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Hurricane Katrina – Was the flooding in New Orleans a natural or human-made disaster? Hurricane Katrina caused a wide range of destruction in the U.S., particularly New Orleans. The August 2005 disaster killed about 1,800 people and destroyed properties worth more than one hundred billion dollars (Laska 232). New Orleans suffered major flooding that not only contributed to the destruction of properties but also a high number of deaths. The city had been exposed to similar tragedies before, which led to the construction of levees and floodwalls to protect human life and properties. The last major flooding in New Orleans before 2005 happened in 1968, prompting the reconstruction of flood protection systems.
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The flooding in New Orleans was caused by several factors that were man-made, making the disaster artificial. The hurricane caused flooding in New Orleans because prior plans to protect the area from flooding due to hurricanes failed. The population that lives in the area banks on flood preventive measures to continue with normal life(Levitt and Whitaker 20). Had there been no assurance of protection, populations would not have settled in such areas that are prone to floods. This is to affirm that whatever damages suffered during the flooding are manmade problems; first, by human settlement in the area at risk of floods, the government's failure to put in place the right measure to arrest floods (Laska 235). The flooding in New Orleans during Hurricane Katarina was a result of a failure of the flood-protection system to protect the city from storms. Consequently, the system's weaknesses arose from poor design and maintenance and the outright manifestation of human error that led to the city's flooding. The response to floods by the Army corps was by upgrading the engineering model used in constructing previous levees. The investigation into the disaster revealed that the army corps had done a shoddy job when constructing previous levees; they were not strong enough to overcome any serious hurricane (Boin, Brown, and Richardson 99). The levees did not meet their expected standards, hence laying the ground for breaches such as that of August 2005. In 2006, the Corp of Army Engineers advised that it was necessary to construct gates that can be closed when the storm is approaching at the mouths of canals (Davis 29). The construction of an artificial canal to necessitated faster shipment of goods between the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans opened up the city to possible floods. The 76-mile man-made waterway was built in 1968 and was supposed to be used by ships as a shortcut, but it is hardly used. It is another source of the flooding that was witnessed in New Orleans because it served as a shortcut for the storm to reach the area.
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When hurricane Katrina struck, stormwater found the canal a ready path into New Orleans. The effects of the storm caused water to steamroll, colliding with water in the canal to cause splash up and overtop the walls of the canal. The breach was as high as 800-foot, underscoring the contribution of the canal to flooding. Once the water had breached the wall, it would not exist because of the wall, levees, and low levels of affected areas relative to the sea level (Boin, Brown, and Richardson 123). The flooding would not have been so severe if this man-made canal was not in place. The proposal to set up closable gates at the mouth of the canal speaks to how human activities contributed to the flooding in New Orleans. The Canals interfered with nature, creating new lines of weakness that the storm exploited to cause flooding. In the past two centuries, New Orleans has been exposed to a threat of floods from hurricanes due to its sinking rate. The city's height above the sea level has been reducing each passing period, implying that the government had a duty to reinforce the flood protection system(Boin, Brown, and Richardson 76). Some areas already lie below the sea level by more than ten feet, making their protection dependent on the levees and floodwalls to prevent seawater from creating a lake out of the city and prevent storms from creating floods in the area. However, due to budget cuts for reinforcing the flood-control system in previous years and the poor design of the existing system, the local communities were vulnerable to floods. The Army Corps of Engineers was denied a $22.5 million allocation it had requested in 2004 for constructing and strengthening the storm protection system in New Orleans (Boin, Brown, and Richardson 79). The government's failure to fund the construction of a strong flood protection system meant that the city was more vulnerable to flooding. The 2005 flooding of New Orleans breached floodwalls, mainly because they were overwhelmed and not well reinforced to withstand the
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pressure that hurricane Katrina created. Subsequently, this illustrates part of human contribution to the floods of 2005. More than 70 percent of New Orleans suffered flooding because the levee could not stop the storm, putting many people at risk of dying. Most of the deaths arose from people who found themselves trapped in water without an escape route (Levitt and Whitaker 206). The local and national government knew that levees were crucial to protecting New Orleans from catastrophic flooding but did little to ensure that the safety of levees was guaranteed. The error in making strong levees was a major contributor to the flooding, something that the government would have addressed before Hurricane Katrina struck. Moreover, in response to the floods, the government allocated more funds to the construction of levees and floodwalls to secure New Orleans from future floods. The decision to increase the funding came after the government learned that it had previously underfunded the system, a problem that would have been avoided if due diligence had been observed when making budgetary allocations. If the Bush administration had listened to the Army Corps of Engineering in 2004, flooding in New Orleans would have been avoided (Davis 34). Lives and properties would not have been destroyed following the flooding that accompanied Hurricane Katrina. Governments have spent about $ 20 billion building a new flood control system in New Orleans as a response to the 2005 flooding. The new system includes stronger floodwalls and levees that have been constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers (Laska 232-233). An outdated engineering model used in building previous levees has not been applied in the new constructions. Unlike before, all governments have paid much attention to scientists' and engineers' advice on the need to apply modern engineering in protecting the flood-control
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system. This begs the question of why the government did not listen to the early warning by scientists and engineers about the weakness of the levees and floodwalls to protect New Orleans against strong storms. The government failed to act in time, resorting to reactive measures (Levitt and Whitaker 206-208). A good government should be proactive on the issue of security to protect lives and properties. In conclusion, the flooding in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina was a man-made problem that arose from a poorly designed, constructed, and maintained flood control system. The artificial problem would have been avoided if governments and engineers for build leaves and floodwalls did a quality job. At the time of the storm, the existing levees were of poor quality, did not meet the desired standards, exposing New Orleans to possible floods. The artificial canal connecting the waterfront of the city to the Gulf of Mexico also made it easier for the storm to reach the city by directing the water into a weak flood control system that had been put up. Failure by the federal and state governments to allocate funds to reinforce the floodcontrol system in years before hurricane Katrina is also a human factor that contributed to the flooding of New Orleans. In essence, a series of human errors contributed to the flooding of the city, making the disaster a man-made problem.
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Works Cited Boin, Arjen, Christer Brown, and James A. Richardson. Managing Hurricane Katrina: Lessons from a Megacrisis. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2019. Print. Davis, Lynn E. Hurricane Katrina: Lessons for Army Planning and Operations. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2007. Internet resource. Laska, Shirley. Louisiana's Response to Extreme Weather: A Coastal State's Adaptation Challenges and Successes. Cham: Springer Open, 2020. Levitt, Jeremy I, and Matthew C. Whitaker. Hurricane Katrina: America's Unnatural Disaster. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.