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Hurricane Katrina Research Paper

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Overview of Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was one of the largest disasters in the United States, affecting over 90,000 square miles (230,000 km2) this size is almost same as the UK, and damaged many cities. About 1850 people died, and many survivors lost their houses. Katrina revealed many problems, especially an insufficient preparation and bad management. These factors might make the damage more serious. Many factors characterised Katrina as an example of a new type of complex disaster. Such a complex disaster was estimated before Katrina, and it had been named as “the New Orleans scenario”. Before Katrina, FEMA evaluated the New Orleans scenario as one of the most serious potential natural disasters.
The first observation of Katrina …show more content…
On the same day within 6 hours, the prediction had been changed, and Katrina was expected to hit the Mississippi Coast. However, after 12 hours, in the early morning on Saturday 28th August, they changed the forecast again, and the hurricane was heading to New Orleans. On the same day, President Bush declared a state of emergency and State Emergency Response Commissions (SETRC) started 24-hour operations. Around 7 p.m., NWS indicated that New Orleans faced the very high risk of flooding. The next morning, around 9 a.m. Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans, ordered a mandatory evacuation. Therefore, New Orleans opened the Superdome for evacuees. On Monday morning due to Katrina, levees began to be overtopped. Rescue operations began immediately. However, it did not work well. On Tuesday, 31st August, New Orleans released the Morial Convention Center as an evacuation shelter. The next day, the 1st September, buses arrived and took evacuees to the Morial Convention Center, however, this operation did not finish evacuating until Saturday, and some stopped on the road until Monday. These problems define that Katrina is different from other hurricanes. Poor decisions and insufficient preparations lead the disaster to be an extreme complex …show more content…
Automobile evacuation system was evaluated as succeeded, this means it functioned adequately. According to Wolshon, the plan was using all lanes on major highways to accept outbound automobiles, was well planned and functioned. (Wolshon, 2002). People who have own vehicles were able to evacuate for themselves, although there were some problems: traffic jam or something trouble with their vehicles, for example, running out of fuel. However, there was no effective plan to evacuate for residents without vehicles.

The importance of buses for evacuation became clear soon after Katrina hit. On 1st September, Mayor Nagin said on the radio program or interview of media that New Orleans needs 500 buses, but they cannot find bus drivers under the emergency situation. No one can find drivers that would stay behind with a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. The city barely had enough drivers on Saturday and Sunday to move people to the

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