RESEARCH PAPER

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Research Paper: Analysis of Major Event RESEARCH PAPER: ANALYSIS OF MAJOR EVENT Brian Robinson Liberty University HLSC 500 Dr. Joseph Finck 12/10/2023

Research Paper: Analysis of Major Event RESEARCH PAPER: ANALYSIS OF MAJOR EVENT Hurricane Katrina, a tropical cyclone that made landfall on the Gulf Coast in August of 2005, was the third-strongest hurricane to ever make landfall in the United States of America at the time. A total of 1,833 individuals lost their lives because of the hurricane, which had maximum sustained winds of 175 miles per hour. Additionally, millions of people were left homeless in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The high number of fatalities that were caused by the hurricane and the ensuing floods that it generated attracted the attention of people all around the world. Additionally, the way local, state, and federal officials dealt with the storm and its aftermath faced considerable and long- lasting criticism. Regarding Hurricane Katrina, there is no specific individual who was named after the storm. Rather, the hurricane was given its name in accordance with the lists of hurricane names that are maintained by the World Meteorological Organization. These lists are regularly updated every six years. As a result of the historical damage that Hurricane Katrina caused, the name Katrina was removed from the lists of names being used. A Category 3 classification on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale was assigned to the storm when it made landfall. This rating indicates that the storm delivered sustained winds of between 100 and 140 miles per hour and that it stretched across around four hundred miles. Hurricane Katrina Before the Storm While the tropical depression that would later become Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005, meteorologists were able to quickly warn those living in the states that are located along the Gulf Coast that a significant storm was shortly to arrive. As early as the 28th of August, evacuations had already begun throughout the region. After the hurricane made landfall, the National Weather Service forecasted that "the majority of the Gulf Coast area will

Research Paper: Analysis of Major Event be uninhabitable for weeks...perhaps longer." This prediction was made on that day. One city was in danger: New Orleans. The average elevation of the city is around six feet below sea level, and it is fully surrounded by water. This is even though almost half of the city is really located above sea level. The United States Army Corps of Engineers had constructed a network of levees and seawalls throughout the course of the 20th century to prevent the city from being flooded. The levees that were constructed to hold back Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Borgne, and the waterlogged swamps and marshes to the east and west of the city were far less trustworthy than the levees that were constructed along the Mississippi River, which were strong and durable. Hitting Florida First Initially, on August 23, the storm presented itself as a tropical depression that was located southeast of the Bahamas. The storm had reached a category one hurricane by the time it made landfall on the evening of August 25, which was located north of the county line between Broward and Miami-Dade counties. It was a moderate storm, with top winds of 80 miles per hour, but it was nevertheless powerful enough to knock out electricity for approximately one million people and create damage worth $630 million. Hurricane Katrina was reclassified as a tropical storm after it once again became weaker after it had passed over Florida. But the storm was gaining power above the warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which is approximately 165 miles west of Key West. This occurred over the Gulf of Mexico. The storm was upgraded to a category five hurricane on August 28, and it was accompanied by consistent winds of 160 miles per hour. Levee Malfunction A word that water had burst through the concrete flood wall that separated the city from the 17th Street Canal was received by the United States Army Corps of Engineers at five o'clock

Research Paper: Analysis of Major Event in the morning on August 29. The United States Army Corps of Engineers administered the levees. Later, the Industrial Canal was also breached, which resulted in flooding in the district that is commonly referred to as the Lower Ninth Ward. Eighty percent of New Orleans was submerged in water by the time the levees of the London Avenue Canal were breached, which occurred in the late afternoon. Floodwaters reached depths of ten to fifteen feet in several regions, and they did not begin to recede for several weeks. Even though the levees and flood walls of New Orleans had been constructed to make them resistant to a hurricane of category three, fifty percent of the network was destroyed by the water. The first-ever mandatory evacuation order for the city of New Orleans was issued by former Mayor Ray Nagin the day before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. At the same time, he announced that the Superdome, which is a stadium situated on elevated ground close to the central business district, would function as a "shelter of last resort" for anybody who was unable to evacuate the city. (For instance, over 112,000 of New Orleans' almost 500,000 residents did not have access to vehicle transportation.) As the sun began to set, about eighty percent of the city's inhabitants had already left the area. When the storm hit, some 10,000 people took refuge in the Superdome, while tens of thousands of others decided to stay indoors and wait it out at home. A significant amount of rain had already been falling for several hours prior to the arrival of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, which occurred early in the morning on Monday, August 29. A sizable number of the city's weak levees and drainage canals were unable to withstand the storm surge, which reached heights of up to nine meters in certain portions of the city. Some of the levees were completely swept away by water, while others had water infiltrate through the soil underneath them. Aftermath

Research Paper: Analysis of Major Event Many people acted heroically in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The Coast Guard rescued some 34,000 people in New Orleans alone, and many ordinary citizens commandeered boats, offered food and shelter, and did whatever else they could to help their neighbors. Yet the government–particularly the federal government–seemed unprepared for the disaster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took days to establish operations in New Orleans, and even then, did not seem to have a sound plan of action. Officials, even including President George W. Bush, seemed unaware of just how terrible things were in New Orleans and elsewhere: how many people were stranded or missing; how many homes and businesses had been damaged; how much food, water and aid was needed. Katrina had left in her wake what one reporter called a “total disaster zone” where people were “getting absolutely desperate.” After the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed between 8,000 and 12,000 people; Hurricane Maria, which killed more than 4,600 people in Puerto Rico in 2017; and the Okeechobee Hurricane, which hit Florida in 1928 and killed as many as 3,000 people, the death toll from Hurricane Katrina is the fourth highest of any hurricane in the history of the United States or the United States of America. A research that was published in 2008 by the American Medical Association found that the most common causes of death in Louisiana, where it is suspected that more than 1,500 people have died as a result of the impact of Hurricane Katrina, were drowning (40 percent), injury and trauma (25 percent), and cardiac diseases (11 percent). Failure In Government Responses Bad criticism of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina. This caused President Bush's reputation to suffer irreparable harm, as he was on the verge of finishing a month-long vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, when the hurricane struck. It was admitted in 2006 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which oversaw designing the levee

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