With the threat of another major hurricane in the Gulf Coast this weekend, its an eerie (and scary) reminder of what happened 3 years ago this week ...
South Louisiana officials and residents are busy scrambling and making preparations before Gustav is expected to hit at Category 3 strength (the same as Katrina, initially), and it's de ja vu all over again ...
Her Story:
Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States.
The most severe loss of life and property damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed, in many cases hours after the storm had moved inland.
Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005, and crossed southern Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding there, before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf, and becoming one of the strongest hurricanes on record while at sea.
After entering the Gulf, Katrina grew from a Category 3 hurricane to a Category 5 hurricane in just nine hours.
On August 29, 2005, at 6:10 a.m., Hurricane Katrina made landfall near Buras, Louisiana with 125 mph winds, as a strong Category 3 storm. A tide gauge in Plaquemines Parish indicated a storm tide in excess of 14 feet and a 12 foot surge was recorded in Grand Isle.
Katrina brought heavy rain to Louisiana, with 8 – 10 inches falling on a wide swath of the eastern part of the state. The highest rainfall recorded in the state was about 15 inches.
As a result of the rainfall and storm surge the level of Lake Pontchartrain rose and caused significant flooding along its northeastern shore, affecting communities from Slidell to Mandeville. Several bridges were destroyed, including the I-10 Twin Span Bridge connecting Slidell to New Orleans. Almost 900,000 people in Louisiana lost power as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
The federal flood protection system in New Orleans failed in more than fifty places. Nearly every levee in metro New Orleans breached as Hurricane Katrina passed east of the city, subsequently flooding 80% of the city and many areas of neighboring parishesfor weeks.
Hard-hit St. Bernard Parish was flooded due to breaching of the levees that contained a navigation channel called the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MR-GO).
At least 1,836 people lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina and in the subsequent floods, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane. The storm is estimated to have been responsible for $81.2 billion in damage, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
The search for the missing was slow. According to an interview in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the coroner was still trying to get a list of missing from the Red Cross in November 2005. While there were some victims on this list whose bodies were found in their homes, the vast majority were tracked down through word-of-mouth and credit card records
The catastrophic failure of the flood protection in New Orleans prompted immediate review of the Army Corps of Engineers, which has, by congressional mandate, sole responsibility for design and construction of the flood protection and levee systems.
Many of the levees have been reconstructed since 2005. In reconstructing them, precautions were taken to bring the levees up to modern building code standards and to ensure their safety. For example, in every situation possible, the Corps of Engineers replaced I-walls with T-walls. T-walls have a horizontal concrete base that protects against soil erosion underneath the floodwalls.
However, there are funding battles over the remaining levee improvements. This past February, the Bush administration requested that the state of Louisiana pay about $1.5 billion of an estimated $7.2 billion for Army Corps of Engineers levee work, a proposal which angered many Louisiana leaders.
On May 2nd of this year, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal used a speech to The National Press Club to request that President Bush free up money to complete work on Louisiana's levees. Bush promised to include the levee funding in his 2009 budget, but rejected the idea of including the funding in a war bill, which would pass sooner
In Katrina’s aftermath, there was widespread criticism of the federal, state and local governments' reaction to the storm, especially that of the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA).
FEMA provided housing assistance (rental assistance, trailers, etc.) to more than 700,000 applicants—families and individuals. However, only one-fifth of the trailers requested in Orleans Parish have been supplied, resulting in an enormous housing shortage in the city of New Orleans.
To provide for additional housing, FEMA also paid for the hotel costs of 12,000 individuals and families displaced by Katrina through February 7, 2006, when a final deadline was set for the end of hotel cost coverage. After this deadline, evacuees were still eligible to receive federal assistance, which could be used towards either apartment rent, additional hotel stays, or fixing their ruined homes, although FEMA no longer paid for hotels directly.
As of early July 2006, there were still about 100,000 people living in 37,745 FEMA-provided trailers.
An investigation by the U.S. Congress into the government’s response to the catastrophe resulted and the resignation of FEMA director Michael D. Brown. Conversely, the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service were widely commended for accurate forecasts and abundant lead time.
The global community poured in support for the Gulf Coast after the storm. Over seventy countries pledged monetary donations or other assistance.
Notably, Cuba and Venezuela (both hostile to US government themselves) were the first countries to offer assistance, pledging over $1 million, several mobile hospitals, water treatment plants, canned food, bottled water, heating oil, 1,100 doctors and 26 tons of medicine, though this aid was rejected by the U.S. government. Kuwait made the largest single pledge, $500 million; other large donations were made by Qatar ($100 million), South Korea ($30 million), Australia ($10 million), India, China (both $5 million), Pakistan ($1.5 million), and Bangladesh ($1 million).
Israel sent aid including 80 tons of food, disposable diapers, beds, blankets, generators and additional equipment which were donated from different governmental institutions, civilian institutions and the IDF. The Bush Administration announced in mid-September that it did not need Israeli divers and physicians to come to the United States for search and rescue missions, but a small team landed in New Orleans on September 10 to give assistance to operations already under way. The team administered first aid to survivors, rescued abandoned pets and discovered hurricane victims.
Countries like Sri Lanka, which was still recovering from the Indian Ocean Tsunami, also offered to help. Countries including Canada, Mexico, Singapore, and Germany sent supplies, relief personnel, troops, ships and water pumps to aid in the disaster recovery. Belgium sent in a team of relief personnel. Britain's donation of 350,000 emergency meals did not reach victims because of laws regarding mad cow disease. Russia's initial offer of two jets was declined by the U.S. State Department but accepted later. The French offer was also declined and requested later.
Despite receiving aid from around the world, there was also a heavy dose of criticism from around the world, including accusations of racism that were revealed at the international level across global press.
Quotations from the UK Mirror such as "Many things about the United States are wonderful, but it has a vile underbelly which is usually kept well out of sight. Now in New Orleans it has been exposed to the world." were common.
Because of the large loss of life and property along the Gulf Coast, the name Katrina was officially retired on April 6, 2006 by the World Meteorological Organization at the request of the U.S. government.
It was replaced by Katia on List III of the Atlantic hurricane naming lists, which will next be used in the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season
(See Storm photos from WWL-TV HERE)
Source
(click the link for ALL information pertaining to Hurricane Katrina, including links to numerous articles and photo galleries)
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