On the flight out west, Thornton looked down and saw his home in Lakewood South, as well as the seven feet of water surrounding it. We had a very, lets just say, heated conversation with one of those guys about where they were positioning those trucks, said Thornton. They guarded the office where Thornton and his team huddled, but that was about it. They worked furiously. - The total damage from Katrina is estimated to be $125 billion (or $190 billion in 2022 dollars), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 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. As general manager of the facility since 1997, he had been through this several times before. Hurricane Katrina was a tropical cyclone that struck the southeastern United States in late August 2005. An estimated 80 percent of New Orleans was underwater by August 30. Caleb Wells. I would rather have been in jail, Janice Jones said while being taken out of the dome. Satellite view of the Superdome showing the damaged roof with the New Orleans Arena to the right on August 30, 2005. Did you encounter any technical issues? This story has been shared 120,685 times. [30][31], As of August 31, there had been three deaths in the Superdome: two elderly medical patients who were suffering from existing illness, and a man who committed suicide by jumping from the upper level seats. A FEMA employee told Thornton and Mouton they expected to find lots ofdead bodies, and had decided to bring them here, next to the place where those left in the city were fighting to live. 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. The men hooked up the line, fuel started flowing. The storm was coming. Tempers began to flare as hunger and thirst deepened. Blood and feces covered the walls of the facility. The majority of all federal aid, approximately $75 billion of $120.5 billion, funded emergency relief operations. 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. 2023 Cable News Network. We will investigate if the individuals come forward. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary. The Data Center, a New Orleans-based research organization, estimated that the storm and subsequent flooding displaced more than 1 million people, leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless. Miller told a reporter. An aerial view of the catastrophic flooding in Downtown New Orleans on August 31, 2005. On the state and local level, Louisiana Gov. To see all these downtown buildings completely shut down, Thornton said. Thornton and Mouton just needed to find a way to keep things under control for 20 hours before it could be enacted. Many people living in the South Florida area were unaware when Katrina strengthened from a tropical storm to a hurricane in one day and struck southern Florida on August 25, 2005, near the Miami-Dade - Broward county line. Levees at various locations in the city had failed, and the pumping stations, overwhelmed with water and damaged by the storm, werent working. The fact that Black homeowners were more likely to face flooding than white homeowners wasn't an accident or bad luck. They treated us like animals. Photo. At least 1,833 died in the hurricane and subsequent floods. Before Hurricane Katrina, B.W. Police watch over prisoners from Orleans Parish Prison who were evacuated to a highway on September 1, 2005. It was going to be the big one. In addition, according to the journalSocial Science & Medicine, there were also long-term mental health consequences of Hurricane Katrina. At least 1,833 died in the hurricane and. [13], On August 31, it was announced that the Superdome evacuees would be moved to the Astrodome in Houston. Security checks were conducted, and people with medical illnesses or disabilities were moved to one side of the dome with supplies and medical personnel. Emergency lights worked intermittently as engineers struggled to keep backup generators running as the area around the dome flooded. In addition, many of the underlying systemic inequalities and problems that resulted in the severity of the disaster still have not been addressed. All Rights Reserved. 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. The Industrial Canal was later breached as well, flooding the neighborhood known as the Lower Ninth Ward. But Thornton wasnt thinking about that right then. 4:23 PM EST, Mon January 16, 2023. The men sat in stunned silence. Because of the ensuing. As Talk Poverty notes, it was directly due to "racially discriminatory housing practices," which meant that"the high-ground was taken by the time banks started loaning money to African Americans who wanted to buy a home.". However, little to nothing was done by FEMA in response. Supplies were dangerously low, with one mother saying officials told her to reuse diapers by scraping them out when they got dirty. He starts off the essay with his own personal account of the damage that Hurricane Katrina left. [37] This was done as covertly as possible so as to not cause rioting or charges of favoritism. After passing over Florida, Katrina again weakened, and was reclassified as a tropical storm. This is a nuthouse, said April Thomas, 42, there with her 11 children. On Wednesday morning, Mouton and Thornton checked the water first thing. 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. Fights broke out. A few of these groups wandered the concourse, stealing food and attacking anyone who stood up to them. 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. Following the historical damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina, the name Katrina was retired from the lists of names. [6] By this time, the population of the dome had nearly doubled within two days to approximately 30,000, as helicopters and vehicles capable of cutting through the deep flood waters picked up stranded citizens from hard-hit areas and brought them to the dome. A woman walks with a dog in the Lower Ninth Ward on May 16, 2015. And according to Vox, when the Louisiana National Guard asked FEMA for 700 buses to help with the evacuation, only 100 were sent in response. Though leaving in the light of day would be easier, it could also cause hysteria from those left behind in the Dome. They took off running to the concourse, and saw a nightmare come true the roof in one section above the field had been torn off by the wind. Most of the tragedies associated with Hurricane Katrina could have been avoided, but due to a variety of reasons, the hurricane quickly became one of the worst disasters to ever occur in the United States. Feces covered the walls of bathrooms. In response, guardsmanput up barbed wire at various areas around the building, protecting themselves from the general population. But the day before the hurricane hit, with the roads jammed with the vehicles of a million fleeing residents, the city of New Orleans decided to house people in the Superdome temporarily. They found a 50-foot fuel line and screwed it into the reserve tank of the generator, then ran it out to the truck, which was parked in several feet of water outside the exterior door. I thought it would be two days at most and wed be out, said Thornton. Thanks for contacting us. Houses stand in the Seventh Ward on May 12, 2015. Food rotted inside the hundreds of refrigerators and freezers spread throughout the building; the smell was inescapable. The water was still rising. It was worse than they imagined.. In 2004, the federal government sponsored a "planning exercise" involving local, state, and federal officials that resembled the eventual impact of Hurricane Katrina. Still, about 100,000 people were trapped in the city when the storm hit, and many took last-ditch refuge in the New Orleans Superdome and the Ernest J. Morial Convention Center as the storm approached. People search for their belongings among debris washed up on the beach in Biloxi on August 30, 2005. "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." The population of the festering, battered dome had gone from 15,000 to 30,000 in a short time as helicopters and vehicles capable of cutting through the water picked up stranded citizens and brought them to the only place left to go in the entire city. Apart from the foster children, roughly 5,000 additional children were listed as missing in the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina. More women are coming forward with stories of sexual. And then thenext morning, more bad news: The buses had been rerouted and delayed, sent to a highway overpass where people were stranded. That night, NOPD Chief of Police Eddie Compass arrived to see Thornton and Col. Mouton. And I expect they will.". The National Guard had pulled back from many parts of the building. 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. In the bathrooms, every toilet had ceased to function. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city the previous day, and an estimated 1.2 million people left ahead of the storm. Many wonder if New Orleans can handle another Katrina. It looks like we cant stop the levee breaches and were being told there could be as much as six to eight feet more of water, Thornton recalls Compass saying. Soon after they arrived, officialsenacted contraflow, shutting down all roads leading in and opening up every lane out of the city. What were Hurricane Katrinas wind speeds? [Mouton] saved thousands of lives.. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin were criticized for not ordering mandatory evacuations sooner. Its tenants, the New Orleans Saints, were talking about an open-air stadium on the Mississippi river or moving to another city. Although New Orleans levees and flood walls had been designed to withstand a category 3 hurricane, half of the network gave way to the waters. Victims of Hurricane Katrina fight through the crowd as they line up for buses to evacuate the Superdome and New Orleans, Sept. 1, 2005. The National Weather Service writes that Hurricane Katrina is "one of the five deadliest hurricanes to ever strike the United States.". [13][35] The attacker was later jailed. However, National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasts had correctly predicted the strengthening, and hurricane watches and warnings . [4] However, when looking into the origins of the claims about 200mph (320km/h) wind security in the Superdome, CNN reported that no engineering study had ever been completed on the amount of wind the structure could withstand. Weve got about an hour of daylight. 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. 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. All sources confirm deaths, although the numbers of the dead vary. Ive been in there seven days, and I havent had a bath. Discovery Company. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. With maximum sustained winds of 175 mph, the storm killed a total of 1,833 people and left millions homeless in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. 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. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. The Superdome with the newly repaired roof, August 15, 2006. [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. 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. Governor Blanco's comment regarding M-16s was likely in response to the reports of snipers shooting at police and rescue workers. [4], On August 28, 2005, at 6 am, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announced that the Superdome would be used as a public shelter. Thornton and Mouton went to work, spending a hour writing up a two-page, handwritten list of everything they needed. The tropical depression that became Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005, and meteorologists were soon able to warn people in the Gulf Coast states that a major storm was. A bustling black market has also emerged, with cigarettes, at $10 a pack, and anti-diuretics, which help forestall going to the bathroom, hot items. The lights stayed on. Some people even chose to wear medical masks to ease the smell. Inside the Dome, though, a small group of women and men fought to retain whatever order they could. 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. This is not normal.. Itll be harder to manage them. We are like animals, Taffany Smith, 25, told the Los Angeles Times, while she gripped her 3-week-old son in her arms. They had no good options. In April 2000, according to the Data Center, the population of New Orleans was 484,674; by July 2006, not quite a year after Katrina, it had dropped by more than 250,000, to some 230,172. Unfortunately, due to the sensationalist stories regarding the Superdome, the rumors were used to justify "turn[ing] New Orleans into a prison city," according to The Guardian. It's also believed that many of these deaths could have been preventable if emergency and hospital services hadn't been as disrupted as they were. The agency also provided $6.7 billion in recovery aid to more than one million people and households. [33], During the evening on August 31, about 700 elderly and ill patients were transported out by military helicopters and planes from Louis Armstrong International Airport to Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base in Houston. The low-income development has been replaced by two-story, townhouse-style buildings. Thornton and his skeleton crew he only had 18 management staff and security officers there, along with the National Guard had to figure out how to best prepare the building to serve as a shelter. [32] While numerous people told the Times-Picayune that they had witnessed the rape of two girls in the ladies' restroom and the killing of one of them, police and military officials said they knew nothing about the incidents. 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. Up to a month after Hurricane Katrina, over 100 children were still unaccounted for, and it took until November to find everyone. estimated population had increased to 376,971. AP By 4:30 p.m., the winds were dying down and Thornton and Mouton went outside and surveyed the building. He didnt realize how bad things are other there, Wells said. You have to fend people off constantly. Please select which sections you would like to print: Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. In addition to two unarmed civilians killed at Danziger Bridge, at least ten other people were shot by police in the first week after Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. The job was far from over; it took two days to get everyone out and onto buses. At the peak of the Katrina recovery effort, 51,039 National Guard soldiers from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and three territories worked in Louisiana and Mississippi, making Katrina by far . A neighborhood east of downtown New Orleans remains flooded on August 30, 2005. This also disproportionately affected people of color. As a result, the rumors of lawlessness in New Orleans actually made things much worse for stranded survivors. According to National Geographic, "some argue that indirect hurricane deaths, like being unable to access medical care, should be counted in official numbers.". 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. The emergency generator later failed, and engineers had to protect the backup generator from floodwaters by creating a hole in a wall and installing a new fuel line. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005 as a Category 3 storm. appreciated. Local legend has it the 73,000-seat stadium was built atop a cemetery, cursing the football team that calls it home the Saints to an eternity as cellar-dwellers. And with everyone scattered, it became incredibly difficult to reunite children with their birth parents. What was the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the New Orleans public education system? Most of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina was due to the fact that New Orleans' levees and floodwalls were breached. The Louisiana Superdome was used as a "shelter of last resort" for those in New Orleans unable to evacuate from the city when Hurricane Katrina struck on August 29, 2005. Thornton, pacing inside, turned to one of the mechanics. According to NBC News, the average age of victims was 69, and "just under half of all victims were 75 or older." The generator kept burning. Hours before three major levees were breached, President Bush announced that New Orleans had "dodged a bullet," despite the fact that Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco had already requested federal assistance two days before the hurricane hit, according to The Society Pages. [32] National Guard officials put the body count at 6, which was reported by The Seattle Times on September 26. 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. They found the building in better shape than the Superdome fewer windows were blown out and the building, unlike the Superdome, had a roof. Back in 2005, Nagin went on the Today Show and said, "it wouldn't be unreasonable to have 10,000" deaths from Hurricane Katrina. And despite the fact that many were long voicing their concerns about the effects of a hurricane in New Orleans, they were ignored until it was too late. Supplies were running low, and as the National Guard began to ration things like water and diapers the crowd grew incensed and accused them of hoarding goods for their own use. After Hurricane Katrina, which damaged more than 100 school buildings, the state seized control of almost all urban schools and turned them over to independent charter groups.