Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters to ever strike America.. What made it
a disaster though was not just the storm itself. Most disasters do not occur because of a single
event. It takes the failure of multiple systems or stages, and for a number of incidents to happen
in the precise order or systematically to make an incident so horrible it is considered a disaster.
New Orleans is a city that lays on average 12ft below sea level and is also a coastal city. To
the south is the Gulf of Mexico, to the west the Mississippi River, and to the east Lake
Pontchartrain.
Being that New Orleans is surrounded by water, shaped like a bowl, and below sea level, it
relies on a levy system to protect it from flooding and storm surges from hurricanes such as
Katrina. The levy system rises in some parts more then 50 feet above the low laying city of New
Orleans. Since the city’s founding in 1718, it was notorious for flooding. In the last 287 years
the Levy systems have improved tremendously. Unfortunately, when Hurricane Katrina
struck, the levy system protecting the city was only built to withstand a category 3 hurricane.
Many improvements have been made to the levy system, but at the time of Hurricane Katrina was
only capable of withstanding a small category 3 hurricane. Unfortunately, when Hurricane
Katrina struck New Orleans it was a category 4 storm. In just a matter of hours the levies were
topping, and in some places overflowing.
New Orleans, however, is still for the most part safe due to the fact that the city is protected by
more then 30 large pumping stations. The pumping stations were designed to quickly pump
flood waters from...
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