The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

Document Type:Essay

Subject Area:English

Document 1

The aftermath of hurricane natural disasters is bound to sporadically happen and is defiantly out of anyone's control when they do occur, but the aftermath of such tragedies is certainly controllable. Hurricane Katrina was an exceedingly deadly and disastrous calamity that caused extensive damages along the Gulf coast extending from Texas to Florida. The invading storm was as high as 28-foot and laid bare the flaws the flood resistance levees in New Orleans. The storm destroyed at least 169 miles of the total 350-mile system and reaching out an area of approximately 93,000 square miles. The number of fatalities during the dangerous storms and the subsequent floods were at least 1,245 (Lewis 9). Neighborhoods were eradicated, and some never recovered to date. It completely destroyed and made it impossible for people to go back to at least 300,000 homes.

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There were at least 200 unclaimed bodies and another more than 700 were not accounted for. With regards to pets, the storm killed or at least rendered homeless approximately 600,000 pets (Qiang 1852). Hurricane Katrina also had various impacts on the environment. Oil spills from 44 facilities throughout Louisiana was another impact on the environment caused by the deadly storm (Deryugina 203). The result was spilling of at least 7 million U. S gallons of oil into the environment. Some spills entered the ecosystem and residential areas while others were contained on site. As part of the clean-up exercise, the floods that covered most of New Orleans were eventually pumped into Lake Pontchartrain. 3 million acres were destroyed, the forestry industry was also affected especially in Mississippi. The loss for the industry was estimated at about $5 billion not considering the number of jobs lost since thousands of residents were rendered jobless (Lewis 9).

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The hurricane cost the government a staggering $108 billion without accounting for damage caused to the economy. This was largely from the destruction of the highway infrastructure in the Gulf Coast, interruption of the oil supply, and exports of agricultural products such as grain that had been destroyed by the hurricane (Qiang 1841). Insurance lightened the burden by covering only 80 % of the losses incurred. This is a direct pinpoint to the crucial factors that led to the failure of the wall to contain water and the resultant actions that were taken years before the occurrence of the event which in other words were outrightly erroneous (Lewis 8). There was a full-scale load test that experimented in Atchafalaya Basin a few years leading to the unfortunate occurrence of the Katrina disaster.

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