Mississippi and Louisiana into a state of emergency (Rodger, 2006, p. 11). While the devastation in New Orleans is what attracted the most attention, and is what will give Hurricane Katrina its most notoriety, Hurricane Katrina was a devastating storm all around, as it damaged 45 bridges, destroyed railroad tracks and caused debris to fall into the road which cost $200 million in cleanup costs (Rodger, 2006, p. 1). Of course, Katrina was not the only hurricane during the 2005 hurricane season, although she was easily the most famous of that bunch. 15 hurricanes rocked the Atlantic Ocean from June to November of that year, which was three more than the previous record of 12 (Pietras, 2008, p. 21). In fact, Katrina was not even the most powerful of the hurricanes that season, although she was the most malicious and devastating – Hurricane Wilma, a Category 5 storm like Katrina, takes that honor, as Wilma was the strongest hurricane on record, roaring through Cuba, Mexico and Florida in October 2005, leaving 65 casualties and billions of dollars of property damage in her wake after devastating this region with 185 mph winds (Pietras, 2008, p. 21). In fact, Katrina and Wilma were not even the only Category 5 storms that season – there were four that season. Category 5 storms normally occur only once every three years (Pietras, 2008, p. 21). Of course, Katrina was the one that we remember because of the devastation to New Orleans that was caused by the breach of her levees. That the levees breached should not have been a surprise occurrence to the people who built the levee, the U.S. Amy Corp of Engineers, which consists of civilian engineers who work with the military to build bases, dams and the like, including levees and floodwalls (Pietras, 2008, p. 26). After all the levees were breached before, in 1965, during Hurricane Betsy. Betsy caused a 12 foot surge that washed right over the 7 foot levees, which flooded the neighborhoods near Lake Pontchairtrain, such as the Lower Ninth Ward, Gentilly and Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish. The devastation of Katrina echoed Betsy’s devastation, as Betsy knocked out half the city’s power, which encouraged looters to take over, while smashing windows, flattening homes, peeling off roofs, felling trees and splintering fences (Pietras, 2008, p. 25). This was not even the first time that the levees had failed, either. They failed in 1849 during the Mexican-American War, which sent a surge of water through New Orleans, inundating 200 city blocks with floodwaters along the way, then again in 1893 as a response to a hurricane, and in 1909 in response to another hurricane (Brinkley, 2006, p. 7). Most importantly of all, at least to the residents of New Orleans in 2005, the levees had failed during Betsy, and this was a problem that he Army Corps of Engineers hoped not to repeat. Unfortunately for the New Orleans residents, the Army Corps of Engineers made a number of fatal flaws in redesigning the levees. For one, they overestimated the strength of the soil, which is moist and a weak foundation for any construction, which caused the levees to be vulnerable to water seeping under the levees, which is water occurred with Katrina. Another mistake was that the levees were built so tall that they were unstable, which perhaps understandable in light of the fact that the previous storm that caused flooding, Betsy, apparently caused the flooding because the levees were too short for the surge. Further, the engineers did not take into account the fact that the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a 76 mile long, 36 foot deep canal that provided a shortcut between the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans’ inner harbour, magnifies hurricane strength, acting as a funnel straight to New Orelans, which raises storm surges by as much as three feet while increasing the storms’ velocity. In short, the levees were built to withstand a Category 3 storm, which is what Katrina was when it touched down in Louisiana, but not a Category 5, which is what she was when she hit New Orleans (Pietras, 2008, p. 27). Yet, the federal government did not do anything to bolster the levees¸ despite the fact that, for years, there had been warnings about what a strong storm could do to the city of New Orleans. In fact, New Orleans was listed as one of three disaster scenarios in 2001, along with a major earthquake in San Francisco and a terrorist attack in New York City, which, of course, happened later that same year (Pietras, 2008, p. 29). The federal government knew for years that the levees were vulnerable, yet existed on wishful thinking – that the worst case scenario, consisting of a strong storm that breached the levees and left the city underwater – would not occur (Pietras, 2008, p. 29). Meanwhile, the warnings about the weaknesses of the levees appeared in articles in Houston Chronicle, Scientific American, National Geographic and the New Orleans Times-Picayune during the early 2000s, and the White House was aware only three months before the disaster struck that the proposed flood plans for New Orleans was never carried out because of lack of funding. In fact, in July 2005, just before the storm hit, Louisiana State University hurricane researcher Ivor van Heerden stated that “if a hurricane comes next month, New Orleans could no longer exist” (Pietras, 2008, p. 32). In October 2004, Joel K. Bourne wrote, for the National Geographic that a storm thundering across New Orleans would wreak havoc, with “the car-less, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party left behind” (Brinkley, 2006, p. 14). Other reports stated that a devastating storm would “strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of ten left behind as the city drowned under twenty feet of water…thousands of refugees could land in Houston. Economically, the toll would be shattering…the Big Easy might never recover” (Brinkley, 2006, p. 15). Despite the dire warning of doom, not much was done to prevent the devastation that occurred in New Orleans. The Red Cross refused to build any shelters in the city because none of the commonly used emergency sites, such as gyms, hospitals and schools, were above sea level (Brinkley, 2006, p. 17). One hopeful sign was the FEMA did fund, in 2004, a weeklong simulation of a Category 3 hurricane striking New Orleans, dubbed “Hurricane Pam” (Brinkley, 2006, p. 18). The assumption of this exercise was to imagine that New Orleans “is inundated with ten feet of water within the levee systems as a result of a Category 3 or higher hurricane” (Brinkley, 2006, p. 18). During this simulation, 500,000 people were stranded in the toxic water, and 30 million cubic yards of debris fell upon the city, spreading over 13 parishes in southeast Louisiana. Then, after the simulation was over, the officials just went home (Brinkley, 2006, p. 19). Therefore, when the inevitable occurred, the city was not prepared. Mayor Nagin was hesitant to mandatorily evacuate the city, for fear that the hotels would sue him if he evacuated the city and nothing happened. True, he advised residents in the Lower Ninth Ward to evacuate and prepare for a hurricane by stocking up on food and bottled water, removing backyard trash and board up windows, but he stopped short of a mandatory evacuation, which left the residents believing that the storm would not as bad as had been feared (Pietras, 2008, p. 38). After all, the residents of New Orleans were used to hearing about hurricane warnings, due to the fact that there were two or three serious storms every year, and these were storms that could be ridden out. Therefore, the residents, after hearing the not-so-dire warnings from Mayor Nagin, figured that Katrina would be no different, and many residents hunkered down and prepared to ride out the storm (Pietras, 2008, p. 39). What the residents did not know was that Katrina was shaping up to be a monster, and that the levees were vulnerable to flooding. They also did not know just how unprepared the city was for a disaster. New Orleans Emergency Management Plan, prepared in 2000, consisted of just 14 pages, with just a page and a half devoted to evacuation with no substantive directives on this aspect (Brinkley, 2006, p. 19). It did consist of guidelines, such as that there should be evacuation zones that should be developed for further study, but these zones never were developed by Nagin, and nothing further was done after this vague start offered for the emergency management plan (Brinkley, 2006, p. 19). Indeed, Nagin did not prioritize evacuation plans in his mayoral tenure, concentrating more on failing schools and rising murder rates. Therefore, Nagin did not know how to handle the emergency, ignoring FEMA guidelines about coordinating school buses and drivers to support the evacuation efforts and behaving in a “hesitant, perplexing fashion” (Brinkley, 2006, pp. 19-20). Nagin’s hesitance, as stated before, was that the hotels around the city would lose business during a mandatory evacuation, and he couldn’t have that, so he spent the Saturday before Katrina hit conferencing with his lawyers about what to do, stalling around and trying to verify his legal position (Brinkley, 2006, p. 23). While he dithered, direct action was necessary, such as marshalling personnel, deploying resources and initiating plans, none of which was done during these crucial hours when the foremost issue on Nagin’s mind was the welfare of the hotel businesses, not the welfare of the people of New Orleans (Brinkley, 2006, p. 23). Nagin’s concern was for the tourism of New Orleans, not the 112,000 adult residents without cars. Meanwhile, the federal government was not doing much better. Michael Brown, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) received a report about Katrina, and the likelihood that it would directly hit New Orleans. Like his Mayoral counterpart, Nagin, Brown did not act upon this warning immediately and spent the day before the storm hit not doing anything to prepare New Orleans. He did not send emergency-response management teams, nor buses. What he did send was two public affairs officials to see what was going to happen, a fact that angered the officials in New Orleans, as these officials showed up with nothing more than “a Web site and a flyer” and no real resources (Brinkley, 2006, p. 37). Therefore, that Saturday was spent with officials talking to one another, and no real action taking place, despite the urgings of Governor Katherine Blanco, who had proclaimed a state of emergency and had written President Bush an letter imploring him to do the same on the federal level (Brinkley, 2006, p. 38). President Bush, vacationing on his ranch, never bothered to actually stop vacationing on the ranch, but, rather, left the preparations up to Michael Brown, who still was not convinced that a federal evacuation was necessary. In other words, while precious hours were ticking, the leaders who were in charge, with the possible exception of Blanco, were blasé about what was about to happen. Nagin halfheartedly urged residents to prepare for a hurricane and suggested that people leave, but his half-hearted warnings were, by and large, not taken seriously. Michael Brown, the head of the federal agency that would be in charge of disaster preparations for the city, likewise had a nonchalant attitude about the entire affair, virtually ignoring what was going on and sending two men to survey the ground with a website and a flyer and no resources. The end result is that, when the worst catastrophe in history was about to hit New Orleans, people were in the city were going about their lives – watching ball games at little league fields and hanging around in bars (Brinkley, 2006, p. 40). The mandatory evacuation was not announced until Sunday at 10 AM, and, by then, it was too late. About 20% of the 460,000 residents were still in the city by the time that the mandatory evacuation was announced, and 20% were in the surrounding parishes which boasted about 900,000 residents. Therefore, there were approximately 300,000 residents still in danger in the New Orleans and surrounding parishes by the time that the order for mandatory evacuation was finally announced (Brinkley, 2006, pp. 89-90). The hurricane, as devastating as it was, was the least of the city’s problems, however. The breaches of the levees proved to be the real undoing of the city. Again, the city was unprepared for the flood. The city needed ground transportation, search and rescue missions, commodities such as food and water, medical care and housing for the displaced, but FEMA was clearly not up to the job. First Michael Brown virtually ignored what was happening, then Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security and Brown’s boss, also did nothing, brushing aside media reports of the human devastation as rumoured and exaggerated, and insisting that FEMA was doing an “excellent job” (Brinkley, 2006, p. 270). By Tuesday, there were 22 million tons of debris scattered around Louisiana, with did not include 350,000 cars and 35,000 boats that were destroyed by Katrina. Dillard College and Xavier University were flooded severely, and Canal Street was “literally a canal” (Brinkley, 2006, p. 342). Cars were overtuned everywhere in six to eight feet of water, and St. Bernard Parish was destroyed – “every neighbourhood, every street, every home, every building, has water – lots of it” (Brinkley, 2006, p. 348). Flooding ranged from a few inches to 12 feet or more. New Orleans was devastated, and Mississippi lost 221 citizens, and 68,000 homes across 28,000 square miles (Brinkley, 2006, p. 553). By Wednesday, 78,000 people were living in Mississippi shelters, and 26,000 New Orleans residents were living in the Superdome. By Thursday, the State of Texas had taken in 220,000 evacuees from Louisiana, and 120,000 people were staying in 97 official shelters. 90,000 miles were impacted by Katrina – an area the size of Great Britain (Brinkley, 2006, p. 637). Perhaps the largest effect that Katrina had on the Gulf Coast was the value of lessons learned. There were too many mistakes that were made in preparation for the disaster. The vulnerability of the levees was ignored, despite many warnings that these levees would not withstand a Category 3 storm, let alone a Category 5. The mayor was focused upon the welfare of businesses, not on the welfare of people, so he half-heartedly told the residents to leave, a warning that many ignored, because, after all, if the evacuation was not mandatory, then the storm could not have been very bad, so many decided to go ahead and ride the storm out. The governor was ill-prepared for such an eventuality, although it appears that she tried the hardest of the three main branches in charge of the disaster – local, state and federal. And the federal response was a joke, as neither Michael Brown nor Michael Chertoff took the storm seriously until it was too late, and President Bush never even bothered to leave his ranch until well into the storm’s aftermath. These are lessons that cannot be ignored going forward. Bibliography Brinkley, D. (2006). Great deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. New York: William Morrow. DesRoches, R. (2005). Hurricane Katrina: Performance of transportation systems. New York, NY: American Society of Civil Engineers. Fradin, J. & Fradin, D. (2010). Hurricane Katrina. New York, NY: Marshall Cavendish. Hoffman, M. (2007). Hurricane Katrina. New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. Pietras, J. (2008). Hurricane Katrina. New York, NY: Chelsea House Publishers. Reed, J. & Theiss, M. (2005). Hurricane Katrina: Through the Eyes of Storm Chasers. New York, NY: Farcountry Press. Rodger, E. (2007). Hurricane Katrina. New York, NY: Crabtree Publishers. Read More