By 4:30 p.m., the winds were dying down and Thornton and Mouton went outside and surveyed the building. The roof was estimated to be able to withstand winds with speeds of up to 200mph (320km/h) and flood waters weren't expected to reach the second level 35 feet (11m) from the ground. Although there was a "maintenance regime" theoretically in place for the levees, the Senate committee found that it was "in no way commensurate with the risk posed to these persons and their property." According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Katrina is the costliest U.S. hurricane on record, inflicting some $125 billion in total damages. Updated On the morning of August 29, the storm made landfall as a category 4 hurricane at Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, approximately 45 miles (70 km) southeast of New Orleans. There is feces all over the place.. The office asked him if he could open up the Superdome as a refuge of last resort for the city of New Orleans. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. September 1, 2005. As of August 31, there had been three deaths in the Superdome: two elderly medical patients who were suffering from existing illness, and a man who committed suicide by jumping from the upper level seats. People seek high ground on Interstate 90 as a helicopter prepares to land at the Superdome in New Orleans on August 31, 2005. She came up with the list, talked to the dozens of people there, her husbands employees, people she knew a little bit before the storm and now knew like family. Many Katrina evacuees made it to Houston, Texas, where they were housed in the Astrodome and other shelters. We can't house people for five or six days. On top of that, since most of the department's staff was sent to assist at state shelters, there was even a challenge of tracking down "missing workers.". Following the historical damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina, the name Katrina was retired from the lists of names. 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. Out of the at least 1,800 deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina, nearly half were elderly people. Many wonder if New Orleans can handle another Katrina. Houses stand in the Seventh Ward on May 12, 2015. A woman walks with a dog in the Lower Ninth Ward on May 16, 2015. 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. ", Socialist Alternative writes the budget of the Crops was slashed after 2003, largely to pay for the Iraq War and tax cuts for the wealthy: "A refusal to invest tens of millions of dollars into strengthening levees has led to a catastrophe that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars." I was able to see how bad it was, even though it was night. It took two days for 1,000 more FEMA officials to arrive, but once they did, FEMA "slowed the evacuation with unworkable paperwork and certification requirements." Hurricane Katrina not only left more than 1,800 human deaths in its wake, it also rendered thousands homeless as more than 800,000 housing units were destroyed or damaged in the storm. Satellite view of the Superdome showing the damaged roof with the New Orleans Arena to the right on August 30, 2005. Sept. 1, 2006, 3:09 PM PDT / Source: The Associated Press. Although post-traumatic stress symptoms showed a decline in the years after the hurricane, "one in six still had symptoms indicative of probable post-traumatic stress disorder.". Authors . Roughly 14,000 people were inside now. Finally. Despite the strength of Hurricane Katrina, there was little about the storm that made it intrinsically deadly. That night, around 6 p.m., Thornton got a phone call. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we cant bail out the city of New Orleans.. No electricity in New Orleans meant no air conditioning in the dome, filling it with a horrible, muggy heat. The heavy death toll of the hurricane and the subsequent flooding it caused drew international attention, along with widespread and lasting criticism of how local, state and federal authorities handled the storm and its aftermath. That night SMG sent a private helicopter to evacuate the staff and their families. Deaths in the Superdome. A FEMA medical team at the Superdome on August 31, 2005. [21] The Astrodome started to fill up, so authorities began to transfer people to the nearby Reliant Arena, Reliant Center, and George R. Brown Convention Center in Downtown Houston in the following days. The National Flood Insurance Program paid out $16 billion in claims. Thornton and Mouton unleashed days worth of frustration. Thousands of survivors are at the Astrodome after the Superdome became unsafe following the levee breaks in New Orleans. 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. My instincts as a building manager are to evacuate, he said. Every sink was broken. Brown. Sign up for the For The Win newsletter to get our top stories in your inbox every morning. The Social Science Research Council writes that this disparity occurred because elderly people were neither evacuated nor protected effectively. Security checks were conducted, and people with medical illnesses or disabilities were moved to one side of the dome with supplies and medical personnel. Water floods a cemetery outside St. Patrick's Church in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, on September 11, 2005. All Rights Reserved. [32] While numerous people told the Times-Picayune that they had witnessed the rape of two girls in the ladies' restroom and the killing of one of them, police and military officials said they knew nothing about the incidents. The low-income development has been replaced by two-story, townhouse-style buildings. The chief of police had been given bad information. If it rose, theyd evacuate. People search for their belongings among debris washed up on the beach in Biloxi on August 30, 2005. About 16,000 people. 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. After passing over Florida, Katrina again weakened, and was reclassified as a tropical storm. The agency also provided $6.7 billion in recovery aid to more than one million people and households. The Blackhawks had landed on the top parking level of the Superdome, and then the sandbags were driven down to the back door by the generator room. And I expect they will.". FEMA infamously brought in trailers, "hastily built and steeped in toxic resins," that were used to house people after the hurricane. [13], On August 31, it was announced that the Superdome evacuees would be moved to the Astrodome in Houston. According to ABC News, it was claimed that "the levee breaches could not have been foreseen" and that the government had little warning before the hurricane. As far as natural disasters go, Hurricane Katrina was a bad one. The backup generator for the lights was barely able to be kept afloat, and after the water supply gave out, the toilets "became inoperable and began to overflow." As Talk Poverty notes, it was directly due to "racially discriminatory housing practices," which meant that"the high-ground was taken by the time banks started loaning money to African Americans who wanted to buy a home.". Out of 60 nursing homes in New Orleans, 21 had evacuated their residents in advance of Katrina. FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We cant spare 6 feet.. At least 1,833 died in the hurricane and subsequent floods. Nagin had no solution. [5] Maj. Gen. Bennett C. Landreneau of the Louisiana National Guard, said that the number of people taking shelter in the Superdome rose to around 15,00020,000 as search and rescue teams brought more people from areas hit hard by the flooding.[6]. Theres five feet of water on Poydras Street.. We had a very, lets just say, heated conversation with one of those guys about where they were positioning those trucks, said Thornton. In New Orleans, the evacuation plan reportedly "fell apart even before the storm hit." [29] However, the eventual cost to renovate and repair the dome was roughly $185 million and it was reopened for the Saints' first home game in the city in September 2006. But now, in the moonlight, she finally understood what had happened. In this satellite image, a close-up of the center of Hurricane Katrina's rotation is seen at 9:45 a.m. EST on August 29, 2005 over southeastern Louisiana. We pee on the floor. His home was destroyed. Apart from the foster children, roughly 5,000 additional children were listed as missing in the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina. Thornton felt the seconds ticking, each one more dangerous than the last. [17][18] 25,000 evacuees were taken to the Astrodome in Houston, while another 25,000 were taken to San Antonio and Dallas. Thornton and Mouton just needed to find a way to keep things under control for 20 hours before it could be enacted. Unfortunately, it was made significantly worse than it had to be. A few of these groups wandered the concourse, stealing food and attacking anyone who stood up to them. He could only offer supplies. Thornton and Mouton found this odd, but figured the drains in the city had been backed up. 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. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Out of the at least 1,800 deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina, nearly half were elderly people. Engineers also didn't consider sinking land and soil quality, which led to a misjudgment of soil stability. NBC News reports that although there were stories of freezers full of bodies, "no such pile of bodies was [ever] found.". By late afternoon, the breaching of the London Avenue Canal levees had left 80 percent of New Orleans underwater. After levees and flood walls protecting New Orleans failed, much of the city was underwater. Its tenants, the New Orleans Saints, were talking about an open-air stadium on the Mississippi river or moving to another city. Hurricane Katrina was the deadliest hurricane to strike the US Gulf Coast since 1928. If we had evacuated who knows what wouldve happened Thornton said. Rather, the hurricane was named in accordance with the World Meteorological Organizations lists of hurricane names, which rotate every six years. Governor Blanco's comment regarding M-16s was likely in response to the reports of snipers shooting at police and rescue workers. "[2], Despite these previous periods of emergency use, as Katrina approached the city, officials had not stockpiled enough generator fuel, food, and other supplies to handle the needs of the thousands of people seeking refuge there. To do that, they needed to keep it dry. What were Hurricane Katrinas wind speeds? After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving at the Superdome for nearly four hours, a near-riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show up. 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). Reports of other rapes were widespread. He started bawling. This is not normal.. They were acquitted in 2007. He just broke down. 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. Photo taken from the I-10-US 90 junction showing most of the white rubber protective membrane over the roof of the Superdome torn away by strong winds during Katrina. Over the next two days the weather system gathered strength, earning the designation Tropical Storm Katrina, and it made landfall between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as a category 1 hurricanea storm that, on the Saffir-Simpson scale, exhibits winds in the range of 7495 miles (119154 km) per hour. A violent, free-for-all riot seemed sure to break out with the next bit of bad news. They worked furiously. Did you encounter any technical issues? President Bush was otherwise occupied during this time. The guardsmans gun went off during the confrontation. Nagin told the men to get him a list of supplies they needed, and he would get it from FEMA. Although FEMA had promised 360,000 military rations, only 40,000 had arrived by that day. That would be sorted out soon, Thornton thought, or maybe never at all. On the morning of August 29, 2005, Katrina made landfall around 60 miles southeast of New Orleans. It damaged more than a million housing units in the region. Ive been in there seven days, and I havent had a bath. Finally, Mouton spoke. [13][35] The attacker was later jailed. All of our employees had left town with the mandatory evacuation, he said. They tried to use a trash can to create suction around the generator and pump the water out, but that plan failed. Hurricane Katrina was an extremely destructive 2005 storm that caused more than 1,800 deaths along the U.S. Gulf Coast. 11:09. Hurricane Katrina was a devastating Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that resulted in 1,392 fatalities and caused damage estimated between $97.4 billion to $145.5 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding areas. That afternoon, Mayor Nagin asked to meet with Thornton and Mouton. Local legend has it the 73,000-seat stadium was built atop a cemetery, cursing the football team that calls it home the Saints to an eternity as cellar-dwellers. In Louisiana, where more than 1,500 people are believed to have died due to Katrinas impact, drowning (40 percent), injury and trauma (25 percent), and heart conditions (11 percent) were the major causes of death, according to a report published in 2008 by the American Medical Association. However, little to nothing was done by FEMA in response. We've received your submission. Supplies were running low, and as the National Guard began to ration things like water and diapers the crowd grew incensed and accused them of hoarding goods for their own use. for victims from Orleans and St. Bernard Parish, where 86% of Katrina deaths occurred. . Bloodstains smeared the walls near vending machines that had been pried open. It was Mayor Ray Nagins office. [15] Evacuees began to break into the luxury suites, concession stands, vending machines, and offices to look for food and other supplies. On August 28, the storm was upgraded to a category 5 hurricane, with steady winds of 160 mph. The roof had ripped off in sheets. They took off running to the concourse, and saw a nightmare come true the roof in one section above the field had been torn off by the wind. The population of New Orleans fell from 484,674 in April 2000 to 230,172 in July 2006, a decrease of over 50%. Heres a look at some statistics from Hurricane Katrina. Omissions? Hurricane Katrina caused up to $161 billion worth of damage, largely due to the fact that the breached levees led to flooding in 80% of New Orleans. The National Weather Service writes that Hurricane Katrina is "one of the five deadliest hurricanes to ever strike the United States.". [33] False reports of gunshots also disrupted medical evacuations at the dome.
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