Overview: Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was the deadliest and most destructive Atlantic hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. At least 1,836 people died in the actual hurricane and in the subsequent floods, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. Total property damage was estimated at $81 billion (2005 U.S. dollars), nearly triple the damage wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
The hurricane caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge. The most significant number of deaths occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed. The hurricane surge protection failures in New Orleans are considered the worst civil engineering disaster in U.S history. Katrina was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States; among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall.
The Storm
Approach and Evacuation
Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005 and crossed southern Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding in the state before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm weakened before making its second landfall as a Category 3 storm on the morning of Monday, August 29 in southeast Louisiana.
On August 26, the state of Mississippi activated its National Guard in preparation for the storm's landfall. Voluntary and mandatory evacuations were issued for large areas of southeast Louisiana as well as coastal Mississippi and Alabama. About 1.2 million residents of the Gulf Coast were covered under a voluntary or mandatory evacuation order. Additionally, the state government activated its Emergency Operations Center the next day, and local governments began issuing evacuation orders. By 6:00pm CDT on August 28, 11 counties and 11 cities issued evacuation orders, a number which increased to 41 counties and 61 cities by the following morning. On the 29th, most infrastructure along the Gulf Coast had been shut down, including all Canadian National Railway and Amtrak rail traffic into the evacuation areas as well as the Waterford Nuclear Generating Station. Fifty-seven emergency shelters were established on coastal communities, with 31 additional shelters available to open if needed.
Levee Breaches in New Orleans
There was much concern because parts of New Orleans and the metro area are located below sea level. Because the storm surge produced by the hurricane's right-front quadrant (containing the strongest winds) was forecast to be 28 feet (8.5 m), emergency management officials in New Orleans feared that the storm surge could go over the tops of levees protecting the city, causing major flooding. By August 29, Katrina's storm surge caused 53 different levee breaches in greater New Orleans, submerging 8% of the city. Levee breaches in New Orleans also caused a significant amount of deaths, with over 700 bodies recovered in New Orleans by October 23, 2005. Most of the major roads traveling into and out of the city were damaged.
A June 2007 report released by the American Society of Civil Engineers determined that the failures of the levees and floodwalls in New Orleans were found to be primarily the result of system design and construction flaws, rather than the result of natural forces beyond intended design strength. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is federally mandated in the Flood Control Act of 1965 with responsibility for the conception, design, and construction of the region's flood-control system. According to report published in August 2015 in the official journal of the World Water Council, the corps misinterpreted the results of a 1985 study and wrongly concluded that sheet piles in the flood walls needed to be driven to depths of only 17 feet instead of between 31 and 46 feet. That decision saved approximately US$100 million but significantly reduced overall engineering reliability, contributing to the massive failure of the levees in the face of Katrina.
The flooding killed some 1,500 people in New Orleans and so overwhelmed parts of the city that tens of thousands more were trapped and unable to evacuate. Thousands who were elderly, ill, or too poor to own a car followed the mayor’s directions and sought refuge at the Superdome, which lacked adequate food, water, and sanitation. Public services collapsed under the weight of the crisis.
The Storm's Effects: Damage and Inadequate Response
The effects of the storm were far-reaching. In addition to the destruction in Louisiana, the Gulf coast of Mississippi suffered massive damage, leaving 238 people dead, 67 missing, and billions of dollars in damage. Katrina traveled up the entire state, and afterwards, all 82 counties in Mississippi were declared disaster areas for federal assistance, 47 for full assistance. The Bush Administration sought $105 billion for repairs and reconstruction in the region, though it is estimated that the total economic impact in Louisiana and Mississippi may exceed $150 billion.
Over seventy countries pledged monetary donations or other assistance. Kuwait made the largest single pledge at $500 million; other large donations were made by Qatar and United Arab Emirates (each $100 million), South Korea ($30 million), Australia ($10 million), India, China (both $5 million), New Zealand ($2 million), Pakistan ($1.5 million), and Bangladesh ($1 million). Charitable organizations such as the American Red Cross, America's Second Harvest (now known as Feeding America), the Southern Baptist Convention, the Salvation Army, and Oxfam provided help to the victims of the storm. On September 13, 2005, it was reported that corporate donations to the relief effort were $409 million and were expected to exceed $1 billion.
Government Response and Criticism
Although the U.S. Coast Guard managed to rescue more than 35,000 of the 60,000 people from the stricken city of New Orleans, the response by other federal bodies was less effective. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency charged with assisting state and local governments in times of natural disaster, proved inept at coordinating different agencies and utilizing the rescue infrastructure at its disposal.
Critics argued that FEMA was to blame and that its director, Michael D. Brown, a Bush friend and appointee with no background in emergency management, was an example of cronyism at its worst. There was also widespread anger that race, class, and other factors might have contributed to delays in government response, as the majority of people in New Orleans who had been unable to evacuate and were victims of the greatest brunt of the storm were poor and working class African Americans. The failures of FEMA were particularly harmful for an administration that had made “homeland security” its top priority. Supporters of the president, however, argued that the scale of the disaster was such that no amount of preparedness or competence could have allowed federal agencies to cope.
FEMA and the Bush administration received widespread blame for the extent of the hurricane's damage and the government's slow and inadequate response. Even when the president attempted to demonstrate his concern with a personal appearance, the tactic largely backfired: photographs of him looking down on a flooded New Orleans from the comfort of Air Force One only reinforced the impression of a president detached from the problems of everyday people. Bush was unable to shake this characterization, and it underscored the disappointments of his second term. On the eve of the 2006 midterm elections, President Bush’s popularity had reached a new low as a result of the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina, and a growing number of Americans feared that his party’s economic policy benefitted the wealthy first and foremost. Young voters, non-white Americans, and women favored the Democratic ticket by large margins, and the elections handed Democrats control of the Senate and House for the first time since 1994.
Hurricane Katrina
Category 5 Hurricane Katrina at peak strength on August 28, 2005.