The Probability of a Major Hurricane Hitting New Orleans Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Introduction 3 Hypothesis 7 Analysis & Method 8 Conclusion 10 References 12 Appendix 14 Executive Summary New Orleans, Louisiana lies at the second lowest elevation among major cities in the United States. It is a city surrounded by water, making it almost like an island. To counter this dangerous combination of the low elevation along with the lakes, rivers and swamps surrounding it, the Army Corps of Engineers built a series of levees around the city to foster its protection. It is these very same levees however that might doom the city should a Category 3 hurricane ever hit. Our statistical analyses examined the current belief that there is a 39% probability that New Orleans will be hit by a major hurricane and based on the resulting Z-score, rejected that belief. We did find however that the probability, while not 39%, was still in the 30th percentile range, which should still be a major cause for concern among the leaders and residences of the city of New Orleans. Introduction New Orleans is a city that is rich in culture as well as history. The city is in effect, an island – Lake Pontchartrain surrounds the city to the north, the Mississippi River to the west and south, and a bevy of lakes – including Lake Borne to the east. Surrounding the city is a series of levees to keep these bodies of water at bay. In addition to these levees, the only defense the city has is a series of canals and a very antiquated pumping system. However, the same levees that protect the city, makes it a death trap should a major hurricane make a direct hit to the metropolitan area. The risk of intense flooding brought forth by storm surges of 20+ feet would wipe the city out. New Orleans was founded to be a port to the world – with its intersection at the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, it was a great location for world trade. However, it was also a cesspool of disease, floods, and other problems. Despite this, the city was a major economic powerhouse and the city grew and prospered despite of the problems. As the city expanded, swampland was reclaimed to expand the city. To protect its citizens, the Army Corp of Engineers built a series of levees around the city. These levees form a bowl around the city. It is precisely this architecture that was meant to protect the city will in effect destroy the city.
In New Orleans, officials dynamited a levee south of the city. Water washing across St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes relieved pressure on New Orleans levees, maybe preventing flooding. But those parishes were ruined.
Rather than working with nature through multi-tiered flood control with spillways and reservoirs, levees disallowed the river to naturally flood, deteriorated the natural ecosystem, and ultimately weakened the city’s defenses against the hurricane (Kelman). Culture and society further interacted, as beliefs in man’s power over nature and racial discrimination promoted levee expansion and racial segregation, creating a city of racially differentiated risk (Spreyer 4). As a result, inundation mostly impacted the lower land neighborhoods that housed poor people of color. Society and nature interfaced in the application of levees that contained nature’s forces. Ultimately, nature won out: the hurricane overpowered the levees and breached the Industrial Canal, disproportionally flooding the mostly black, low-elevation neighborhoods of New Orleans (Campanella
Congress and the public were the main voices behind the designs of the levees and the engineers wanted to make them happy while also making the levees safe and useful. The public just wanted something that would protect the city from major flooding, and as for minor flooding it would be tolerable as long as the houses or foundations were not damaged. Congress suggested something to withstand the stronger storms, but Congress thought “determining the level of protection needed versus what Congress and the public are willing to pay for isn't often easy” [1]. The engineers were leaning towards building the levees to be able to support the majority of hurricane forces which has been Category 3. They actually planned “that we had Category Three [hu...
New Orleans has always been a hotspot for crimes, historically having one of the highest murder rates in the country. New Orleans prolific crimes can be traced back to the 19th century, when New Orleans was expanding its ports and commerce; groups fought for power to control the revenue streams. Ultimately, organized crime groups and mafia families fought for control - of ports, types of commerce and groups of workers they could control. These fights led to assassinations, murder, and other crimes that continue to this day. The police lost control - they would not step in to interfere with the illegal activities because either they were paid off by the criminals or feared they would be killed by the mafia. The lack of police intervention caused private citizens to step in, creating lynch mobs to tackle crime and take out criminals.
By August 28, evacuations were underway across the region. That day, the National Weather Service predicted that after the storm hit, “most of the [Gulf Coast] area will be uninhabitable for weeks…perhaps longer.” New Orleans was at particular risk. Though about half the city actually lies above sea level, its average elevation is about six feet below sea level–and it is completely surrounded by water. Over the course of the 20th century, the Army Corps of Engineers had built a system of levees and seawalls to keep the city from flooding. The levees along the Mississippi River were strong and sturdy, but the ones built to hold back Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Borgne and the waterlogged swamps and marshes to the city’s east and west were much less reliable. Even before the storm, officials worried that those levees, jerry-built atop sandy, porous, erodible soil, might not withstand a massive storm surge. Neighborhoods that sat below sea level, many of which housed the city’s poorest and most vulnerable people, were at great risk of
Katrina is the costliest U.S hurricane, with estimated damage over $81 billion and costs over $160 billion.” The people that were affected the most was the poor people, children, the sick, and the elderly. Most of New Orleans was underwater; it was going to take a long time for the city to come back from this. “The The rescue and recovery efforts following Katrina became highly politicized, with federal, state and local officials pointing fingers at one another.” People didn’t get the proper warnings to evacuate. After the hurricane “Government officials have sought to learn from the tragedy and implement better environmental, communications and evacuation policies.” Ten years after the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina the city is still dealing with still trying to recover. The have lost a lot when the hurricane hit and it affected them financially, because of the popular areas that are in New Orleans. In all, almost everyone that evacuate from New Orleans fled to Houston which led to the population to grow, but also those that came to Houston had a different feeling about things. Houston has also had its fair shares has had 27 disasters- eight hurricanes, eight floods, six severe storms, three
This may be a common trend in every large city if more hurricanes strike. Urban development in almost all cities in America has made flooding worse than it should be. The creation of buildings, asphalt, concrete, and other things have eliminated much of the grass in the cities, which will cause less rainwater to be absorbed into the ground. Although most major cities have rain drainage channels, Houston may not have had enough of them, which caused them to fill up with water. The water had nowhere to go except on the streets. The city of Houston avoided floodplains. The floodplains that were present in Houston were often ignored by construction companies. These companies chose to build houses on the floodplains. This is discussed in this quote by Sean Breslin, “In the months following Hurricane Harvey, Houstonians face an important decision: respect the floodplain and stop building homes wherever, or continue to ignore the lessons taught by countless flood events and build more homes in the most vulnerable areas of town” (Breslin n. pag). I feel that if the civilians and building companies in Houston would have respected the floodplains years earlier, fewer lives would have been lost in this hurricane. Coral reefs provide excellent coastline protection which slows the hurricane just before landfall. The death of coral reefs also could have played a large role in why the hurricane was so
Imagine that a family is sitting at home watching a calm game of baseball, when suddenly they realize that a massive wall of water is approaching the neighborhood. Where did this flash flood come from, a reader might ask? The wall of water was made by the raging winds and immense power of Hurricane Andrew. Hurricane Andrew was the second most expensive storm in history that destroyed over 250,000 homes in the states of Florida and Louisiana alone. Hurricane Andrew was not predicted to make landfall, so when it did many civilians did not have any ideas that the Hurricane was coming until it was almost too late. Hurricane Andrew also caused many short and long term effects in the ecosystem and local economies.
After the shock of Hurricane Katrina slightly diminished, the Congress ordered a congressional inspection of the federally build levee system. As they dug deeper into the cause of the levee’s failure, they began to discover flaws in the actual engineering of the levees. Three of the levees that had the most prominently negative effect on the city, and ...
On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast of the United States. The storm was measured as a category three hurricane which had reached winds of approximately one hundred and forty miles per hour. The storm had initially measured almost four hundred miles across affecting the areas of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Of these three affected areas, Louisiana contained the largest amount of damage; however, one city in particular suffered the greatest damage and was the primary focus of this disaster. That was the city of New Orleans. The city of New Orleans was at an incredibly high risk for a few reasons. One reason was that New Orleans was surrounded by significant bodies of water. Each of these bodies of water had contained levees that were built in the twentieth century, where some were stronger than others. Those levees that were not built properly held the greatest risk of being breached and causing treacherous flooding as well. Another factor included New Orleans being located below sea level, which had included the “city’s poorest and most vulnerable pe...
Hurricanes are natural occurrences that cannot be prevented, only prepared for. The similarities between Hurricane Hugo and Katrina included their size and equally terrifying wrath. Both hurricanes were Category four, with winds that soared up to 160 miles per hour, and engendered intense flooding in the regions they hit. The adverse conditions of Hugo made it the most destructive hurricane to ever strike the United States north of Florida, and one of the costliest hurricanes with over seven billion dollars in damages. When Hugo landed directly in South Carolina, Charleston and Myrtle Beach sustained significant damage from storm surge; the impact was severe. Katrina’s wrath primarily affected New Orleans, causing massive flooding in the city. This catastrophic event nearly destroyed New Orleans, and is responsible for an estimated 80 billion dollars in damages. What makes these two hurricanes strikingly different, however, is the extent of their aftermath. These differences are portrayed clearly through the lack of preparation the government and its citizens displayed when faced with the horrors of Hurricane Katrina.
When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, it caused immediate and significant damage not only to that regions economy but to the countrys as well.
August 29, 2005 was one of the darkest days for the residents of the State of Louisiana. Katrina, a category 3 hurricane, ripped through New Orleans and the surrounding areas causing catastrophic loss of life and property. The federal government’s disaster response team, which was formed in 1978, titled the Federal Emergency Management Agency, (commonly referred to as FEMA) responded to the needs of the survivors. Unfortunately the Bush administration through FEMA showed gross ineptitude in its response to the disaster. Pre-Katrina the lack of response resulted in a largely unsuccessful evacuation. After the storm, aid to the citizens of New Orleans was slow and inadequate. When we look back at the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, it appears that Bush’s FEMA botched much of the handling of the crisis and that overall, our “administration” could have responded to the situation much better.
On early morning of August 29th, 2005 on the Gulf Shore near New Orleans, a devastating hurricane struck. It wrecked havoc, demolishing anything in its path. Leaving nothing but mounds of trash. The surviving people were forced to leave due to massive flooding and the destruction of their homes. New Orleans was not the only place hit by Katrina but it was one of the areas that was hit the hardest. Millions of people were affected by this tragedy and the cost range was up in the billions. Crime rates went up, no one had a place to stay and water was polluted. The damage done by Katrina affected New Orleans and the other areas hit years after it struck. Restoration for the areas hit was going to need support from all of America and support groups across the country. No one was ready for this tragedy or could ever predict the horrible outcome.
...he government of Louisiana soon came up with new criteria on how future structure should be built to withstand more natural disasters like these. Not only knowing basic information, knowing how to prepare, and seeing how Hurricane Katrina was so destructive should help the forty five million citizens that live on hurricane prone coastlines prepare for anything like this in the future.