Why is the 2005 Hurricane season an important event in Emergency Management?
Two paragraphs with one reference
Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina.pdf
It seems like we are getting our share of hurricanes lately in the U.S. While we may be looking in the rear view mirror a bit here, very few natural events surpass the 2005 Hurricane Katrina as a focusing event for Emergency Management. Here is a glimpse…
Video Links:
Hurricane Katrina Historic Storm Surge Video – Gulfport, Mississippi
Hurricane Katrina Storm Surge
There are many (many) videos about Katrina. Many people overlook that Katrina struck South Florida as a Category 1 storm first, before making history. Consider the above report – an actual public document (i hope you are seeing the trend here about the wealth of information you can find in such places). The 2005 Hurricane Season was one for the record books – other than the obvious amount of damage and scale of this natural disaster, why do you think this ranks among the most important focusing events in Emergency Management?
Here are some examples below from students in the same class.
This is from one Student:
It should come as no surprise that Hurricane Katrina is categorized as one of the most important focusing events in Emergency Management. The monstrous storm brought along widespread destruction and devastation, the likes of which New Orleans hadn’t seen since the 1930’s and were not prepared for. What many people are unaware of, however, is that the response to Hurricane Katrina is considered to be one of the largest failures in history. Aside from the vast damage and scale of this disaster, I believe Hurricane Katrina ranks among the most important focusing events in Emergency Management because of the wide array of lessons learned through various failures. Perhaps one of the most prevalent areas that can be analyzed and discussed is the use of the Superdome for the shelter of displaced persons. The first lesson highlighted in the Federal Report that can be discussed in regard to the Superdome is Mass Care and Housing. Due to a “lack of interagency coordination to relocate and house people” (Townsend, 2006), the Superdome became incredibly overpopulated. The overabundance of people led to a breakdown in morality, security, and any sort of structure that should have been in place during the recovery phase. According to the report, the storm “crippled the region’s criminal justice system. Problems such as a significant loss of accountability of many persons under law enforcement supervision, closure of the court systems in the disaster, and hasty evacuation of prisoners were largely attributable to the absence of contingency plans at all levels of government” (Townsend, 2006). While these problems were seen throughout the city and outside of the Superdome as well, the close confines of so many people and lack of structure made it very easy for chaos to ensue. In addition to the breakdown in social morals, the overpopulation and insufficient medical care within the Superdome led to serious health issues. In an article published by the Seattle Times, a displaced victim stated “There is no sanitation. The stench is overwhelming. The city’s water supply, which had held up since Sunday, gave out early yesterday, and toilets in the Dome became inoperable and began to overflow” (Gold, 2005). The quotes and stories from those who took shelter in the Superdome go on and on, but all follow the same general theme: it was dangerous, sickly chaos. The situation with the Superdome is just one aspect of Hurricane Katrina that can be analyzed, but it provides insight as to the lack of preparedness and structure seen within emergency response in New Orleans. While the expanse of devastation and destruction is still absolutely heartbreaking almost 15 years later, the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina has helped the United States and emergency responders improve their efforts and strategy to better help the public from future disasters.
Gold, S. (2005, September 1). Trapped in the Superdome: Refuge becomes a hellhole. Retrieved February 10, 2020, from https://www.seattletimes.
Townsend , F. F. (2006, February). The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned. Retrieved February 10, 2020, from file:///C:/Users/Erica%20Reed/
Here is another post from another student:
Hello Class,
Hurricane Katrina is a category five storm that made landfalls on Louisiana as well as Florida in 2005 August, and caused catastrophic damages in New Orleans City and its surroundings and caused several deaths.
The 2005 Atlantic Hurricane season made history and also an active period on record since hurricane counting began in 1851. With twenty-seven named storms (tornados with continued winds at least thirty-nine miles for each hour), the 2005 season broke the 1933 record of twenty-one hurricanes (NCDC. 2006a). With a sum of fourteen storms (wind speed higher than seventy-four miles for each hour) along with the first-time number of category five storms such as Wilma, Rita, and Katrina-the 2005 storm season was among the record volumes. Hurricane Katrina along with Wilma set the record in plus themselves: Wilma generated maintained winds of at least one hundred and seventy miles for each hour and its vital pressure reached 882mb, which earned it the name as the strongest storm ever chronicled. Hurricane Katrina became the costliest storm in the history of America, which affected a larger area than Great Britain (ninety thousand square miles), and this made a human toll to stagger. The 2005 hurricane caused 1.3 million persons in South-eastern Florida and over 1.7 million persons lost power, the 2005 people displaced at least one million persons, and killed almost 1,300 persons lost lives, and at least three thousand remained unaccounted for as Feb 2006. The existing count for financial losses of the storm surpassed $100 billion with thirty-four billion in assured certainly rose. In 2005 August 23rd, Hurricane Katrina developed as a tropical depression in the South-eastern Bahamas. When Hurricane Katrina made landfalls in South Florida, it had strengthened to the first category, and conducive weather conditions, warm sea surface temperature, and upper-level anticyclones over the Gulf of Mexico permitted Hurricane Katrina to develop to a key storm in 26th August.
When making landfalls at the Mississippi Louisiana border on 29th August, the storm had weakened from the fifth category to a strong third category with maintained winds of one-hundred and twenty-five miles for each plus 920mb central pressure.
One more important about Hurricane Katrina is that it hit the nation while not prepared and caused severe damages (FEMA. 1997). The devastating Hurricane Katrina’s winds were accompanied by 30+ feet storm flow that totally wiped out the whole neighborhood along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and bushed urban areas such as Gulfport and Biloxi. The massive flow flattened blocks in Pass Christian and St. Louis, and the flow mostly Jackson, Harrison and Hancock. Catastrophic circumstances set in when the mixture of strong winds, stormflow, heavy rainfalls, and human error caused levee failures on 30th August after the hurricane had already passed east of the metropolitan.
References
FEMA. 1997. Multihazard identification and risk assessment: a cornerstone of the national mitigation strategy. Washington D.C.: Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
NCDC. 2006a. 1980-2005 billion dollar U.S. weather disasters [Poster]. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Last updated: [cited 14 February 2006]. Available from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/
Answer preview :
Word limit : 283