The Wrath of Mothe Nature

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The Wrath of Mother Nature: Hurricane Katrina Geol 1410 Genevieve Ali April 2, 2013 James McAuley, 7718263 Introduction The initial response or lack thereof, to the widespread disaster in the Gulf Coast, caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, demonstrated high levels of disorganization by disaster preparedness and relief organizations, and showed indefinitely that without proper disaster preparation and mitigation, mother nature can transform affected areas of a first world country into a wreckage. Images of hundreds of thousands of people awaiting rescue on their rooftops, or packed into the New Orleans Super Dome circulated the globe, and for the first time in recent history, the ability of a fully developed nation; the number one world power at the time, to recover from a humanitarian disaster of such magnitude, was tested. By definition, a natural disaster is an extreme event triggered by destructive forces occurring in nature that causes significant disruption to society (Abbott and Samson, 2012). Although the series of meteorological events that are known collectively as Hurricane Katrina are no doubt a natural disaster in themselves, the human action that resulted in widespread devastation provide an unnatural element that must be recognized. The Life and Times of Katrina Hurricane Katrina began its life as Tropical Depression Twelve, which formed over the South-Eastern Bahamas, on August 23, 2005 as the result of an interaction of a tropical disturbance generated on the West coast of Africa, and the dissipated storm Tropical Depression Ten in the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone. This occurred in the Leeward Islands, west of Puerto Rico, where the two storms merged in the upper troposphere, bringing heavy rain. The disturbance was blown West by the Trade Winds, and was upgraded to tropical storm status on August 24. It was at this point

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