New Orleans Hurricane Katrina

On August 29th, 2006 New Orleanians were expecting a total of 12 to 15 inches of rain and extended five or six inches from the upcoming storm later known as the costliest hurricane in U.S history. The Category 3 hurricane devastated most of eastern North America with blustery winds of 170 mph (280 km per hour) and storm surge values ranging from 10 to 20 feet. The storm called ‘’Hurricane Katrina’’ originated in the Bahamas on August 23th, 2005, but only became a devastation the next day. On August 28th, Hurricane Katrina succeeded a Category 3 hurricane(sustained winds of 122 kt) and exceeded the limits of a Category 5 storm (sustained winds of 136 kt). The following day, the cyclone shifted northwest towards Mississippi and Louisiana, where the hurricane hit the hardest. New Orleans was one of the cities where the most damage was caused; leaving a negative environment, residential and economic effects on the Gulf Coast. Formerly, New Orleans and surrounding areas had eluded the calamity of the storm, which was later proven wrong. A flood warning was announced after it was predicted that the river would ‘’rise 60ft,’’ which would overflow a levee. A few of the barriers surrounding the city ‘’broke or were washed away’’ within one day of landfall, flooding the ‘’Sinking City’’. The

Katrina demolished more residential buildings than any other recent hurricane and ‘’Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne which in total, wrecked approximately 85,000 homes.’’ Hurricane Katrina also left ‘’many people homeless as more than 800,000 housing units were destroyed or damaged in the storm.’’ The storm dislocated beyond a million people in the Gulf Coast region. Even though residents have returned home, up to ‘’600,000 households were still displaced a month later.’’ The storm may have happened in 2006, but it still impacted the following year by 85 percent of public schools remaining