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As the center of Hurricane Katrina passed southeast of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, winds downtown were in the Category 1 range with frequent intense gusts. The storm surge caused approximately 23 breaches in the drainage canal and navigational canal levees and flood walls. As mandated in the Flood Control Act of 1965, responsibility for the design and construction of the city’s levees belongs to the United States Army Corps of Engineers and responsibility for their maintenance belongs to the Orleans Levee District. The failures of levees and flood walls during Katrina are considered by experts to be the worst engineering disaster in the history of the United States. By August 31, 2005, 80% of New Orleans was flooded, with some parts under of water. The famous French Quarter and Garden District escaped flooding because those areas are above sea level. The major breaches included the 17th Street Canal levee, the Industrial Canal levee, and the London Avenue Canal flood wall. These breaches caused the majority of the flooding, according to a June 2007 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The flood disaster halted oil production and refining which increased oil prices worldwide.
Between 80 and 90 percent of the residents of New Orleans were evacuated before the hurricane struck, testifying to some of the success of the evacuation measures. Despite this, not enough attention was paid to those without a car, credit cards, road experience or family living out of town. The Louisiana Superdome was used to house and support some of those who were unable to evacuate. Television shots frequently focused on the Superdome as a symbol of the flooding occurring in New Orleans.
The disaster had major implications for a large segment of the population, economy, and politics of the entire United States. It has prompted a Congressional review of the Army Corps of Engineers and the failure of portions of the federally built flood protection system which experts agree should have protected the city’s inhabitants from Katrina’s surge. Katrina has also stimulated significant research in the academic community into urban planning, real estate finance, and economic issues in the wake of a catastrophe.
Background.
New Orleans was settled on a natural high ground along the Mississippi River. Later developments that eventually extended to nearby Lake Pontchartrain were built on fill to bring them above the average lake level. Navigable commercial waterways extended from the lake into the interior of the city to promote waterborne commerce. After the construction of the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal in 1940, the state closed these waterways causing the town’s water table to lower drastically.
In 1965, heavy flooding caused by Hurricane Betsy brought concerns regarding flooding from hurricanes to the forefront. That year, Congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1965 which, among other issues, gave authority for design and construction of the flood protection in the New Orleans metropolitan area to the United States Army Corps of Engineers, subject to cost sharing principles, some of which were waived by later legislation. The local municipalities were charged with maintenance once the projects were completed. After 1965, the corps built a levee system around a much larger geographic footprint that included previous marshland and swamp. Many new subdivisions were developed to cater to those who preferred a more suburban lifestyle but were open to remaining within the city limits of New Orleans. Historians question why the area farthest east was developed, since it was viable wetlands and because ringing this region with levees did nothing significant toward protecting the city. What expansion accomplished was to increase the amount of land that could be developed, and it was a reason for the Army Corps to expand the size of its project. In addition the structures caused subsidence of up to in some areas due to the consolidation of the underlying organic soils.
A 1999–2001 study, led by Richard Campanella of the Tulane School of Architecture, used LIDAR technology and found that 51% of the terrestrial surface of the contiguous urbanized portions of Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard parishes lie at or above sea level, with the highest neighborhoods at above mean sea level. Forty nine percent lies below sea level, in places to equivalent depths.
When authorized, the flood control design and construction were projected to take 13 years to complete. When Katrina made landfall in 2005, the project was between 60 and 90% complete with a projected date of completion estimated for 2015, nearly 50 years after authorization. Hurricane Georges in September 1998 galvanized some scientists, engineers and politicians into collective planning, with "Scientific American" declaring that “New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen” in October 2001. However, even the most insistent calls from officials to evacuate ahead of Katrina did not warn that the levees could breach.
On August 29, 2005, the flood walls and levees catastrophically failed throughout the metro area. Many collapsed well below design thresholds (e.g., 17th Street and London Canals). Others (like the Industrial Canal) collapsed after a brief period of overtopping caused “scouring” or erosion of the earthen levee walls. In eastern New Orleans, levees along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway failed in several places because they were built with sand and erodible materials instead of clay, an obvious construction flaw.
History of New Orleans’ law enforcement offices.
Prior to Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’ law enforcement was in disarray. It was inundated with corruption from higher-up officials and had underpaid officers manning the streets. This enforcement lacked the trust of its citizens and failed to keep police brutality rates low. The city’s lack of organization caused the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) and its prison, Orleans Parish Prison (OPP), to have insufficient funding for proper equipment and emergency planning. Along with the law enforcement, the city’s district attorney’s office had very little funding as well. Each prosecutor was only paid $30,000 starting off and the public defenders only $29,000. These public defenders’ income came from the traffic tickets and court fees of the city residents. These earnings were oftentimes very inconsistent, in turn causing these low wages.123 New Orleans only had 30 public defenders to handle all of its cases annually. In the days leading up to the storm, the lack of preparation at Orleans Parish Prison caused the overlooking of evacuation plans. This absence of preparation later led to the suffering of its prisoners during one of America’s most damaging hurricanes.
Pre-Katrina preparations.
The eye of Hurricane Katrina was forecast to pass through the city of New Orleans. In that event, the wind was predicted to come from the north as the storm passed, forcing large volumes of water from Lake Pontchartrain against the levees and possibly into the city. It was also forecast that the storm surge in Lake Pontchartrain would reach , with waves reaching above the storm surge.
On August 28, at 10:00 a.m. CDT, the National Weather Service (NWS) field office in New Orleans issued a bulletin predicting catastrophic damage to New Orleans and the surrounding region. Anticipated effects included, at the very least, the partial destruction of half of the well-constructed houses in the city, severe damage to most industrial buildings, rendering them inoperable, the “total destruction” of all wood-framed low-rise apartment buildings, all windows blowing out in high-rise office buildings, and the creation of a huge debris field of trees, telephone poles, cars, and collapsed buildings. Lack of clean water was predicted to “make human suffering incredible by modern standards.”
It was also predicted that the standing water caused by the storm surge would render most of the city uninhabitable for weeks and that the destruction of oil and petrochemical refineries in the surrounding area would spill waste into the floodwaters. The resulting mess would coat every surface, converting the city into a toxic marsh until water could be drained. Some experts said that it could take six months or longer to pump all the water out of the city.
Evacuation order.
On the night of Saturday, August 27, Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, called the governors of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi to warn them of the severity of the coming storm. He issued a special warning to Mayor Ray Nagin, telling him that some levees in the greater New Orleans area could be overtopped. Later, Mr. Mayfield would tell Brian Williams with NBC Nightly News that he went to bed that night believing he had done what he could. The following day, he made a video call to U.S. President George W. Bush at his farm in Crawford, Texas about the intensity of the storm.
Many New Orleans residents took precautions to secure their homes and prepare for possible evacuation on August 26 and 27. On August 27 the state of Louisiana was declared an emergency area by the Federal Government, and by mid-morning of that day, many local gas stations which were not yet out of gas had long lines. Nagin first called for a voluntary evacuation of the city at 5:00 p.m. on August 27 and subsequently ordered a citywide mandatory evacuation at 9:30 a.m. on August 28, the first such order in the city’s history. In a live news conference, Mayor Nagin predicted that “the storm surge most likely will topple our levee system”, and warned that oil production in the Gulf of Mexico would be shut down.
Many neighboring areas and parishes also called for evacuations. By mid-afternoon, officials in Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, Lafourche, Terrebonne, Jefferson, St. Tammany, and Washington parishes had called for voluntary or mandatory evacuations.”
Although Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city, many people refused to leave or were unable to do so. In Plaquemines Parish, an official described those staying behind as “gambling with their own lives.” Reasons were numerous, including a belief that their homes or the buildings in which they planned to stay offered sufficient protection, lack of financial resources or access to transportation, or a feeling of obligation to protect their property. These reasons were complicated by the fact that an evacuation the previous year for Hurricane Ivan had resulted in gridlocked traffic for six to ten hours. The fact that Katrina occurred at the end of the month before pay checks were in the hands of many was also significant. A “refuge of last resort” was designated at the Louisiana Superdome. Beginning at noon on August 28 and running for several hours, city buses were redeployed to shuttle local residents from 12 pickup points throughout the city to the “shelters of last resort.”
By the time Hurricane Katrina came ashore early the next morning, Mayor Nagin estimated that approximately one million people had fled the city and its surrounding suburbs. By the evening of August 28, over 100,000 people remained in the city, with 20,000 taking shelter at the Louisiana Superdome, along with 300 National Guard troops. The Superdome had been used as a shelter in the past, such as during 1998’s Hurricane Georges, because it was estimated to be able to withstand winds of up to and water levels of . While supplies of MREs (Meals ready to eat) and bottled water were available at the Superdome, Nagin told survivors to bring blankets and enough food for several days, warning that it would not be a comfortable place.
Direct effects.
Hurricane Katrina made its second and third landfalls in the Gulf Coast region on Monday, August 29, 2005, as a Category 3 hurricane. Later that day, area affiliates of local television station WDSU reported New Orleans was experiencing widespread flooding due to breaches of several Army Corps-built levees, was without power, and experienced several instances of catastrophic damage in residential and business areas. Entire neighborhoods on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain were flooded.
The extensive flooding stranded many residents who were forced to stay in place long after Hurricane Katrina had passed. Those stranded survivors dotted the tops of houses citywide. Some were trapped inside attics and unable to escape. Many people chopped their way onto their roofs with hatchets and sledge hammers, which Mayor Nagin had urged residents to store in their attics in case of such events. Clean water was unavailable, and power outages lasted for weeks.
By 11:00 p.m. August 29, Mayor Nagin described the loss of life as “significant” with reports of bodies floating on the water throughout the city, primarily in the eastern portions. Some hotels and hospitals reported