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Preparations for Hurricane Katrina - Wikipedia Katrina makes landfall near Grand Isle, Louisiana as a Category 3 storm with winds near 127 mph.- Severe flooding damage to cities along the Gulf Coast, from New Orleans to Biloxi, Mississippi. Please select which sections you would like to print: Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. When Hurricane Katrina forced New Orleans poet Shelton Alexander to evacuate his home, he took his truck and video camera to the Superdome. And food was running short. [citation needed] The building's engineering study was underway as Hurricane Katrina approached and was put on hold. Hours before three major levees were breached, President Bush announced that New Orleans had "dodged a bullet," despite the fact that Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco had already requested federal assistance two days before the hurricane hit, according to The Society Pages. Security checks were conducted, and people with medical illnesses or disabilities were moved to one side of the dome with supplies and medical personnel. Soon after they arrived, officialsenacted contraflow, shutting down all roads leading in and opening up every lane out of the city. The water kept rising outside the exteriordoor, and was slowly coming in. A storm worth worrying about had entered the gulf. However, according to "Deaths Directly Caused by Hurricane Katrina" by Poppy Markwell and Raoult Ratard, only about one third of those deaths were due to drowning. They had to find out if they could move these people. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. And despite the fact that this was meant to be a temporary shelter, they ended up being stranded in the stadium for a week. Hell if I know, the mechanic said. The men hooked up the line, fuel started flowing. And although hurricanes are usually only 300 miles wide at most, Hurricane Katrina's winds stretched out over 400 miles, with wind speeds well in excess of 100 mph. After levees and flood walls protecting New Orleans failed, much of the city was underwater. Katrina's death toll is the fourth highest of any hurricane in U.S. history, after the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed between 8,000 and 12,000 people; Hurricane Maria, which. That night SMG sent a private helicopter to evacuate the staff and their families. 2. [37] This was done as covertly as possible so as to not cause rioting or charges of favoritism. It continued on a course to the northeast, crossing the Mississippi Sound and making a second landfall later that morning near the mouth of the Pearl River. According to National Geographic, "some argue that indirect hurricane deaths, like being unable to access medical care, should be counted in official numbers.". The population of the festering, battered dome had gone from 15,000 to 30,000 in a short time as helicopters and vehicles capable of cutting through the water picked up stranded citizens and brought them to the only place left to go in the entire city. Some levees buttressing the Industrial Canal, the 17th Street Canal, and other areas were overtopped by the storm surge, and others were breached after these structures failed outright from the buildup of water pressure behind them. Miller told a reporter. The agency also provided $6.7 billion in recovery aid to more than one million people and households. No one knew what would happen. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005 as a Category 3 storm. As some people tried to get supplies to survive, the media portrayed them as "looters," a term that the LA Times notes is more often applied to Black people than white people. In death, she became a symbol of government failure an anonymous woman slumped in a wheelchair, abandoned outside one of the city's . Hurricane Katrina was a 2005 storm that affected the southeast coast of the United States. In addition, according to the journalSocial Science & Medicine, there were also long-term mental health consequences of Hurricane Katrina. Despite the planned use of the Superdome as an evacuation center, government officials at the local, state and federal level were criticized for poor preparation and response, especially Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin, President George W. Bush, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Michael D. Hurricane Katrina - Facts, Affected Areas & Lives Lost - HISTORY What were Hurricane Katrinas wind speeds? . Water spills over a levee along the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on August 30, 2005, in New Orleans. Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina stranded thousands of New Orleans residents. And as Vox writes, this wasn't necessarily by choice "but rather because they were too poor to afford a car or bus fare to leave." New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city the previous day, and an estimated 1.2 million people left ahead of the storm. The population of New Orleans fell from 484,674 in April 2000 to 230,172 in July 2006, a decrease of over 50%. NBC News reports that although there were stories of freezers full of bodies, "no such pile of bodies was [ever] found.". Three people died in the Superdome; one apparently jumped off a 50-foot high walkway. In the hours before the storm hit and thenafter it left when the levees failedand everything changed the people who remained in New Orleans streamed toward a place where usually they would go to watch football, the massive structure at the citys heart, the Superdome. Refuge of last resort: Five days inside the Superdome for Hurricane Katrina In fact, the first hurricane-related deaths occurred the day before Katrina struck when three residents died whilst being evacuated to Baton Rouge. The food inside the freezers had soon rotted, and "the smell was inescapable.". He started bawling. Inside the Superdome, things were descending further into hell. People wade through high water in front of the Superdome in New Orleans on August 30, 2005. It's not a hotel," said the emergency preparedness director for St. Tammany Parish to the Times-Picayune in 1999. knock out power for about 1 million and cause $630 million of damage, Cities of the Underworld: Hurricane Katrina, about 100,000 people were trapped in the city when the storm hit, fourth highest of any hurricane in U.S. history, according to a report published in 2008 by the American Medical Association. We can't house people for five or six days. Initially, the Superdome was described as a "lawless, depraved, and chaotic" place, with reports of numerous murders. The tropical depression that became Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005, and meteorologists were soon able to warn people in the Gulf Coast states that a major storm was. Although FEMA had promised 360,000 military rations, only 40,000 had arrived by that day. 25% were caused by injury and trauma and 11% were caused by heart conditions. She knew the destruction was bad, that water was everywhere. In April 2000, according to the Data Center, the population of New Orleans was 484,674; by July 2006, not quite a year after Katrina, it had dropped by more than 250,000, to some 230,172. President George W. Bush looks out the window of Air Force One on August 31, 2005, as he flies over New Orleans. Only after Katrina passed were people going to be bussed to shelters. [6] By this time, the population of the dome had nearly doubled within two days to approximately 30,000, as helicopters and vehicles capable of cutting through the deep flood waters picked up stranded citizens from hard-hit areas and brought them to the dome. According to Talk Poverty, "a Black homeowner in New Orleans was more than three times as likely to have been flooded as a white homeowner. As a result, thousands of people became stranded at the Superdome, while thousands more ended up on the roofs of their homes as floodwaters reached heights of 20 feet. Insurance companies have paid an estimated $41.1 billion on 1.7 million different claims for damage to vehicles, homes, and businesses in six states. It ran into the reserve tank. Apart from the foster children, roughly 5,000 additional children were listed as missing in the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina. Theyd evacuate the group in shifts later that night, they decided, taking them west to a helipad at the Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, outside Baton Rouge. Well, Thornton replied, our generator has 10 inches to spare. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. [citation needed] Residents who evacuated to the Superdome were warned to bring their own supplies with them. The fact that Black homeowners were more likely to face flooding than white homeowners wasn't an accident or bad luck. Satellite view of the Superdome showing the damaged roof with the New Orleans Arena to the right on August 30, 2005. On August 27 Katrina strengthened to a category 3 hurricane, with top winds exceeding 115 miles (185 km) per hour and a circulation that covered virtually the entire Gulf of Mexico. The men found a weak spot in the wall, a metal panel around head height, and punched a hole through it. In addition, a Bleacher Report article quotes Thornton saying "We're not a hospital. Because of the ensuing. [42] Their first "home" game was played on September 19, 2005 against the New York Giants at Giants Stadium, which resulted in a 2710 loss. This also disproportionately affected people of color. According to PBS, two weeks after the storm, 25% of the children remained unaccounted for. Food rotted inside the hundreds of unpowered refrigerators and freezers spread throughout the building. The low-income development has been replaced by two-story, townhouse-style buildings. [15] Evacuees began to break into the luxury suites, concession stands, vending machines, and offices to look for food and other supplies. The Associated Press stated there were two substantial holes, "each about 15 to 20 feet (6.1m) long and 4 to 5 feet (1.5m) wide," and that water was making its way in at elevator shafts and other small openings around the building. Water floods a cemetery outside St. Patrick's Church in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, on September 11, 2005. Some 1.2 million Louisianans were displaced for months or even years, and thousands never returned. They either remained in their homes or sought shelter at locations such as the New Orleans Convention Center or the Louisiana Superdome. Hurricane Katrina's Devastation in Photos - HISTORY We pee on the floor. The NOPD was gone. Thornton recruited off-duty NOPD officers to come grab sandbags and carry them from the parking lot, through the loading dock, and back to the generator room from the inside. During the first ten years after the storm, FEMA provided more than $15 billion to the Gulf states for public works projects, including the repair and rebuilding of roads, schools and buildings. If we had evacuated who knows what wouldve happened Thornton said. It looks like we cant stop the levee breaches and were being told there could be as much as six to eight feet more of water, Thornton recalls Compass saying. Thornton and Mouton went to work, spending a hour writing up a two-page, handwritten list of everything they needed. We wont be able to feed these folks. And I expect they will.". The owners, Salvador and Mabel Mangano, ended up facing the only criminal charges directly related to Hurricane Katrina, as they were charged with negligent homicide due to their refusal to evacuate their residents. Hurricane Katrina, the tropical cyclone that struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, was the third-strongest hurricane to hit the United States in its history at the time. With Hurricane George, it was 36 to 48 hours. Itll be harder to manage them. [34] However, after a National Guardsman was attacked with a metal rod, the National Guard put up barbed wire barricades to separate and protect themselves from the other people in the dome, and blocked people from exiting. When Hurricane Katrina first made landfall in Florida between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, it was a category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of 70 miles per hour. We cant spare 6 feet.. The levee system that held back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne had been completely overwhelmed by 10 inches (25 cm) of rain and Katrinas storm surge. Out of the at least 1,800 deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina, nearly half were elderly people. If it rose, theyd evacuate. Winds of 125 mph and storm surges of 28 feet devastated much of Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi. In 2006, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which was responsible for the design of the levee system in New Orleans, acknowledged that outdated and faulty engineering practices used to build the levees led to most of the flooding that occurred due to Katrina. The storm spent less than eight hours over land. The Washington Post reports that not only did the Corps cut costs and pinch pennies in order to save money in the short term, but the engineering of the levees was "a disjointed fashion based on outdated data" (via Vox). The hurricane and its aftermath claimed more than 1,800 lives, and it ranked as the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. The Superdome was, as far as Thornton was concerned, completely destroyed. In an analysis of 971 fatalities in Louisiana and 15 additional deaths of storm evacuees, 40% of deaths were caused by drowning. In all, 1,833 people would lose their lives. [44] The San Antonio Express-News reported that sources close to the Saints' organization said that Benson planned to void his lease agreement with New Orleans by declaring the Superdome unusable. Thornton remembers Compass telling him: Thats why I wanted to come over here and tell you so that you can get your families out.Thornton says Compass then told him he was taking his men out of the Superdome, before hugging him and saying he enjoyed working with him all these years.

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