Supplemental Reading: Drowning New Orleans
A Scientific American article published in October 2001 and named "Drowning New Orleans" essentially predicts the large scale impact a giant hurricane would have on the area, years before Hurricane Katrina.
Authorities at LSU's Hurricane Center and Water Resources Research Institute, and US Army Corps of Engineers lead a discussion of how Louisiana's coastal region is doomed to storm surges. A case in point is the deterioration of the Mississippi Delta, a triangular-shaped deposition of sediment, which works to mitigate flooding and damage caused by storm surges. In fact, every four miles of the delta could knock down a storm surge by one foot. Unfortunately, some areas of the delta like Port Fouchon are losing 40 to 50 feet of land per year. By 2090, experts at LSU have postulated that the delta will be gone - vulnerably leaving New Orleans on the sea. Aside from the delta, barrier islands and marshes are the only other two natural entities which could mitigate a storm surge. The barrier islands' black mangrove trees and the marshes' tall grasses interfere with incoming gulf currents. However, just like the Mississippi Delta, these natural entities are also eroding (Fischetti, 2001).
One reason for this erosion is the oil and natural gas business. This industry has built many wellheads out in the Gulf, which transport the mined resources back to the coast through extensive underwater pipeline canals and navigational channels. The intrusive nature of this system requires the removal of land from the delta. An oil and gas industry-funded study found that this industry has removed one-third of the delta-land loss. Another human-induced risk factor was the US Army Corps of Engineer...
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...0 billion per year due to an average of 130,000 deaths from this problem (Diamond, 2005). Therefore, the "U.S. Clean Air Act of 1970, although it's cleanup measures do cost money, has yielded estimated net health savings (benefits in excess of costs) of about $1 trillion per year, due to saved lives and reduced health costs" (Diamond, 2005). Saving the environment has far-reaching implications. The improvement of many environmental conditions ultimately helps human health and saves money; a clear case in point being New Orleans. In this case, Washington D.C. should more strongly consider mitigating environmental problems when they arise.
Works Cited
Diamond, Jared. Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking, 2005. 503-504.
Fischetti, Mark. "Drowning New Orleans." Scientific American 285.4 (2001). LexisNexus. EBSCO. 30 Oct. 2007.
Rather than working with nature through multi-tiered flood control with spillways and reservoirs, levees disallowed the river to naturally flood, deteriorated the natural ecosystem, and ultimately weakened the city’s defenses against the hurricane (Kelman). Culture and society further interacted, as beliefs in man’s power over nature and racial discrimination promoted levee expansion and racial segregation, creating a city of racially differentiated risk (Spreyer 4). As a result, inundation mostly impacted the lower land neighborhoods that housed poor people of color. Society and nature interfaced in the application of levees that contained nature’s forces. Ultimately, nature won out: the hurricane overpowered the levees and breached the Industrial Canal, disproportionally flooding the mostly black, low-elevation neighborhoods of New Orleans (Campanella
New Orleans, LA is not just a tourist spot; it is one of the Festival full places in USA. The people celebrate dozens of festivals, No matter the option is, - unique food, music, or the historic event, New Orleans is always stands to celebrate that. There are many festivals all over the calendar year. I will, describe them by month wise. Let’s join me, for the journey in New Orleans, LA.
In the late summer of 2005, a terrible tragedy occurred that changed the lives of many in the south-east region of the United States. A Category 3, named storm, named Hurricane Katrina, hit the Gulf Coast on the 29th of August and led to the death of 1,836 and millions of dollars’ worth of damage (Waple 2005). The majority of the damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana. Waple writes in her article that winds “gusted over 100 mph in New Orleans, just west of the eye” (Waple 2005). Not only was the majority of the damage due to the direct catastrophes of the storm but also city’s levees could no longer hold thus breaking and releasing great masses of water. Approximately, 80% of the city was submerged at sea level. Despite the vast amount of damage and danger all throughout the city, officials claimed that there was work being done to restore the city of New Orleans as a whole but many parts, and even the people, of the city were overlooked while areas of the city with higher economic value, and more tourist traffic, were prioritized along with those individuals.
According to Hurricane Katrina At Issue Disasters, economic damages from Hurricane Katrina have been estimated at more than $200 billion… More than a million people were displaced by the storm… An estimated 120,000 homes were abandoned and will probably be destroyed in Louisiana alone (At * Issue). For this perspective, “Hurricane Katrina change the Gulf Coast landscape and face of its culture when it hit in 2005” (Rushton). A disaster like Katrina is something the victims are always going to remember, for the ones the lost everything including their love ones. Katrina became a nightmare for all the people that were surround in the contaminated waters in the city of New Orleans. People were waiting to be rescue for days,
This may be a common trend in every large city if more hurricanes strike. Urban development in almost all cities in America has made flooding worse than it should be. The creation of buildings, asphalt, concrete, and other things have eliminated much of the grass in the cities, which will cause less rainwater to be absorbed into the ground. Although most major cities have rain drainage channels, Houston may not have had enough of them, which caused them to fill up with water. The water had nowhere to go except on the streets. The city of Houston avoided floodplains. The floodplains that were present in Houston were often ignored by construction companies. These companies chose to build houses on the floodplains. This is discussed in this quote by Sean Breslin, “In the months following Hurricane Harvey, Houstonians face an important decision: respect the floodplain and stop building homes wherever, or continue to ignore the lessons taught by countless flood events and build more homes in the most vulnerable areas of town” (Breslin n. pag). I feel that if the civilians and building companies in Houston would have respected the floodplains years earlier, fewer lives would have been lost in this hurricane. Coral reefs provide excellent coastline protection which slows the hurricane just before landfall. The death of coral reefs also could have played a large role in why the hurricane was so
Imagine that a family is sitting at home watching a calm game of baseball, when suddenly they realize that a massive wall of water is approaching the neighborhood. Where did this flash flood come from, a reader might ask? The wall of water was made by the raging winds and immense power of Hurricane Andrew. Hurricane Andrew was the second most expensive storm in history that destroyed over 250,000 homes in the states of Florida and Louisiana alone. Hurricane Andrew was not predicted to make landfall, so when it did many civilians did not have any ideas that the Hurricane was coming until it was almost too late. Hurricane Andrew also caused many short and long term effects in the ecosystem and local economies.
In a passage from his book, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, author John M. Barry makes an attempt use different rhetorical techniques to transmit his purpose. While to most, the Mississippi River is only some brown water in the middle of the state of Mississippi, to author John M. Barry, the lower Mississippi is an extremely complex and turbulent river. John M. Barry builds his ethos, uses elevated diction, several forms of figurative language, and different styles of syntax and sentence structure to communicate his fascination with the Mississippi River to a possible audience of students, teachers, and scientists.
I read Jared Diamond’s New York Times best-selling book, Collapse. Collapse broke down the many ways societies choose to fail or succeed into four major parts. The author Jared Diamond defines a collapse as, “a drastic decrease in human population size and/ or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time (Diamond,2005, p.3).” Diamond begins the book by going into detail about the Bitterroot Valley of Montana. He was familiar with the surroundings of a farm that his family and friends lived on in this area, including the Hulu and the Hirschy families. In this chapter, he described many of the issues that have occurred here such as the dangerous effects
The collapse of Norse Greenland has been widely disputed; did this society truly collapse, or rather did they choose to leave for a better life elsewhere? Many books have been written on this subject; from Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fair or Succeed to the corresponding Patricia McAnany and Norman Yoffee’s Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire. In Diamond’s Collapse, there are five main points of collapse that have to happen before a society will collapse. These points are: 1. Environmental damage, 2. Climate change, 3. Hostile neighbors, 4. Friendly neighbors, and 5. Society’s response to environmental damage. When comparing it to McAnany and Yoffee’s Questioning Collapse, they dispute how societies don’t collapse, in fact there is a resilience to the societies and that they adjust according to their environment and how their economy and personal life is going. In my essay, I will compare Diamond’s view of collapse against the resilience view of McAnany and Yoffee.
Throughout history, ancient and modern civilizations have fallen under the strain of trying to survive in environmentally challenging areas, in isolation, and amidst warring tribes. In the text Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond, the author analyzes the pressures of a collapsing society and how pinpointed failures in the community can crack the foundations of civilization, ultimately leading to the downfall of the society and the end of the empire. In order to discover the cracks or failures, Diamond lays out a five-point thesis for a society’s collapse. The five points include environmental damage inflicted unknowingly by the people and dependent upon their actions and the environment’s reactions, climate
On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina forced its way into New Orleans, Louisiana with winds of more than 140 mph. This storm was a strong category three when it hit New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina destroyed homes, businesses, and factories from the high winds and flooding. The devastation that the city suffered was terrible; many people lost family members young and old and also their most prized possessions. Most of all it displaced families and caused an abundance of damage to properties. Due to the costly destruction that the city of New Orleans faced after Katrina, they must now find a way to alleviate the blighted properties from their environment and also face the challenges.
Fink, Sheri. "Hurricane Katrina: after the flood." The Gaurdian. N.p., 7 Feb. 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.
The delta region is currently experiencing more coastal land loss than all other states in the adjoining region combined. Two tragedies that have perturbed all of America have had their greatest impact on the state Louisiana, where this delta calls home. The first devastation was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This hurricane was a category 4 when it hit land, less than a hundred miles away from New Orleans. Overall, the levees failed, the fishing industry was depleted, numerous lives were lost, and infinite lives were negatively impacted. However, the storm destroyed the Mississippi Delta most greatly due to the deterioration of the levees. Since the levees failed and the previously connection between the river and its delta were severed, the delta was left in disarray. Hurricane Katrina also drowned the wetlands that surround the Delta, that also act as a barrier against flooding. The delta was then “sediment-starved” as the disconnection between the river and delta left the delta with a lack of silt and clay to restore itself. By the river and delta not being connected, the wetlands, which rely on the sediment for their sustainability, cannot
New Orleans is a city located in the ground between Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. The city was original settled on the high ground, however, since 1900s, the city start sinking. Today, more than 50 percent of the city area is below sea level. The reason of the sinking is still in debating, man-made floodwalls and levees are believed the main causes. Land loss is also a serious problem. The coach area already lost about 2,000 squares since 1930’s and today it loses 16 squares every year. Moreover, New Orleans is in a hurricane-prone area. All those elements make the city so vulnerable to flooding. Hurricane Katrina is one of the most horrible floods. 1,833 people were killed during the storm and more than 1.5 million in Louisiana were forced to evacuate.
Hurricanes occur all over the world, at different times, but commonly through June first and late November. However in late August 2005 a catastrophic hurricane struck. This was Hurricane Katrina. With winds traveling over one hundred miles per hour making it a category five on the Saffir- Simpson Hurricane Scale it was said to have cause billions of dollars’ worth of damage. Hurricane Katrina flooded nearly forty thousand homes, and killed at least two thousand people (“Hurricane”). An average category five hurricane has enough energy to power street lamps for more than twenty seven thousand hours (Williams 58). Knowing about Hurricane Katrina, and the devastation of the city in New Orleans would be beneficial. Also, general information on hurricanes can help civilians and people of higher authority better understand and prepare for damage that could once hit their town and community. Because experts know the general information on these storms they can help explain to the public why and how Hurricane Katrina and other hurricanes occur. Hopefully, in the future civilians will know and use this information to their advantage against hurricanes.