[35], On September 4, NOPD chief Eddie Compass reported, "We don't have any substantiated rapes. Within an hour, nearly every building in lower Plaquemines Parish would be destroyed. They had no good options. It wasnt until midnight that things started to settle down. Katrina makes landfall near Grand Isle, Louisiana as a Category 3 storm with winds near 127 mph.- Severe flooding damage to cities along the Gulf Coast, from New Orleans to Biloxi, Mississippi. 25% were caused by injury and trauma and 11% were caused by heart conditions. It was previously used in 1998 during Hurricane Georges and again in 2004 during Hurricane Ivan, on both occasions for less than two days at most. A refill was supposed to be on the way that day, but opening the door for the fuel truck would flood the room. [48] Overall, the team used six different stadiums for their six home games, including Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Cajun Field in Lafayette, Joe Aillet Stadium in Ruston, Malone Stadium in Monroe, and LaddPeebles Stadium in Mobile, Alabama. According to PBS, two weeks after the storm, 25% of the children remained unaccounted for. So that means youre going to have to be here probably another 5 or 6 days., Mr. The groups went in shifts, sneaking down over to the garage, up the stairs and to the helipad. The National Weather Service was revising its forecast again. And although President Bush said on September 1, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," days before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the White House was informed that the levees were likely to overtop and breach. They tried to use a trash can to create suction around the generator and pump the water out, but that plan failed. An interesting fact about Hurricane Katrina is that to date, it remains the costliest hurricane in U.S. history. Children slept in pools of urine. AP By 4:30 p.m., the winds were dying down and Thornton and Mouton went outside and surveyed the building. The Superdome was, as far as Thornton was concerned, completely destroyed. In many ways, the horrors of Hurricane Katrina were also exaggerated and in turn led to additional tragedies, such as the police shootings of unarmed residents and subsequent cover-up on Danziger Bridge. Hurricane Katrina survivors arrive at the Houston Astrodome Red Cross Shelter after being evacuated from New Orleans. Results: Hurricane Katrina was responsible for the death of up to 1,170 persons in Louisiana; the risk of death increased with age. Do you think this is going to work? he asked. People had broken up into factions by race, separating into small groups throughout the building that the National Guard struggled to control. To see all these downtown buildings completely shut down, Thornton said. Then the women and the children. What were Hurricane Katrinas wind speeds? People search for their belongings among debris washed up on the beach in Biloxi on August 30, 2005. By 7 p.m. everyone was inside and had been checked. This is a national emergency. The 2006 Sugar Bowl, which pitted the University of Georgia Bulldogs against the West Virginia University Mountaineers, was moved from the Superdome to the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. That night, around 6 p.m., Thornton got a phone call. Residents of the B.W. A violent, free-for-all riot seemed sure to break out with the next bit of bad news. WATCH:I Was There: Hurricane Katrina: Rescue Swimmer. Cooper held about 1,000 families and was the city's largest housing project. Because of this shortsightedness, Hurricane Katrina was "the nation's first $200 billion disaster.". [12], By August 30, with no air conditioning, temperatures inside the dome had reached the 90s, and the punctured dome at once allowed humidity in and trapped it there. Upon making landfall, it had 120-140 mph winds and stretched 400 miles across the coast. [39] However, that number also counted four bodies that were near the dome. As far as natural disasters go, Hurricane Katrina was a bad one. "Flooded offices meant records were underwater," and although there were some computerized records, according to then-Assistant Secretary of Children Welfare for Louisiana's Department of Social Services Marketa Walters, "New Orleans was notorious for not doing good data entry." [49][50] Grambling State University beat Southern University, 5035.[51]. In fact, the first hurricane-related deaths occurred the day before Katrina struck when three residents died whilst being evacuated to Baton Rouge. Satellite view of the Superdome showing the damaged roof with the New Orleans Arena to the right on August 30, 2005. People try to get to higher ground as water rises on August 30, 2005, in New Orleans. I would rather have been in jail, Janice Jones said while being taken out of the dome. Evacuees crowd the floor of the Astrodome in Houston on September 2, 2005. With top winds of around 80 mph, the storm was relatively weak, but enough to knock out power for about 1 million and cause $630 million of damage. We wont be able to feed these folks. Cooper housing project. estimated population had increased to 376,971. At 7 am Katrina is a Category 5 with 160 mph maximum sustained winds. The population of New Orleans fell from 484,674 in April 2000 to 230,172 in July 2006, a decrease of over 50%. Hurricane Katrina deaths, Louisiana, 2005 Disaster Med Public Health Prep. Apart from the foster children, roughly 5,000 additional children were listed as missing in the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina. She came up with the list, talked to the dozens of people there, her husbands employees, people she knew a little bit before the storm and now knew like family. Katrina makes landfall near Grand Isle, Louisiana. And as Rob Nixon notes in "Slow Violence, Neoliberalism, and Environmental Picaresque," "Discrimination predates disaster: in failures to maintain protective structures, failures at pre-emergency hazard mitigation, failures to maintain infrastructure, failures to organize evacuation plans for those who lack private transport, all of which make the poor and racial minorities disproportionately vulnerable to catastrophe." He needed to start getting people out. [4], On August 28, 2005, at 6 am, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announced that the Superdome would be used as a public shelter. NBC News reports that although there were stories of freezers full of bodies, "no such pile of bodies was [ever] found.". But it worked. Authors . The flooding destroyed New Orleans, the Nation's thirty-fifth largest city. The Bayou Classic was moved from the Superdome to Reliant Stadium in Houston. But after the levees broke, the city buses went underwater. That night SMG sent a private helicopter to evacuate the staff and their families. On top of that, since most of the department's staff was sent to assist at state shelters, there was even a challenge of tracking down "missing workers.". And despite the fact that this was meant to be a temporary shelter, they ended up being stranded in the stadium for a week. And since the hurricane evacuation plan stipulated that "the primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles," according to "Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared" (the Senate committee's report), this left the state's most impoverished and vulnerable families, the large majority of whom were people of color, without anywhere to go as Hurricane Katrina hit. The men hooked up the line, fuel started flowing. On June 4, 2006, Pamela Mahogany was interviewed for her personal experience involving the events following Hurricane Katrina. The New Orleans Saints played four of their scheduled home games at LSU's Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, three at the Alamodome in San Antonio, and one at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. My instincts as a building manager are to evacuate, he said. While Mouton and Thornton worked to find space for them to operate, two massive, 18-wheeler refrigerated trucks pulled into the loading dock, not far from the door where new arrivals entered the building. FEMA had sent the trucks to act as a makeshift morgue. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Black families have also had a harder time rebounding than white families. A man in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward rides a canoe in high water on August 31, 2005. Water floods a cemetery outside St. Patrick's Church in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, on September 11, 2005. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. [46] Before that first game, the team announced it had sold out its entire home schedule to season ticket holders a first in the franchise's history.[47]. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin were criticized for not ordering mandatory evacuations sooner. Ive been in there seven days, and I havent had a bath. Thornton, whod been cooped up in the Superdome for going on five days, looked down on her city, at the soft waves lapping against the houses in the moonlight. Families torn apart by the storm wouldnt re-connect for months in some cases. Mouton was there, walking quickly toward him. During the first ten years after the storm, FEMA provided more than $15 billion to the Gulf states for public works projects, including the repair and rebuilding of roads, schools and buildings. Drowning was the major cause of death and people 75 years old and older were the most affected population cohort. At least 1,833 died in the hurricane and. Katrina's death toll is the fourth highest of any hurricane in U.S. history, after the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed between 8,000 and 12,000 people; Hurricane Maria, which. Widespread criticism of the federal response to Katrina led to the resignation of Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and did lasting damage to the reputation of President Bush, who was nearing the end of a month-long vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas when Katrina struck. As buses finally started arriving to pluck refugees from the Louisiana Superdome yesterday, a horrifying picture emerged of the squalor, violence and mayhem that they faced during the days spent huddled in the stadium. [citation needed] The building's engineering study was underway as Hurricane Katrina approached and was put on hold. 99% of the 1.2 million personal property claims, The National Flood Insurance Program paid out $16 billion in claims, The majority of all federal aid, approximately $75 billion of $120.5 billion. Your effort and contribution in providing this feedback is much Southern Mississippi won over Arkansas State, 3119. National Geographic writes that the storm hit the coast of Louisiana on August 29 and ended up affecting up to 90,000 square miles of land and over 15 million people. And although hurricanes are usually only 300 miles wide at most, Hurricane Katrina's winds stretched out over 400 miles, with wind speeds well in excess of 100 mph. Nagin told the men to get him a list of supplies they needed, and he would get it from FEMA. The water was still rising. "Because medical care for foster children is paid for by in-state Medicaid, accessing prescription drugs was complicated" (per PBS), and many families evacuated out of state. Although the rebuilt levees are supposed to protect the city against a flood with a severity that comes every 100 years, the flood brought by Hurricane Katrina was one that, in theory, comes once every 400 years. Thousands more were unable to evacuate, including the nearly 25,000 who sheltered in the Superdome. Out of 60 nursing homes in New Orleans, 21 had evacuated their residents in advance of Katrina. Many Katrina evacuees made it to Houston, Texas, where they were housed in the Astrodome and other shelters. In Louisiana, where more than 1,500 people are believed to have died due to Katrinas impact, drowning (40 percent), injury and trauma (25 percent), and heart conditions (11 percent) were the major causes of death, according to a report published in 2008 by the American Medical Association. In all, 1,833 people would lose their lives. [7] Medical machines also failed, which prompted a decision to move patients to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. At their peak, hurricane relief shelters housed 273,000 people. [13][35] The attacker was later jailed. [36] A group of about 100 tourists were "smuggled" out from the Superdome to the New Orleans Arena next door, where 800 medical needs patients were being held. The men had little time to celebrate though water was still coming in under the door. In New Orleans, the evacuation plan reportedly "fell apart even before the storm hit." He could only offer supplies. The Associated Press stated there were two substantial holes, "each about 15 to 20 feet (6.1m) long and 4 to 5 feet (1.5m) wide," and that water was making its way in at elevator shafts and other small openings around the building. [33][40] It was confirmed that no one was murdered in the Superdome. Well, Thornton replied, our generator has 10 inches to spare. The National Guards headquarters had flooded, so the entire operation had moved to the Superdome. But subsequent investigations revealed that not only was there prior knowledge that the storm was going to hit but that "long-term warnings went unheeded and government officials neglected their duties to prepare for a forewarned catastrophe," according to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Socialist Alternative writes that police were given the task of "defending the private property of businesses like the GAP and casinos" rather than concentrating on rescuing people. Updated A helicopter rescues a family from a rooftop on September 1, 2005. To do that, they needed to keep it dry. Thornton and Mouton unleashed days worth of frustration. The roof had ripped off in sheets. Her escape out. [13], On September 2, 475 buses were sent by FEMA to pick up evacuees from the dome and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, where more than 20,000people had been crowded in similarly poor living conditions. Unfortunately, it was made significantly worse than it had to be. Later, approximately 114,000 households were housed in FEMA trailers. If we had evacuated who knows what wouldve happened Thornton said. One of the worst disasters in U.S. history, Katrina caused an estimated $161 billion in damage. A woman gets carried out of floodwaters after being trapped in her home in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, on August 30, 2005. It has been 10 years since Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed the city ofNew Orleans. In the book, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast author Douglas Brinkley takes you on a journey through the political corruption and under calculation of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina's effects. Twenty-five thousand miserable people many of whom lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina hunkered down with little food and little water, overflowing toilets, stifling heat and the unbearable stench of human waste. There were no designated medical staff at work in the evacuation center, no established sick bay within the Superdome, and very few cots available that hadn't been brought in by evacuees. Out of the at least 1,800 deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina, nearly half were elderly people. It had barely risen at all maybe an inch. Hurricane Katrina was a devastating Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that resulted in 1,392 fatalities and caused damage estimated between $97.4 billion to $145.5 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding areas. Before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, there were roughly 2,000 foster children registered in the state. [28] Instead, the State of Louisiana and the operator of the dome, SMG, chose to repair and renovate the dome beginning in early 2006. In addition, according to the journalSocial Science & Medicine, there were also long-term mental health consequences of Hurricane Katrina. Did you encounter any technical issues? Lets think about that very carefully, he said. First went the disabled and the elderly. President George W. Bush looks out the window of Air Force One on August 31, 2005, as he flies over New Orleans. for victims from Orleans and St. Bernard Parish, where 86% of Katrina deaths occurred. A storm surge more than 26 feet (8 metres) high slammed into the coastal cities of Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi, devastating homes and resorts along the beachfront. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). We're not a hotel. Nearly half the fatalities in Louisiana were people over the age of 74. We took him inside.. Local residents gathering outside of the Superdome on September 2, 2005. Despite the planned use of the Superdome as an evacuation center, government officials at the local, state and federal level were criticized for poor preparation and response, especially Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin, President George W. Bush, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Michael D. It was already known that the generators would not provide lights or air conditioning for the whole dome if the power failed, and also pumps providing water to second-level restrooms wouldn't function. Later that day, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco ordered New Orleans to be completely evacuated. They had to find out if they could move these people. [19][20] The refugees were given three meals and snacks daily, along with hygiene supplies, and were allowed to use the locker rooms to shower. They were taken to the Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Baton Rouge. The domes water supply gave out Wednesday, and toilets began to overflow, filling the cavernous stadium with a nauseating smell. We will investigate if the individuals come forward. Rumours spread in the press of reports of rapes, violent assaults, murders, drug abuse, and gang activity inside the Superdome, most of which were entirely unsubstantiated and without witnesses. [21] The Astrodome started to fill up, so authorities began to transfer people to the nearby Reliant Arena, Reliant Center, and George R. Brown Convention Center in Downtown Houston in the following days. The hurricane and its aftermath claimed more than 1,800 lives, and it ranked as the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. [1], Hurricane Katrina was the third time the dome had been used as a public shelter. It also had burned through half of the fuel in the 1,000-gallon tank. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we cant bail out the city of New Orleans.. Hurricane Katrina itself was a natural phenomenon, but most of the flooding in and around New Orleans was the result of the poor construction and design of the city's flood-protection system by. Security checks were conducted, and people with medical illnesses or disabilities were moved to one side of the dome with supplies and medical personnel. By the following afternoon Katrina had become one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, with winds in excess of 170 miles (275 km) per hour. When the hurricane made landfall in southeast Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005, its intensity had diminished but was still a major Category 3 storm. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. We can't house people for five or six days. Duette Sims stands in the heavily damaged Christian Community Baptist Church in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward on August 28, 2007. It was the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. With no relief in sight and in the absence of any organized effort to restore order, some neighbourhoods experienced substantial amounts of looting, and helicopters were used to rescue many people from rooftops in the flooded Ninth Ward. Thanks for contacting us. Nearly 56% of the losses occurred in Louisiana and nearly 30% occurred in Mississippi. And although they were deemed unsuitable for habitation, according to Grist, little has been done to ensure that people no longer live in toxic trailers. In addition, a Bleacher Report article quotes Thornton saying "We're not a hospital. Meanwhile, flooding continued to worsen in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina, the tropical cyclone that struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, was the third-strongest hurricane to hit the United States in its history at the time. FEMA photo/Andrea Booher. The final official death toll in the Superdome came to six people inside (4 of natural causes, one overdose, and an apparent suicide) and a few more in the general area outside the stadium. The low-income development has been replaced by two-story, townhouse-style buildings. [13], On August 31, it was announced that the Superdome evacuees would be moved to the Astrodome in Houston. This was it. And despite the fact that this was meant to be a temporary shelter, they ended up being stranded in the stadium for a week. As the already strained levee system continued to give way, the remaining residents of New Orleans were faced with a city that by August 30 was 80 percent underwater. Daryl Thompson and his daughter Dejanae, 3 months old, wait with other displaced residents on a highway to catch a ride out of New Orleans on August 31, 2005. And then thenext morning, more bad news: The buses had been rerouted and delayed, sent to a highway overpass where people were stranded. With the failure of the air conditioning, temperatures inside the Superdome reached the high 90s, with heavy humidity. When buses finally arrived yesterday, a desperate group of refugees broke loose from a cordon of National Guardsmen, but were stopped by heavily armed police toting machine guns. Photo. He went to his 6 a.m. status meeting with the National Guard and SMG staff, and twenty minutes in the lights flickered off, then back on. We are like animals, Taffany Smith, 25, told the Los Angeles Times, while she gripped her 3-week-old son in her arms.