When the storm struck New Orleans and the levees failed, the low-lying lands flooded at record levels. As only a category 3 storm, Hurricane Katrina could have caused much less damage then it did if the levees held. The reason for the levee failure was due to an engineering fault, leaving the levees prone to malfunction. Tens of thousands of victims were either forced from their homes due to the flooding, or lost their lives trying to ride out the storm. The impoverished areas of New Orleans suffered the greatest losses because the houses were poorly built and many people were not educated on the danger of the coming storm.
The Great Storm of 1987 occurred on the 15th October in that year, it was the worst storm to reach Britain for over 200 years. The days preceding the storm a depression was developing over the Bay of Biscay, just west of France. This depression was slowly drifting northwards towards the British Isles building up intensity as it went. Weather stations reported that the severe weather would not reach further north than the English Channel, therefore England were not mentally or physically ready to cope with a storm of this magnitude. The impacts of the storm were great, with wind speeds recorded of up to 120mph in Sussex and Kent.
Even though New Orleans was once devastated, major developments to the failed system of levees have been made. When Hurricane Katrina dealt New Orleans a punishing blow with its ferocity, the lives of the people living there permanently changed. The inhabitants which was composed of men, women, children and elderly citizens many of which were 85 years of age or older desperately clung to life and the need to survive. ("The Case of Hurricane Katrina", n.d.). As Katrina lashed the coast of New Orleans, the gusts of wind increased and the waves began to erode the only sense of security this, below sea level, city ever had against the many miles of water systems surrounding it.
Many living in the city fled prior to the storm, but many believed the reminiscences of the storm wouldn’t be as bad as they thought and they stayed. As a result of New Orleans being below sea level, levees were placed around the city to keep the streets and homes from flooding. When the intensity of winds and mass flooding came from the storm, these levees broke, flooding nearly 80% of New Orleans communities. The Pre-Katrina preparations were a disaster for all communities. Following Hurricane Katrina, outrage was one of the many feelings that survivors experienced.
And the situation had poor management. | The main prison was decoyed and around 4000 in mates/prisoners escaped. | Many people were squashed into shanty towns or on the streets because houses were destroyed this situation didn’t help with the diseases being spread. | Impacts for People, Environment, and
Initially, all the churches had their own cemeteries, but the growth of the city and the dead didn’t leave any more space for other people to be buried. The graveyards became overpopulated, their surrounding areas were suffering from disease brought on by contamination from the corpses. This problem was not helped by the fact that there were many mass graves open all around the city. After multiple complaints, the council of state evacuated all the graves from the main city to abandoned quarries. The idea to use the abandoned quarries for the storage of the bones was established on 1786 by the Lieutenant General of Police, Alexandre Lenoir , M. Thiroux de Crosne, and the Inspector General of Quarries, Charles Axel Guillaumot.
The effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans was extremely severe, resulting from one of the most deadly natural disasters in U.S. history. By August 30th, 2005, one day after the Category 4 storm made landfall, about 80 percent of the city of New Orleans, was flooded with some parts of the city under 20 feet of water. The flood was caused by several levees breaches, which most people didn’t believe it could breach, due to a combination of a powerful storm surge, strong winds and excess water in the bodies of water surrounding the city. After reading the author’s response, her curiosity was based on her belief that the delayed response time was due to racism. She first noticed when watching the T.V.
However, in 2005 poverty was brought screaming back to the fore front of our minds after the devastation wrought in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. Hours upon hours of footage were televised nationally showing just how impoverished the areas surrounding the city of New Orleans were. So often we are consumed with the welfare of others we forget there is still work to be done at home. In his essay, Reminders of Poverty, Soon Forgotten, Alexander Keyssar delves into poverty and how Americans have reacted to it. In his essay he argues, even in the face of various disasters that have befallen some of the poorest citizens, no efforts to combat poverty have been successful.
The storm gets bigger as the low pressure sucks in more warm moist air this also causes strong winds. The main impact from the hurricane was the national hurricane centre in Miami lost its radar, ammeter and satellite communications equipment, this reduced the ability to monitor and forecast storm track. A social impact was the loss of homes, 25,000 homes destroyed and 100,000 badly damaged. As wind speed was so high it caused jumbo jets at Miami International Airport to blow of the runways, also at Tamiani airport hangars and light aircraft were destroyed. Although the natural hazard was very destructive only 30 people died, and some of these deaths could have been prevented.
The mega hurricane displaced millions and killed over 1,800 people. The irony of the hurricane come from the impact it had on New Orleans. The preparation for the hurricane in New Orleans was inadequate, people were not ordered to evacuate until less than a day before hurricane Katrina made landfall which lead to numerous