Hurricane Katrina was the most destructive hurricane in US history, hit in late August 2005. The most severe damage from Hurricane Katrina was caused to New Orleans in Louisiana, where about 80% of the city area was underwater, and about 700,000 people lost their homes (Rohland, 2017). Artificial accidents, oil spills, increased crime, and lawlessness accompanied natural disasters. Their cumulative effects killed 1,836 residents, and economic losses reached $125 billion (Rohland, 2017).
Hurricane Katrina exposed a range of problems deeply rooted in American society, the study of which did not stop even five years after this natural disaster. An analysis of the published data on the level of crime that accompanied it indicates that the number of robberies and looting is most likely greatly underestimated (Rohland, 2017). The reasons for the sharp aggravation of the crime situation are primarily the degradation of the population, the decline of the education system, high unemployment, and low wages of employed citizens.
In the decades leading up to Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was in economic decline. Its character was manifested in the outflow of well-paid jobs from the urban economy due to the departure of industrial production and the oil business and the spread of poverty among residents (Rohland, 2017). This, in turn, led to the decline of the system of urban educational institutions. In addition, the loss of every well-paid job in the oil industry resulted in the loss of approximately 2.5 jobs in other sectors of the urban economy (Rohland, 2017). All these factors contributed to the low level of evacuation measures.
On Sunday, August 28, 2005, the mayor of New Orleans announced a mandatory evacuation (Rohland, 2017). The mass evacuation of people caused extensive traffic jams on the freeways. More than a million people, about 80% of the local population, left the city and its environs. Long queues lined up in front of shops and gas stations.
Refugees tried to stock up on water, food, and gasoline. Tens of thousands of citizens lived below the poverty line and did not have money for the road or hotels. Public transport stopped working, making it extremely difficult to leave the city without a car (Rohland, 2017). About 150 thousand people remained in New Orleans, primarily residents of poor areas. On August 28, the city authorities offered the Superdome indoor stadium as a haven for those remaining in the city.
About 30,000 people sought refuge in the Superdome stadium as their last hope (Rohland, 2017). The authorities’ actions regarding evacuating people and the general unpreparedness for the disaster were criticized. Louisiana Republican Senator David Witter gave the Bush administration the lowest rating for the government’s efforts to clean up the aftermath of the disaster (Rohland, 2017). Thus, the government showed its extreme incompetence in solving a serious problem that captivated the lives of thousands of people.
One of the main tragedies of Hurricane Katrina is associated with the city’s hospital because it was there that residents were unable to evacuate themselves. Water from the bursting city dams flooded the generators, and the hospital, having lost electricity and communications, running out of drinking water and food, almost without any outside help, turned from a place of hope and salvation into a dark and fetid branch of hell (Rohland, 2017). The hospital staff made a heroic effort for four days, manually lifting stretchers and wheelchairs with patients to the roof, where the rare rescue helicopters landed. Hurricane Katrina should serve as a lesson to all future government officials who may experience this.
Reference
Rohland, E. (2017). Adapting to hurricanes. A historical perspective on New Orleans from its foundation to Hurricane Katrina, 1718–2005. WIREs Climate Change, 9(1). Web.