Infrastructural Impact: Hurricane Katrina

Infrastructural Impact : Hurricane Katrina

Elijah Tappin

University of Iowa

In Louisiana, 29.95° N, 90.1° W, lies a city of 224,128 acres; New Orleans. Unlike many other regions in America, this city is not only surrounded by two major bodies of water, but also falls below sea level. The rare geographical location of New Orleans puts its citizens at a much higher risk for natural disasters, including tropical storms, and severe flooding. Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on August 29, 2005. The levees built to prevent water from flowing into the city were immediately breached, allowing the storm surge to pummel over New Orleans. The level 3 hurricane impacted the infrastructure of this region resulting in destruction,

restoration and exposure to further risks.
Early Monday morning, the waters from the gulf of Mexico slowly started to engulf the city.

The runup of water from the ocean caused countless amounts of buildings, homes and other architectural features to be swept away, leaving New Orleans in ruins. After the storm had passed, citizens returned to the community dismayed by the extinction of their homes, stores, and everything that was once standing. In the article Hurricane Katrina Slams Into Gulf Coast; Dozens Are Dead, it reported some of the worst damage created by the natural disaster. A town in New Orleans, recorded 40,000 homes were flooded and another town reported highways unable to drive on due to the large amounts of water. Also, near by, three of five hospitals were unable to gain access of their emergency rooms. The extensive amount of damages done to the infrastructure, left mountains full of debris piled around the ruins of New Orleans. Two years after the disaster, a professional journalist, John Mcquaid, took a journey back to the site. As he was shown around by a guide, they hiked to the top of a hurricane levee along a shipping canal. Once Mcquaid reached a point that overlooked the acreage, he declared, “In front of us was an enormous mound of construction debris, about 60 feet high and a football field long, covered with thick, gray-brown clay”(John Mcquaid, Mother Jones). With two full years for the community to clean up the framework and debris left behind, it was impossible. The massive amounts of

wreckage were looking to take longer to clean up than commonly thought.
As the final amounts debris was cleared and the rest of the water was drained from the streets, the focus of New Orleans shifted to rebuilding.

This rebuilding didn’t just consist of houses and buildings, but a new system to prevent future hurricanes and flooding. “Katrina, and the city is safer from floods due to a $14.5 billion hurricane and flood protection system.” (Rick Jervis USA Today) This money spent gives an idea of how much damage was really done to all aspects of civilization. Another common question posed was how long the rebuilding would take. Dealing with the damage from the storm, it took ten years for New Orleans to fully recover (Rick Jervis, USA Today). Overall, the destruction along the Gulf Coast would add up to more than 151 billion dollars, making Katrina the costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States (Rick Jervis, USA Today). Although New Orleans is fully recovered from the disaster, it is still at risk for those to

come.
Despite the hurricane/flood prevention system, the soil erosion in the New Orleans area is continuously causing the ground to sink lower and lower below sea level. With oceanic waters steadily rising, this makes the New Orleans area more vulnerable to hurricanes than ever. In the article Levees choke delta growth, it is stated that, “The problem for south Louisiana is that the natural protections are rapidly deteriorating, and that in turn is weakening man-made defenses, mainly because the entire delta region is sinking into the Gulf of Mexico.” Katrina was the first of what could be many deadly storms in New Orleans. Even with the New hurricane prevention systems, the risk increases each day.
Hurricane Katrina was a glimpse of what could continually happen to Southern Louisiana. The poor location of New Orleans leaves the city in a very hazardous place. The damage, rebuilding, and continuous risks enormously impacted the infrastructure of the city of New Orleans. Even as the hurricane prevention technology advances, the Gulf of Mexico is a ticking time bomb for the disasters yet to come.

References
McQuaid, John. "Storm Warning: The Unlearned Lessons of Katrina." Mother Jones. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Sept. 2015.
Jervis, Rick. "For Good or Not, 10 Years of Post-Katrina Rebuilding Changed New Orleans." USA Today. Gannett, 27 Aug. 2015. Web. 23 Sept. 2015.
Treaster, Joseph B., and Kate Zernike. "Hurricane Katrina Slams Into Gulf Coast; Dozens Are Dead." The New York Times. N.p., n.d. Web.
McQuaid, John/Shleifstein, Mark “Levees Choke Delta Growth.”