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Humanitarian assistance in complex emergencies
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It’s times like these where I realize just how great my life is. Hanging out with my family, watching TV, and laughing. I wouldn’t change my life for anything, I love it. I love spending time with my 7 year old brother Jacob, my father, and my mother. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to them. I look around at my family with a smile on my face as I sit on the faded brown couch in my living soaking in just how great my life is. Suddenly a loud alarm sounded from the TV jerking me from my thoughts. I quickly turned my head toward the TV to see what was going on. Frantic, commanding voices came from the TV.
“Attention citizens of New Orleans and surrounding areas. We have been notified of an approaching hurricane. For your own safety, we advise you to evacuate the city. If you cannot evacuate we advise you to head to the Superdome which has been declared as a shelter of last resort for people who cannot leave the city. Repeat, for your own safety we advise you to evacuate the city immediately.” I couldn’t process what the officials were saying at first, but when I did
This hurricane won’t hurt us it, it will all be fine,” I told him in what I hope sounded like the calm, soothing voice of someone who was not panicking.
“But, but,” he whimpered turning his head from the carpet up to face me, “you told daddy we need to leave, you don’t think it is safe.”
“Well, I realized dad is right. We have hurricanes all the time, and this one is no different. We have lived through all those other ones, and there hasn’t been much damage, this one will be the same.” I really hoped Jacob believed me because my words couldn’t even convince myself that everything would be okay. Jacob sniffed and raised up from the floor. He was still crying a bit, but at least he had stopped shaking in fear. I needed to think of a way to distract him so he wouldn’t keep thinking about this approaching hurricane and the warning the officials
The Coast Guard, for instance, rescued some 34,000 people in New Orleans alone, and many ordinary citizens commandeered boats, offered food and shelter, and did whatever else they could to help their neighbors. Yet the government–particularly the federal government–seemed unprepared for the disaster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took days to establish operations in New Orleans, and even then did not seem to have a sound plan of action. Officials, even including President George W. Bush, seemed unaware of just how bad things were in New Orleans and elsewhere: how many people were stranded or missing; how many homes and businesses had been damaged; how much food, water and aid was needed. Katrina had left in her wake what one reporter called a “total disaster zone” where people were “getting absolutely
Like Brown told CNN’s Larry King, “I must say, this storm is much bigger than anyone expected.” What should we have to know in case of an emergency, especially if you live in a hurricane evacuation zone. According to Live Science, you have to start with a hurricane plan with your family and find out your zone and local evacuation route. We have to keep in mind the hurricanes are very powerful tropical storms with heavy rains, strong winds and that a hurricane can damage buildings, cars, homes, etc. First of all, always have a hurricane survival kit, during hurricane warning and never ignore evacuation orders. Equally important, prepared your home with flood insurance, buy emergency supplies, plan for your pets, and don’t forget to search for resources for more information about hurricane planning. According to Erik Salna, “Everyone who lives in an area affected by hurricanes needs to take personal responsibility and accountability to be prepared… It has to become a way of life, something you naturally do.” In discussion of how to be prepared in case of a hurricane, one controversial issue has been the disaster of hurricane Katrina. On the one hand, we need to keep in mind that is up to us to try to be prepared in case of a hurricane warning. On the other hand, if you ignored evacuation orders you may regretted later on in life, don’t
Hurricane Harvey was one of the most devastating hurricanes to strike the United States in several years. Harvey resulted in over eighty fatalities and over 150 billion dollars in damages. This proves to be one of the most destructive hurricanes to be recorded. The overwhelming damage was caused by many different aspects; however, three of the greatest aspects are: varying weather patterns throughout the storm, the city structure of Houston, Texas, and the lack of evacuation. Each of these factors affected the city in a different way, but all resulted in a common outcome, devastation.
In James S. Hirsch’s book about Rubin "Hurricane" Cater, Hurricane, the author describes how Carter was wrongfully imprisoned and how he managed to become free. Hirsch tells about the nearly impossible battle for Carter and his friend John Artis for freedom and justice. Both, Carter and Artis, were convicted of a triple homicide, and both were innocent.
Even though the city was able to evacuate many people, thousands were stranded for days in the Superdome. There was no food or water provided for the citizens. There wasn 't event a bathroom and people had to urinate and defecate on the ground and some even died due to the poor conditions. A major cause of this issue was that there was a delay in the evacuation of the people of New Orleans. The delay caused “preventable deaths and “great suffering” according to a senate investigation. Another cause of this issue was the lack of busses used for the evacuation. Only after when the hurricane hit the city, the governor of the city asked FEMA for buses. To prevent this from happening again we must make sure that citizens are warned well before hand by using the media and other means. We should also make sure that facilities such as the superdome are well equipped with the things it needs for an event like this. There should be a stockpile of food, water, and other necessities to make sure that a disaster like this would go more
People were able to begin evacuating before the hurricane hit due to the warnings from the meteorologists. The meteorologists discovered the path of the storm when Hurricane Katrina first formed as a tropical depression over the Bahamas on the 23rd of August. Knowing that the levees would be breached, the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin sent out a mandatory evacuation notice to the whole city. For the people that could not evacuate the city Mayor Nagin reserved the Superdome stadium as a shelter because it sat on a higher ground level. By the time the evening came nearly all the people except about twenty percent had evacuated the city. Of the remaining people thousands of them decided to stay home and the remaining thousands decided to seek out safety at the Superdome stadium(Hurricane Katrina, par. 2 &
In interest of protecting those residents that had not evacuated the area, many of whom did not have the transportation means to do so, several “refuges of last resort” were set up. These included a number of Parishes including St. Tammany’s as well as the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center. On the morning of August 28th, a day before the hurricane made impact in New Orleans, Mayor Nagin deployed all buses to shuttle residents to these shelters. By August 29th the Superdome housed over 9,000 residents along with 550 National Guard troops. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) efforts to prepare for Hurricane Katrina exceeded any previous hurricane response in its history. On their webpage it states that, “A staggering total of 11,322,000 liters of water, 18,960,000 pounds of ice, 5,997,312 meals ready to eat” along with “18 disaster ...
For nearly ten years, Miami has not seen hurricane landfall. This fact may be troubling to those who are inclined to believe, whether through superstition or scientific knowledge, that one is bound to occur anytime now It may be pleasing news for those who have not had to suffer the destruction of these weather-beasts in ten years. Nostalgia, however, is my overwhelming reaction to the topic of hurricanes. I am taken back to candle-lit evenings tinged a mixture two parts electric fear one part mystic coziness.
“I feel nervous, watching my neighbors readying for the storm. Tonight when it hits, we’ll
Hurricane Maria was destructive and caused a large amount of damage to the entire island of Puerto Rico. Maria hit on September 20 and was a category four hurricane, nearly a category five. Hurricane Maria has had a tremendous impact on the lives of Puerto Ricans and even the world.
Hurricanes are large storms that form over warm ocean water and moist air. These storms are usually pushed toward a landmass by winds blowing in a particular direction. For instance, the trade winds will blow hurricanes toward the United States coast. Over the past hundred and fifty years, the United States has made changes for how these storms are detected and tracked. These advances help protect human lives and property. This is how hurricane alertness has changed.
It was the September of 1985 in Massapequa Park, located in Long Island, New York. A few days prior, Tropical Storm Henri had rolled through, causing some precipitation but otherwise being no cause for alarm. My father had only moved back in with my grandmother just the summer before, after some academic struggles hit him hard. The weather forecast predicted to unimpressed listeners- my father, my grandmother, and my uncle- that the next storm coming would be “pretty bad.”
Picture this, you laying on top of you car as you are being violently slung down your street, which was once dry and calm and is now wet and foreign, at an extremely rapid pace. You can’t find your family and all you can do is hope that they haven’t drowned and are able to stay afloat against the violent waters that are angrily attempting to destroy everything in its path. You look around the weather is gray and it’s raining heavily. It is a struggle to breathe between the rapid rain and the violent waters which are attempting to pull you under, forever. Your house no longer exists it is broken down from the pounding waters and fast winds. That is exactly what it would be like if you were in the midst of a hurricane. After hurricanes are over the confusion is crazy, children who had loving families are now orphaned, people become homeless, and people miss certain joys such as walking due to becoming paralyzed.
Hurricanes are gigantic, swirling, tropical storms that are created with a wind speed over 160 miles (257 kilometers) per hour. It gives off more than 2.4 trillion gallons (9 trillion liters) of rain each day. Hurricane forms in the Southern Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Golf of Mexico, and in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. According to www.weatherwizkids.com , a hurricane usually lasts for a week. Hurricane mostly occurs at mid-August to late October and occurs about five to six times a year. A hurricane begins at a tropical disturbance in warm ocean water with a temperature of at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.5 degrees Celsius). The center of a hurricane is call the “Eye of the Hurricane” and is about 20-30 miles wide (32-48 kilometer wide). The eye is the calmest part of a hurricane and surrounding the eye is something call the “Eye Wall". When a hurricane makes a...
It all started one hot summer morning at sunrise, July 5th 2012 around 3 am the day after the 4th of July holiday. I was awakened by the crying and screaming of my family over me yelling at me “Get UP FUNMI PLEASE”! And as I jumped up startled and shaking wondering what’s going on walking into my, mother’s room seeing a rainfall of tears fall down her face, she then tells me with the most hurtful voice ever “YOUR BROTHER HAS BEEN SHOT AND KILLED”! I completely went into shock as, I could feel my heart drop I started to panic badly wishing, and praying, and hoping saying to myself I wish that someone would pinch me, and wake me up from this terrible dream. The news I had gotten at that moment felt so unreal never would a day go pass in, which I would have thought about going through a loss of one of my siblings this soon.