Hurricane Katrina

• Located in New Orleans, the 46 largest city in the US with a population of 1.4 million in 2005.
• Hurricane Katrina also travelled through the Gulf of Mexico.
• August 25th a category 1 hurricane, this changed to a category 5 on the 28th
• Environmental impacts

  • coss of wetlands - natural sea defence
  • beach erosion
  • 1.3 million acres of forest destroyed
  • water pollution
• Economic impacts

  • $150 billion in damages
  • mississippi beach front was worst affected - 90% flooded
  • destroyed 30 oil plants
• Social impacts

  • 1883 people died
  • 80% were flooded - new orlens, louisiana
  • 1,000 displaced
  • Racial tensions were exposed
• Human activity worsened the impacts

  • Evacuation traffic - The evacuation was not done sooner
  • the hard management already implemented created false hope, which reduced the number of evacuations
  • the levees implemented were only designed to cope with a cat 3 hurricane
• Short -term responses

  • coast guard rescued 30,000 people
• long-term responses

  • A year and half later many did not have electricity
  • 10 years later only 60% of the black neighbourhood had been rebuilt
• Local people in New Orleans were not sure what the course of the hurricane would be and therefore didn't evacuate earlier. Evacuations were therefore rushed and many couldn't fully evacuate and were forced to stay home.