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Hurricane Katrina
2005 Atlantic hurricane season
General
Timeline Meteorological history Tornado outbreak
Impact
Economic effects Political effects Criticism of government response Social effects Effects in the Southeastern United States Effects in New Orleans Levee failures Memorial Medical Center New Orleans Hornets New Orleans Saints Superdome Tulane University Infrastructure repairs Reconstruction
Relief
Disaster relief International response
Analysis
Media coverage
External links
Media related to Hurricane Katrina at Wikimedia Commons Katrina stories at Wikinews Works related to Katrina sources at Wikisource
v t e

The effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans was disastrous. By August 30 2005, one day after the Category 4 storm made landfall, 80 percent of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, was flooded, with some parts of the city under 20 feet (6 m) of water. The flood was caused by several levee breaches due to a combination of strong winds and excess water in the bodies of water surrounding the city. The event had major implications for a large segment of the United States population and for the economy of the entire country.

Primary causes

The primary causes of the subsidence of land of New Orleans can be attributed to the leveeing of the Mississippi River, and an underestimation of the environmental impact of development on the Mississippi Delta.

Construction of the levees began in 1879, and the purpose was to line the river to prevent damage caused by flooding. This interfered with normal depositing of sediment to the delta marshlands. However the vast delta was slowly settling into the sea.

Shea Penland, a geologist at the University of New Orleans and contractor for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which builds the levees, attributes one third of the land subsidence to the large number of canals through the delta. Barge traffic and tides erode the earth around the edge of the canals, and salty water seeps along them, slowly salinating the ground and killing the vegetation that helps hold the land together.

The final trigger to the catastrophe was hurricane damage to levees and seawalls that protected the city, much of which sits below sea level. (New Orleans is surrounded by the Mississippi River to the south, Lake Pontchartrain to the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the east.) Three levees were breached: those along the Industrial Canal, the 17th Street Canal, and the London Avenue Canal. An effort to sandbag the 17th Street Canal levee breach failed, and the pump which was partially offsetting the flooding stopped working. Major flooding followed, and by August 31, the water level in the city equalized with that of Lake Pontchartrain, with close to 90% of New Orleans inundated.

Predictions

File:Msyelevst.jpg

Despite dire warnings, no large-scale corrective measures had been implemented by the time Katrina made landfall.

"The design of the original levees, which dates to the 1960s, was based on rudimentary storm modeling that, it is now realized, might underestimate the threat of a potential hurricane. Even if the modeling was adequate, however, the levees were designed to withstand only forces associated with a fast-moving hurricane that, according to the National Weather Service’s Saffir-Simpson scale, would be placed in category 3. If a lingering category 3 storm — or a stronger storm, say, category 4 or 5 — were to hit the city, much of New Orleans could find itself under more than 20 ft (6 m) of water" (The Creeping Storm, June 2003 Issue of Civil Engineering Magazine).

The eye was forecast to pass to the east of the city. In that event, the wind would back into the north as the storm passed, forcing large volumes of water from Lake Pontchartrain against the levees and possibly into the city. It was further expected that the storm surge in Lake Pontchartrain would reach 14 to 18 feet (4 to 5 m), with waves reaching seven feet (2 m) above the storm surge .

On August 28, 10 a.m. CDT, the National Weather Service (NWS) field office in New Orleans issued a bulletin predicting catastrophic damage to the city. Anticipated effects included at least partial destruction of half of the well-constructed houses in the city, 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".

Further predictions were that the standing water caused by huge storm surges would render most of the city uninhabitable for weeks, while the destruction of oil and petrochemical refineries in the surrounding area would spill waste into the flooding, 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. Even after the area had been drained, all buildings would need to undergo inspection to determine structural soundness, as all buildings in the city would likely be at least partly submerged . In a cruel twist of fate, many of the predictions from a FEMA simulated hurricane response exercise held in 2004 ( see Hurricane Pam - ) correctly predicted many of the calamities that actually occurred with Katrina .

Evacuation order and refuges of last resort

In anticipation of destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin ordered a citywide mandatory evacuation on August 28, the first such order in the city's history; neighboring areas and parishes followed suit. In a live news conference, 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. President George W. Bush made a televised appeal for residents to heed the evacuation orders warning, "We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities."

Pre-disaster scenarios estimated that 100,000 or more residents would not have the transportation means to escape the city. In the interest of protecting these residents several "refuges of last resort" had been designated in advance, including the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center. Beginning at noon on August 28th and running for several hours, all city buses were redeployed to shuttle local residents to the refuges. By the time Katrina came ashore early the next morning the Superdome was housing over 9,000 residents along with 550 National Guard troops. The elevation of the Superdome is about three feet (1 m) above sea level, and the forecasted storm surge was predicted to cause flooding on that site. The Superdome had been used as a shelter in the past, such as during 1998's Hurricane Georges, and because it was estimated to be able to withstand winds of up to 200 mph (320 km/h) and water levels of 35 feet (10 m), it was considered one of the best options available at the time. The mayor told those coming to the Superdome to bring blankets and enough food for several days, warning that it would be a very uncomfortable place.

The entire region was declared a disaster area before Katrina even hit land and FEMA prepositioned 18 disaster medical teams, medical supplies and equipment, urban search and rescue teams along with millions of meals ready to eat, liters of water, tarpaulins, and truckloads of ice.

Effects

Shortly before midnight on August 28, local television stations WAPT and WWL-TV reported the first deaths in Louisiana related to Katrina: three nursing home patients who died, probably of dehydration, during an evacuation to Baton Rouge.

On Monday August 29, area affiliates of local television station WDSU reported New Orleans was experiencing widespread flooding, was without power, and that there were several instances of catastrophic damage in residential as well as business areas. All metropolitan New Orleans television news services had evacuated their studios in the city and were broadcasting from remote locations. As of 2 p.m., the east side of New Orleans was under 5 to 6 feet (1.5 to 1.8 m) of water. Entire neighborhoods on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain were flooded.

At 11 p.m. on August 29, Mayor Ray Nagin conducted an interview with WWL discussing the damage to New Orleans. He described the loss of life as "significant" with reports of bodies floating on the water throughout the city, though primarily in the eastern portions. There was no clean water or electricity in the city, and some hotels and hospitals reported diesel fuel shortages. The estimate of restoration of power was at least four to six weeks for the city. A breach in the levee at the 17th Street Canal was causing further trouble; the pumps designed to pump water out of the city redirected into Lake Pontchartrain, which then circulated back through the breach. The I-10 pumps overheated, causing valve damage, also negating their effectiveness during the flooding. A representative from St. Bernard reported "total devastation" with 40,000 homes flooded. The National Guard began setting up temporary morgues in select locations. He also said houses have been picked up and moved. In summary, he described the devastation as a "nightmare".

The Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin told ABC's "Good Morning America" that residents of New Orleans should not expect to return to their homes for "twelve to sixteen weeks". Nagin also told reporters on August 31 that the hurricane may have killed thousands of people in the city. Allen Breed of the Associated Press reports that New Orleans "descended into anarchy Thursday, as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out and storm survivors battled for seats on the buses that would carry them away from the chaos. The tired and hungry seethed, saying they had been forsaken" .

Levee breaches

As of mid-day Monday, August 29, indications were that the eye of the storm had swept northeast and spared New Orleans the brunt of the storm. The city seemed to have escaped most of the catastrophic wind damage that was predicted.

However, at 11 a.m. the National Weather Service reported that a levee broke on the Industrial Canal, a 5.5 mile (9 km) waterway that connects the Mississippi River to the Intracoastal Waterway, near the St. Bernard-Orleans Parish line (Tennessee St.) and 3 to 10 feet (1 to 3 m) of flooding was possible. This area, also known as the 9th Ward area of the city, reported 3 pump failures.

On August 30 at 1:30 a.m. CDT, CNN (via the vice president of Tulane University Medical Center) reported that a levee on the 17th Street Canal, which connects into Lake Pontchartrain, suffered a two city-block wide breach.

John Hall, spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, later said that the floodwall on top of the canal levee had been overtopped by the storm surge. The water cascading over the wall eventually undermined the wall base, causing it to collapse outwards. Repairs were complicated by the presence of the low Hammond Highway bridge and a hurricane barrier on the lake side of the breach, which impeded access by barges and heavy equipment.

The 17th St Canal Levee is on the border of Metairie and New Orleans proper and when it collapsed it flooded most of the city under as much as 25 feet (8 m) of water. This breach allowed the water of Lake Pontchartrain, which at the time was some six feet (2 m) above sea level, to flow downward into northern New Orleans proper, which lies between two and ten feet (1 to 3 m) below sea level. A 200-foot breach was confirmed by New Orleans Fire Department officials to CNN at 3:16 a.m. CDT on August 30 .

At 6:30 p.m. WWL-TV announced that the effort to sandbag (ongoing since 2 p.m.) the breach in 17th St. canal levee at the Hammond Highway bridge had failed, and it was expected that the pumping station at that location would fail.

At 10 p.m. CDT on August 30, Mayor Ray Nagin reported on WDSU that the planned sandbagging of the 17th Street levee breach did not happen due to a lack of expected Blackhawk helicopters which the National Guard diverted to save some people in a church, and another 9 feet (3 m) of water was expected to fill the entire city. This means that even the French Quarter would flood within about 12 hours, up to the level of Lake Pontchartrain, three feet (1 m) above sea level. The failure to sandbag would add at least an additional four weeks to drain the city. He estimated that it would take about four months before the city would be habitable.

At some time on August 30, the London Avenue Canal floodwall was breached at 6100 Pratt Drive, according to the Army News Service .

NASA satellite imagery released on August 30 indicated that Lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas had substantially overflowed their shores, nearly blending into a single body of water separated only by a narrow strip of land. Significant flooding along local rivers was also indicated .

As of Friday, September 2, it was estimated that ad hoc levee repairs would be complete by Sunday, September 4 , and, once the cities' system of pumps can be repaired and supplied with power, that unwatering the city would then take a minimum of 35 days (mid October) and up to 80 days (end of November) for some areas .

By Saturday, September 3, it had been discovered that the pumps used to unwater New Orleans were no longer manufactured, so that the damaged pumps would have to be repaired instead of replaced as had been hoped. It was estimated that at least a week would be required to dry out the pumps before repair could be attempted. Any residential structure submerged for two weeks will likely require demolition .

On September 4, Brigadier General Robert Crear of the US Army Corps of Engineers said that they had succeeded in closing off the 17th Street canal. He added that it would take between 36 and 80 days to complete the task of emptying New Orleans of flood water.

Damage to buildings and roads

On August 29, 7:40 a.m. CDT, it was reported that most of the windows on the north side of the Hyatt Regency New Orleans had been blown out, and many other high rise buildings had extensive window damage. The Hyatt was the most severely damaged hotel in the city, with beds reported to be flying out of the windows. Insulation tubes were exposed as the hotel's glass exterior was completely sheared off.

A number of brick façades collapsed into the street. At least three fires were reported in the New Orleans area, destroying several buildings. By September 2, fires had become a more widespread problem with some reports of arson.

The St. Bernard Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP) said that on August 29 that the parish's two shelters at Chalmette High and St. Bernard High were suffering much damage with flooding. He said Chalmette High shelter was losing its roof, and St. Bernard High had many broken windows/glass. There were estimates of 300-plus evacuees at the two sites. "We cannot see the tops of the levees!" exclaimed OEP Director Larry Ingargiola.

At 11 p.m. of August 29, Mayor Ray Nagin conducted an interview with WWL-TV discussing the damage to New Orleans. He described New Orleans as "totally dark" with no clear way in or out, eighty percent of the city flooded, with some areas having water depths of 20 feet (6 m). Both airports were underwater, "three huge boats" had run aground, along with an oil tanker which was leaking oil. The yacht club was destroyed by a fire, and gas leaks were reported throughout the city. The Pontchartrain Expressway (Interstate 10 in Downtown, not the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway) was "full of water" and the "Twin Spans" (the bridge over the east end of Lake Pontchartrain) were "totally destroyed".

As of 11:30 p.m. CDT, WDSU-TV reported at least part of the I-10 Twin Span had completely collapsed. On WWL-TV, Mayor Nagin stated that, according to a FEMA official, the entire length of the Twin Span had been destroyed .

By September 2, NOAA had published satellite photography of many of the affected regions.

Communications failures

Coordination of rescue efforts August 29 and August 30 were frustrated by inability to communicate. Many telephones, including most cell phones, were not working due to line breaks, destruction of base stations, or power failures, even though some base stations had their own back-up generators. In a number of cases, reporters were asked to brief public officials on the conditions in areas where information was not reaching them any other way.

Amateur radio has been providing tactical and emergency communications as well as health-and-welfare enquiries .

All local television stations were disrupted, but the news crews moved quickly to sister locations in nearby cities. Local newspapers moved out of the affected area. Broadcasting and publishing on the Internet became an important means of distributing information to evacuees and the rest of the world.

On September 4th , Mayor Nagin told CNN reporter Nic Robertson that a communications hub had been set up at the Hyatt Hotel in downtown New Orleans.

Aftermath

Stranded residents

Due to the extensive flooding caused by levee breaches, a number of residents were stranded long after Hurricane Katrina had passed, unable to leave their homes. Stranded survivors dotted the tops of houses citywide; according to the Miami Herald, the flooded 9th Ward sent 116 residents onto rooftops seeking aid. Many others were trapped inside attics, unable to escape ; some reportedly chopped their way onto their roofs with hatchets and sledge hammers. Due to a mains break, clean water was unavailable, and power outages were expected to last for weeks . Around 10 p.m. CDT, August 29, search and rescue were begun with boats in Plaquemines, St. Bernard and N.O. East.

In some instances, stranded residents were able to communicate their location through cellular phones, requesting help. In one such instance, MSNBC quoted resident Chris Robinson, in a phone call from his home east of downtown, "I'm not doing too good right now. The water's rising pretty fast. I got a hammer and an ax and a crowbar, but I'm holding off on breaking through the roof until the last minute. Tell someone to come get me please. I want to live." .

Civil disturbances

With the attention of law enforcement personnel focused on rescue efforts, the security situation in New Orleans degraded quickly. By August 30, looting had spread throughout the city, often in broad daylight and in the presence of police officers. "The looting is out of control. The French Quarter has been attacked," Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson said. "We're using exhausted, scarce police to control looting when they should be used for search and rescue while we still have people on rooftops." Looters reportedly included gangs of armed gunmen, and gunfire was heard in various parts of the city. Along with violent, armed burglary, there were also reports of residents simply gathering food from unstaffed grocery stores for a lack of other sources of food. Incapacitated by the breakdown of transportation and communication and overwhelmed in terms of numbers, police officers could do little to stop crime, and shopkeepers who remained behind were left to defend their property alone. Compounding the lack of a police presence was the absence of 3,000 members of the Louisiana National Guard, who were on a tour of duty in Iraq.

Civil disturbances often hampered rescue efforts throughout New Orleans. In an interview on WDSU, Tulane University Medical Center spokeswoman Karen Troyer Caraway said efforts to evacuate the hospital were hampered due to looters. Caraway reported that looters in boats with guns had attempted to break into the hospital but were repelled by hospital staff. "If we don't have the federal presence in New Orleans tonight at dark, it will no longer be safe to be there, hospital or no hospital," Acadian Ambulance Services C.E.O. Richard Zuschlag told CNN. Several news sources reported instances of fighting, theft, rape, and even murder in the Superdome and other refuge centers.

On August 31, New Orleans's 1,500 member police force was ordered to abandon search and rescue missions and turn their attention toward controlling the widespread looting and a curfew was placed in effect. Mayor Ray Nagin called for increased federal assistance in a "desperate S.O.S." following the city's inability to control looting and was often misquoted as declaring martial law in the city, despite their being no such term in Louisiana state law (a declaration of a state of emergency was instead made). On the same day, Governor Kathleen Blanco announced the arrival of a military presence, stating that they " how to shoot and kill and they will." Despite the increased law enforcement presence, crime continued to be problematic. Several firings at relief helicopters, bus convoys, and police officers were reported, and fires erupted around the city at stores and a chemical storage facility. By September 1, 6,500 National Guard troops had arrived in New Orleans, and on September 2, Blanco requested a total of 40,000 for assistance in evacuation and security efforts in Louisiana.

According to New Orleans Deputy Police Chief W. J. Riley, on September 4 police shot and killed five or six people walking on the Danziger Bridge. Initial reports said that the victims were Army Corps of Engineers contractors on their way to launch barges involved in the 17th Street Canal repair. Shortly afterwards, the initial report was retracted, and it was reported that the men shot by police were gunmen who had opened fire on the contractors. The Army Corps of Engineers also confirmed that its contractors were not killed by police, but gunmen who fired at them were killed .

Superdome refuge

As the largest center of refuge, rescued residents were brought to the Superdome to await further evacuation. Many others made their way to the Superdome on their own, hoping to find food, water, shelter, or a ride out of town. Despite increasingly squalid conditions, the population inside continued to grow, according to Ray Bias, a nurse with the American Ambulance Association. The situation inside the building was described as chaotic; reports of fights, rape, and filthy living conditions were widespread. As many as 100 were reported to have died in the Superdome, mostly from heat exhaustion, but also including an accused rapist who was beaten to death by a crowd and an apparent suicide.

On the evening of August 30, Maj. Gen. Bennett C. Landreneau, adjutant general for the Louisiana National Guard, said that the number of people taking shelter in the Superdome had risen to around 15,000 to 20,000 as search and rescue teams brought more people to the Superdome from areas hard-hit by the flooding . As conditions worsed and flood waters continued to rise, on August 31, Governor Blanco ordered all of New Orleans, including the Superdome, be evacuated. The area outside the Superdome was flooded to a depth of three feet (1 m), with a possibility of seven feet (2.3 m) if the area equalized with Lake Pontchartrain. It was decided that FEMA — in conjunction with Greyhound, the National Guard, and Houston Metro — would immediately relocate the by-then 22,000–25,000 Superdome evacuees across state lines to the Reliant Astrodome in Houston. Roughly 475 vehicles assembled to ferry evacuees with the entire evacuation expected to take two days . By September 4th, the Superdome had been completely evacuated.

The New Orleans Convention Center

The New Orleans Convention Center was also opened up to evacuees, but by Thursday, September 1, the facility, like the Superdome, was overwhelmed and declared unsafe and unsanitary. Reports indicated that up to 20,000 people had gathered at the convention center, many dropped off after rescue from flooded areas of the city. Others were directed to the center by police as a possible refuge. However, despite housing thousands of evacuees, FEMA claimed to have no "factual" knowledge of the use of the Convention Center as a shelter until the afternoon of September 1. Unruliness among some evacuees also contributed to the difficulty of relieving conditions at the center; in one case, a supply helicopter was unable to land due to crowding. Eventually, soldiers managed to toss supplies to the crowd from 10 feet (3 m) off the ground. By Friday, September 2, military support at the convention center had established a steady supply of water and emergency rations as evacuation efforts were in progress. By September 4th, the Convention Center had been completely evacuated.

Evacuation efforts

As evacuation orders were given on August 31, relief organizations scrambled to locate suitable areas for relocating refugees on a large scale. Among early candidates was the Reliant Astrodome in Houston, Texas, which was announced as the primary relocation area for Superdome refugees. Officially, the Astrodome shelter was to be reserved for Superdome evacuees only; however, on September 1, National Public Radio (NPR) reported that the first busload to arrive at the Astrodome was actually a "renegade" bus. The bus was driven by a private citizen, Jabbar Gibson, who commandeered one of many abandoned school buses, picked up stranded citizens, and drove them to Houston. Authorities in Houston decided to admit them, and eventually admitted other evacuees as well. Houston agreed to shelter an additional 25,000 evacuees beyond those admitted to the Astrodome. San Antonio, Texas also agreed to house 25,000 refugees, beginning relocation efforts in vacant office buldings on the grounds of KellyUSA, a former air force base. Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas was also mobilzed to house incoming refugees, and smaller shelters were established in towns across Texas and Oklahoma. Housing efforts were not limited to those sponsored by state and federal government; shelter was provided by hundreds of individuals and organizations. Arkansas is also expected to take in up to 100,000 evacuees in various shelters and state parks throughout the state.

Expected to last only two days, the evacuation of remaining refugees proved more difficult than rescue organizations anticipated as transportation convoys struggled with damaged infrastructure and a growing number of evacuees. On the afternoon of September 1, Governor Kathleen Blanco reported that the number of evacuees in the Superdome was down to 2,500; however, the AP reported that by evening, eleven hours after evacuation efforts began, the Superdome held 10,000 more people than it did at dawn. Evacuees from across the city swelled the crowd to about 30,000, believing the arena was the best place to get a ride out of town.

Overwhelmed by incoming refugees, by the evening of September 1, CNN reported that the Astrodome in Houston was ruled full and could not accept any more people. At the time it sheltered just over 11,000, less than half the number that New Orleans had been told to send. The nearby Reliant Center was soon opened as an additional shelter on September 2, as well as the George W. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston.

Two or three days of lawlessness delayed evacuation efforts. Lt. Kevin Cowan, spokesperson for the Louisiana National Guard points to difficulties in the second evacuation, "There are still a lot of people out there to be rescued. Unfortunately with these common thugs and criminals out in the streets that are taking pot shots at the rescuers and the helicopters, it is only delaying that. Unfortunately people may be dying from this nonsense."

Evacuation efforts were hastened on September 2 by the wider dispersal of evacuees among newly-opened shelters. Louis Armstrong International Airport, which had recently reopened to allow flights related to relief efforts, began to load evacuees onto planes as well. At one point, the evacuation was interrupted when priority was given to remove 700 guests and staff from the Hyatt located near the Superdome in order to provide housing to relief and security personnel. By the end of the day, 94,308 refugees were housed in 308 shelters in the region.

On September 3, some 42,000 refugees were evacuated from New Orleans, including those remaining in the Superdome and Convention Center. Efforts turned to the hundreds of people still trapped in area hotels, hospitals, schools and private homes.

On Sunday, September 4, it was reported that US officials had asked the European Union for help with the relief effort. According to EU officials, US government representatives have asked for first aid kits, blankets, water trucks and 500,000 prepared meals.

Health effects

There is growing concern that the prolonged flooding will lead to an outbreak of health problems for those who remain. In addition to dehydration and food poisoning, there is also potential for the spread of hepatitis A, cholera and typhoid fever, all related to the growing contamination of food and drinking water supplies in the city compounded by the city's characteristic heat and stifling humidity. Survivors may also face longer-term health risks due to prolonged exposure to the petrochemical tainted flood waters and mosquito-borne diseases such as yellow fever, malaria and West Nile Virus.

As of September 2, an emergency triage center has been set up at Armstrong airport. A steady stream of helicopters and ambulances are bringing in the weak, elderly, sick and injured. Baggage equipment are being used as guerneys to transport persons from the flight line to the hospital set up in the terminal. The captain in charge described the site as "organized chaos" but the emergency medical staff assembled from around the country is keeping pace. Equipped to handle anything from bruises to critical cases requiring ventilators, the site is triaging survivors and then sending them on to medical centers in the surrounding states.

By Saturday, the situation at Armstrong airport started to stabilize. Up to 5000 people had been triaged in the past two days and fewer than 200 remained at the medical unit.

Hospital evacuations continued into Saturday. Reports from the Methodist Hospital highlighted the suffering in the city with people dying of dehydration and exhaustion while the staff worked unendingly in horrendous conditions. The first floor of the hospital flooded and the dead were stacked in a second floor operating room. Patients requiring ventilators were kept alive with hand powered resuscitation bags. .

Loss of life

There are no reliable figures from New Orleans proper as of September 4. It is feared that hundreds or perhaps thousands of residents may not have survived the storm and its immediate aftermath. Some survivors and evacuees reported seeing dead bodies lying in city streets and floating in still-flooded sections, especially in the east of the city.

Dead bodies at refugee centers, such as an old woman in a wheel chair who had been covered with a cloth, or a man dead on the interstate, were being shown on news stations like CNN and Fox News on Thursday September 1 and possibly earlier. These people died waiting for relief, food, water, or medicine, rather than as a direct result of the storm or flood.

On September 4th, Mayor Nagin informed CNN reporter Nic Robertson that the death toll could rise in the thousands after the clean-up is completed.

Although not directly caused by the storm, there also have been at least five gunmen or snipers shot by police.

Medium-term repercussions

Education

Due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina, the vast majority of schools in the city of New Orleans as well as southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi were shut down until further notice. Many of these schools suffered extensive structural damage, and schooling on all levels was put on hold. School districts in many areas housing evacuees allowed children taking refuge to attend classes temporarily, as they were classified as "homeless" . This was even true for out-of-state students evacuated in several states as far away as Michigan and California. In addition, many colleges offered reduced or free tuition to displaced students.

For a listing of colleges offering admissions to displaced students, please see Colleges offering admission to displaced New Orleans students (WikiNews).

Professional and college sports

New Orleans' two major professional sports teams, the National Basketball Association's New Orleans Hornets and the National Football League's New Orleans Saints, as well as the Tulane University sports teams, were displaced. The Saints temporarily moved their operations to San Antonio, Texas, and their home opener against the New York Giants was moved to the Meadowlands.

New Orleans tourism

The hurricane struck just days before Southern Decadence, a festival known as the Gay Mardi Gras, which is the second-largest money-maker for New Orleans businesses after Mardi Gras itself. It was predicted that outside of the obvious costs of the direct effect of the storm, the city would lose millions of dollars in tourist monies because of the cancellation of this festival and presumably others in following months, in particular the 2006 Mardi Gras. New Orleans was also a top business convention destination, and due to the long planning cycles for such events, the hospitality industry worried that many conventions would avoid New Orleans for several years.

Relief effort

Many branches of the armed forces were involved with the relief effort, including the Army Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard, and the Marine Corps.

Foreign assistance

Individuals around the world donated to a variety of NGOs helping relieve the affected areas. The Red Cross is the largest such organization, and both Yahoo, Google and later Amazon set up donation pages for the Red Cross; there are many more.

On August 31, 40 members of the Vancouver Urban Search & Rescue Team were flown to Lafayette by a WestJet Airlines aircraft, along with several thousand pounds of rescue gear, to assist with the rescue and recovery effort in the state.

On September 1, three Republic of Singapore Air Force CH-47SD Chinooks with 38 crewmen arrived in Fort Polk, Louisiana to assist the Texas Army National Guard in their relief operations. The Chinooks are from a Singaporean overseas detachment military base in Fort Prairie, Texas, where the RSAF conducts training for its crewmen.

On September 2, the Canadian government announced that it was deploying three warships—HMCS Athabaskan (DDH 282), HMCS Toronto (FFH 333) and HMCS Ville de Québec (FFH 332)— and Coast Guard vessel Sir William Alexander to the Gulf of Mexico to assist in relief efforts. Several H-3 Sea King Helicopters will accompany the Canadian ships. Canadian aircraft will also be deployed as part of a NAFTA military assistance pact.

A German Army Airbus plane landed in Florida on Saturday with 10 tonnes of food rations to be transported to the disaster area. Offered help includes German air force hospital planes and pumping services.

Criticism of relief effort

Critics of the relief effort have said that the government — at all levels — had not done enough to minimize casualties before the storm, as well as provide relief to victims.

• New Orleans' top emergency management official called the effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly desperate city. New Orleans' emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy", he said. He added: "We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."

• Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, in an interview broadcast on WWL-AM on the early morning of 2 September, expressed his frustration at what he judged to be insufficient reinforcements provided by the President and federal authorities. The interview was picked up by the news media such as CNN later that morning. He ended the interview in tears. Transcript MP3 Audio Windows Media Streaming Audio.

• Paul Krugman wrote in the "New York Times" on Sept. 2: "Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not because they refused to evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to get out without help - and help wasn't provided." He points out: "Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk." In the same article, the former FEMA chief James Lee Witt is cited as saying at a Congressional hearing: "I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared."

• Many, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Democratic Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, have urged people and media to delay criticism of the government's response until those stranded in New Orleans can be rescued and relocated. Laura Bush gave a press conference in Lafayette, Louisiana, on September 3 2005, in which she noted that "bad things are not happening here" and urged the news media to convey the message of how communities are working to help people. She refused to criticize the federal response to the crisis when questioned.

• The Bush administration has come under serious criticism from the international community, as the time it took for US troops to respond was by most accounts, three to four days. Much of the international news media has questioned the availability of American troops due to the US-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation. By many reports, the self-sustained combat brigades in Iraq have the equipment to produce the temporary infrastructure required to assuage the terror in New Orleans. These troop units carry significant expertise and equipment to deal with communications, transportation, and health issues. There is also a lack of basic evacuation equipment, such as helicopters and naval resources for marine rescue. Currently over 150,000 troops are in Iraq, without considering the major presence of US Special Forces in the area.

• Additonally, many police, fire and EMS organizations from outside the affected areas have been stymied in their efforts to send help and assistance to the area. Offical requests for help through the proper chains of command have not been forthcoming. Local Police and other EMS workers are apparently traumatized themselves. At least two officers have apparently committed suicide, and many have apparently deserted and turned in their badges.

• Some British tourists trapped in a New Orleans hotel have accused the authorities of preferential treatment for Americans during the evacuation as Katrina approached. Conversely, it was reported on Fox News that several political friends of Mayor Nagin were given preferential treatment once busses arrived at the Superdome, being moved to the front of the line ahead of evacuees that had been at the Superdome since it opened for shelter.

• On NBC's Hurricane Relief Telethon, broadcast live to the east coast of the United States, rapper Kanye West slammed the Bush administration for failing to do more for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Following a monologue delivered from a prepared script by comedian Mike Myers, West nervously made the following statement:

"I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says,"They’re looting." You see a white family, it says, "They’re looking for food." And, you know, it’s been five days because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I’ve tried to turn away from the TV because it’s too hard to watch. I’ve even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I’m calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help – with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way – and they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us."

The first part of West's criticsm was likely aimed at Yahoo!, which posted two photos of hurricane victims on its website. An Associated Press photograph of two African-American women was captioned, "Looters carry bags of groceries through floodwaters after taking the merchandise away from a wind damaged convenience store in New Orleans on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005."

The next photo, of a white couple, was labelled as follows: "Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store in New Orleans..." The second photo was from Agence France Press (AFP).

After saying this impromtu speech, Myers resumed hosting duties of the segment, reading once again from the prepared speech. After he handed back the floor to Kanye West, West said: "George Bush doesn’t care about black people. Please call--" NBC then cut the feed.

The special was edited for West Coast audiences, and West's remarks about George W. Bush were removed.

See also

• Hurricane Katrina
• Hurricane Katrina disaster relief
• Political effects of Hurricane Katrina
• Hurricane Katrina effects by region
• Predictions of hurricane risk for New Orleans
• Jabbar Gibson

References

• Levee maps from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• Levee info from Nola.com

External links

Vulnerable Cities: New Orleans

A discussion of impacts of hurricanes and flooding on New Orleans.

NOVA scienceNOW: Hurricanes

New Orleans' unique vulnerability to hurricanes.

Extraordinary Problems, Difficult Solutions

The challenges and issues in rebuilding New Orleans, including possible uninhabitability from soil contamination.

Post Katrina Satellite Imagery

From Google Maps.

Lost and safe lists

• WWL 870AM List
• Red Cross (also by phone at 1-877-LOVED-1S) (in French)
• Survivors Reunited

• Current events
• Hurricane Katrina
• New Orleans, Louisiana