On August 29th, 2005, tragedy struck New Orleans, Louisiana, and the surrounding areas. After this day, New Orleans would never be the same. The tragedy that changed New Orleans forever is called Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina affected the culture, the government and the spirit of New Orleans. It also affected all of the citizens that evacuated and stayed at home. Although Hurricane Katrina occurred almost 10 years ago, the effects of the storm will forever affect New Orleans. New Orleans has always been regarded as a “mixing pot” of cultures. From its origins, the mix of Spanish, French and Haitian cultures defined New Orleans as a city very different from others. New Orleans is also known for its annual celebration of Mardi Gras. …show more content…
Their preparedness methods became more rigorous and the idea of evacuating became a more familiar choice. Missie Noel describes the effects of the storm by saying, “ I think I’m more prepared and I take more things with me when I evacuate. I don’t just assume that we’ll be back home the next day and everything will be fine.” Citizens were more aware of the danger that surrounded them and tried to improve their community as much as possible to prevent a tragedy like this ever happening again. However, New Orleans residents did find a light at the end of the dark tunnel that this storm created for them. With hard work and perseverance, recovery began. Not only New Orleans residents, but people from all over the world came to New Orleans to rebuild. Billy Sothern supports this idea by writing: …But in these moments the people have led, in our noble tradition, and worked to lessen the burden of those who struggle. This is why thousands of people have come to New Orleans and the Gulf coast to help. This is how the tragic deaths of more than a hundred women in the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory ultimately led to the New Deal more than twenty years later. This is what the dedicated citizens of New Orleans and this country will make real for themselves. This is the best that anyone can ever hope will arise from …show more content…
In a study by University of Mississippi researchers, 55 Louisiana ZIP codes were examined and researchers found that the July 2007 population was an estimated 806,545, about 25 percent below the 1,080,456 population that was expected if Katrina had not happened. Factors that could have led to this large population decline are evacuees staying where they evacuated or residents’ homes being destroyed and having to relocate. Since Katrina, New Orleans has overcome many hurdles to what the city is today. A steady increase of people relocating back to New Orleans and tourism revenue has been the main force behind the recovery. When the Saints won the Superbowl in 2009, a revived sense of pride in New Orleans occurred. Tourism began to increase again with Mardi Gras visitors, business conferences and the Superbowl that was held in the city in 2013. Ian McNulty discusses the new image of New Orleans by writing: As New Orleans emerges from Katrina, inevitably smaller, tougher, and maybe smarter than before, I hope the Big Easy nickname can finally be retired as obsolete. If we need a nickname, I’d endorse an older one— the Crescent City, an elegant tribute to the great bend in the Mississippi River that gave the port town its original form and purpose. Better still, though, I’d prefer to update that old nickname for more recent history. For me, New Orleans will always be the Unsinkable Crescent
One of the most traumatizing hurricanes to ever hit the U.S., was named Katrina. The hurricane caused the cities of Louisiana to be derelict. Louisiana’s governor performed a speech in New Orleans in order to satisfy the community. Kathleen Blanco’s speech, “Hurricane Katrina” uses the appeals pathos and logos to encourage Louisiana to help rebuild the state, and to make sure the people know that everything will be rebuilt.
Since Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, the city has been repopulated by rich whites and Latinos with African Americans returning to the area at much lower rates. Hurricane Katrina affected millions of people across the United States by tremendous flooding and Category 5 winds; Hurricane Katrina remains the most expensive and most destructive natural disaster to strike the United States.
New Orleans is an American city known for being very different from the rest of America. The differences vary in food, attitude, location, and atmosphere. These differences make New Orleans a unique part of America, and they have survived through many cases of adversity such as white supremacy, Hurricane Katrina, and many others. If events like these occurred in any other city across America, it would have caused mass diaspora and eventually the collapse of the city into something unrecognizable. New Orleans is a different story. New Orleans has resisted much of the change that has taken hold of the rest of the country. They have traditions that have been passed down and an attitude that is only at home in New Orleans.
New Orleans was used to weathering hurricanes every year, given that it sits below sea level in the Mississippi River Delta on an only-mildly-secluded bay of the Gulf of Mexico. But before 2005, there hadn't been a big enough hurricane to motivate New Orleans to update its 1960s-era levees that had been thrown in place to protect the city from mild storm surges. In many parts of the city, water protection was porous or completely nonexistent
On August 29th of 2005, a category 3 hurricane, dubbed Hurricane Katrina, hit the Gulf Coast of the United States. It brought winds of 100 to 140 miles per hour, and stretched more than 400 miles across. New Orleans had its first mandatory evacuation ordered the day before, while listing the Superdome as a shelter for those who couldn’t leave town. More than 70 percent evacuated, while the rest stayed at their homes, or took to shelters, to wait out the storm. The aftermath of Katrina was felt in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, but New Orleans was affected the most by far. In the end, more than 2000 were either seriously injured or killed, while those who survived were very short on food, water, first aid, and had very few areas for shelter. A large reason the storm was so devastating was the fact that the storm was able to cover almost 80 percent of the entire city under a large amount of water. Before the storm hit, the city used levee systems and flood walls to protect itself from being flooded. During the storm, however, many failures in the levee system caused close to 80 percent of the flooding covering the city and the nearby parish. Many know that the levee system failed but few in the public know that the major reason it had failed was because of the incomplete design. The disaster
When many of us hear about New Orleans we think about Mardi Gras, casinos, and the French heritage. Tourists drive right by the deprived and less fortunate areas of Louisiana without even realizing it. Many people go visit New Orleans and doing so for a vacation without realizing how bad the poverty in this city is. Once realized how dramatic the poverty level is in New Orleans, these dismal areas are difficult to endure. It was August 29, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit the city of New Orleans.
The physical impacts left by this storm, is the central premise to understanding what really happened to this city. The time frame from when the storm hit till now, has caused a significant limitation to really comprehending this historic event. Furthermore, the mass amount of destruction was primarily due to New Orleans being on average 1-2 feet below sea level (NOAA, 2012). Also a lack of scientific accuracy sealed in troubling fate for this city. The duality of being geographically vulnerable as well as the shortcomings of scientific knowledge led to extensive damage to 134,000 housing units, the destruction of multiple bridges along the Gulf Coast, various buildings across the city, which caused harmful chemicals to be leaked into the water system and the disorientation of the main power
On August 29th, 2005 Hurricane Katrina, also known as Katrina, made landfall along the Gulf Coast. It hit states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. As of today Hurricane Katrina is one the most destructive hurricanes to ever hit the United States. In total Katrina caused over one hundred billion dollars worth of damage. It left people homeless, starving, and in some cases dead. New Orleans, Louisiana was hit the hardest, “New Orleans will forever exist as two cities; the one that existed before that date, and the one after.” Even over a decade later, the effects of Hurricane Katrina can still be felt as the south continues to rebuild their lives and return to some normalcy.
August 19, 2005 will always be one of the most devastating days in American history because of Hurricane Katrina and its effect on the south. Hurricane Katrina was a category 5 hurricane that struck New Orleans, Alabama, and Mississippi; its force hitting New Orleans and the Lower Ninth Ward the hardest. Levees previously built by U.S. Army Corps engineers were only strong enough to withstand a category 3 hurricane, which the government had knowledge of. These were in place to control flooding caused by nearby rivers such as the Mississippi and
The devastating and deeply rooted traumatic effects of Hurricane Katrina will live in the psyches of the people of New Orleans and beyond for generations to come. Katrina was the largest and third strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States barreling in as a Category 5 with up to 175 mile-per-hour winds and a 20-ft storm surge that would create a humanitarian emergency with the likes never before seen in the United States. This hurricane caused unimaginable death, destruction, and displacement, leaving a known death toll of 1,836 and an unknown number thought to be washed out to sea. The real truth is we will never know exactly how many people lost their lives during Hurricane Katrina.
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, two days later roughly eighty percent of New Orleans was underwater. This hurricane ranked number three in the thirty deadliest US Hurricanes (Weather Underground, 2007). This disaster has had a ripple effect on the economy, the environment, the population of New Orleans, and the habitats of animals in that area. It also put to death over 1,500 people in Louisiana, more than half were senior citizens. In New Orleans, 134,000 housing units —70% of all occupied units — suffered damage from this Hurricane.
Marti Grah was another big part of this city, hundreds would flock to New Orleans before Ash Wednesday to take part of the festivities. Rowdy, drunk frat boys would clog the streets at night. But when the levees broke most of these grounds would be flooded. After Katrina hit no one was in the street, instead people were stranded on roof tops seemingly abandoned by the ones they thought would protect them. How could this happen in modern day United States of America? The people of New Orleans were failed by their local, state and federal government. Before Katrina hit about 484,000 people lived in the city, after Katrina hit about 360,400 people remained (AP).
Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August of 2005. A once vibrant and cultural community was decimated by harsh winds and extreme flooding. The rescue efforts sent to Louisiana were substantial, consisting of now only FEMA but also donated services from other countries as well. Even so thousands of people were displaced from their homes. There are people who refused to leave even after their homes were flooded and their mementos lost to the dirty polluted water. Ten years after the fact the city is still under construction. There are varying degrees of repair from street to street, the tourist area was one of the first few areas to be repaired, and the neighboring residential areas seem to have become of secondary importance. People were forced into homelessness because they could not afford to repair the house they had worked to attain before the hurricane toppled their economy. Still to this day the homeless line the streets, which should seem scary and dangerous, but it does not feel that way. It has become obvious that people need to learn to look beyond their own beliefs to better understand the world as a whole because not everything is how it seems.
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina had hit New Orleans, you can’t exactly say that New Orleans is back to what it used to be. It’s not exactly terrible still either. Like any other city or town, it needs improvement but still workable. The most hardest thing to come back to New Orleans is the jobs. Many people to this day have a hard time finding a right job. Many of the companies that are located there pay less than minimum wage now.
Hurricane Katrina was a terrible Natural Disaster which swept away much of New Orleans, Louisiana leaving little behind. Causes and outcomes with discrimination in race and ethnicity after Hurricane Katrina.