At least 1800 dead, $8.2 billion worth of damage, 233,000 square kilometer declared a federal disaster area, around three million left without electricity. Hurricane Katrina which hit the Gulf Coast of the United States on August 2005, it was one of the most devastating and certainly the costliest hurricane in US history.
The storm first made landfall in South Florida on the 25th of August 2005 it was category one hurricane at that time and was the cause of 14 deaths in the state of Florida. By the 28 of August, Katrina have been upgraded to a category five storm and the Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city but he was too late. The greatest devastation occurred in New Orleans, the next day when Katrina storm surge caused 53 levee breaches, disastrous for a city built below sea level.
The National Science Foundation was later to find that the levee system had serious design flaws and it has been inadequately maintained. Approximately 80% of the city was flooded and at least 700 bodies were found from the water. Around 26,000 people are unable to evacuate the city to a shelter in the Louisiana Superdome which suffered substantial damage itself. It was also the site of madding and confusions, people struggled to access food and drinking facilities and reports of violence and abuse be into the circulate. Six deaths were confirms of a thing. The effects of this natural disaster were so wide spread and so devastating that the emergency services were unable to cope. Much criticism is made of the response from local state and federal government which led to the United States Congress investigation.
In particular, the blame was placed on Mayor Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco for not implementing a timely evacuation and being generally unprepared to provide shelter, food, water, sanitation and security. The only bodies not faced with criticism are the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service, which were both widely applause for the accuracy and long lead times of their forecast. The international response is stronger, the countries like UK and South Korea sending millions of dollars in aid.
A sign of the cities recovery was the reopening of the Superdome in September 2006 when the city’s football team the New Orleans Saints played the Atlanta Falcons. Before the match, rock superstars U2 and Green Day joined forces to serenade the crowd in the opening ceremonies.
Other than Katrina, New Orleans is an extremely popular tourist destination famous for it's architecture, food, jazz music and a lot of festivals. In particular the annual Mardi Gras just over five months after Katrina. The 2006 parade went to play many references to the city’s recent history, the costumes and floats making panted illusions to such bodies as the federal emergency management agency whose Director Michael Brown resigned following the disaster. And the parameter scale down and had a heightened intensity as the citizens of New Orleans, many of whom have lost everything, celebrated the fact that they were still alive.
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