Cities and disaster
The New Orleans hurricane of 2005
What happened?
The 2005 hurricane season will be remembered as the one with the largest number of named tropical cyclones in history – 22 in all. And the cyclone that will undoubtedly be remembered most will be Hurricane Katrina, the sixth strongest storm ever recorded in that part of the world.
It’s not as if it wasn’t expected. In June 2002, the New Orleans Times-Picayune published the five-part series ‘Washing Away’: ‘It is only a matter of time before south Louisiana takes a direct hit from a major hurricane … but we grow more vulnerable every day.’ However, virtually none of the safety recommendations outlined in the series were carried out.
Katrina made landfall just north of Miami, Florida on 25 August 2005, where it was responsible for the deaths of a dozen people. Heading west and crossing the Gulf of Mexico, it turned into a category 5 hurricane with winds reaching 175mph.
As Katrina approached the Louisiana coast, orders went out to evacuate the area. According to the Seattle Times, not since the population upheavals at the end of the Civil War in 1865 or the Okies’ flight from the Dust Bowl in the 1930s had so many Americans been on the move because of a single event. However, because many New Orleans hospitals, nursing homes and the like were relying on the same bus companies and ambulance services for evacuation, a large number of disabled and vulnerable people were simply stranded in the city.
By the time the hurricane made its second landfall, on 29 August, its winds had decreased to 125mph (category 3), but the storm surge it created was still capable of breaching the levee that protected low-lying New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. Much of the city was flooded, and there was substantial damage along the coasts of neighbouring states Mississippi and Alabama.
As the amount of damage to the city became apparent, many of the people who had not already left (many because they didn’t have cars) sought safety in the Louisiana Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center. Both places were soon overwhelmed and became unsafe and unsanitary. There were many reports of looting, but except for instances where those stranded looked for food and other essential supplies, the reports appear to have been exaggerated.
The general impression was of a complete breakdown in planning and rescue services. Although both the city and the state governments were blamed, most opprobrium fell on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and, eventually, the administration of President George Bush.
What was the cost?
Katrina cost more lives than all but a handful of other natural disasters in American history. By January 2006, the toll had reached 1,386 deaths, 1,077 of them in Louisiana, with some 4,000 people still missing.
The one group disproportionately affected by Katrina were people aged 60 and older. Although they comprised only about 15% of New Orleans’ population, a study found that they accounted for 74% of those who died. Nearly half of this proportion were over the age of 75, and many of those were at nursing homes and hospitals – eventually nearly 20% of the total number of victims were recovered from places like these. Charges of negligent homicide were filed against the owners of one nursing home after the discovery there of the drowned bodies of 34 residents.
The hurricane also turned out to be the costliest natural disaster in US history – property damage has been estimated at $75 billion.
What was the disaster’s legacy?
It is probably too soon to claim that there is a ‘Katrina legacy’. But the disaster did have a huge immediate impact in the United States and around the world.
The catastrophe brought to the surface long-simmering disputes between black and white, rich and poor. According to many, most of those left behind in New Orleans and ignored by the powers-that-be had been black and impoverished. However, while it was primarily black people that television news broadcasts showed as victims, it should be remembered that the city’s population before the hurricane had been 20% white and 67.9% black, so it is not surprising that the majority of people in distress were black.
On the other hand, it is true that the poorest areas were those most prone to flooding. About 67% of the deaths occurred in the central and western portions of New Orleans, an area thought to have flooded primarily because of human failure – the water breached the structures supposedly built to prevent this.
The feeble response of city, state and federal government to the hurricane’s impact made many question the competence of those who were supposed to be governing them. The savagery of the storm tore away the frighteningly thin veneer of Western civilisation, plunging the residents of New Orleans unlucky to have been left behind into a world where survival was uncertain. The image of ‘floaters’ – drowned people in the flood waters – in the streets of New Orleans will be hard to forget.
Of nearly 500,000 evacuees surveyed, 45-50% have indicated that they are unwilling to return to New Orleans and other affected areas. The city’s mayor Ray Nagin has admitted that its population will probably only ever be half of the pre-hurricane level of 460,000. Unlike the other cities examined on this website, there is real doubt whether New Orleans will ever regain its former size and influence. With its fragile existence mostly below sea level, and without the glorious and eminently salvageable art and architecture of the Italian city of Venice, which it resembles in this respect, New Orleans may simply decline.
