Facts about Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana:
Hurricane Katrina, of the 2005 Hurricane season, was the costliest Hurricane, as well as one of the five deadliest, in the history of the United States.The following are complied facts about the effect of Hurricane Katrina related to New Orleans.
- Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the morning of Monday, August 29 in southeast Louisiana.
- On August 31, a public health emergency was declared for the entire Gulf Coast, and Louisiana Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of all those remaining in New Orleans.
- Relief organizations scrambled to locate suitable areas for relocating evacuees on a large scale.
- The most severe loss of life occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed, in many cases hours after the storm had moved inland.
- At least 1,836 people lost their lives in the actual hurricane and in the subsequent floods, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane.
- The levee failures prompted investigations of their design and construction which belongs to the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) as mandated in the Flood Control Act of 1965 and into their maintenance by the local Levee Boards.
- Katrina's storm surge led to 53 levee breaches in the federally build levee system protecting metro New Orleans and the failure of the 40 Arpent Canal levee.
- Four years later, thousands of displaced residents in Mississippi and Louisiana were still living in trailers.
· The major levee breaches in the city included breaches at the 17th street canal levee, the London Avenue Levee, and the wide, navigable Industrial Canal, which left approximately 80% of the city flooded.
The Superdome, which was sheltering many people who had not evacuated, sustained significant damage. Two sections of the Superdome's roof were compromised and the dome's waterproof membrane had essentially been peeled off.
The Superdome, which was sheltering many people who had not evacuated, sustained significant damage. Two sections of the Superdome's roof were compromised and the dome's waterproof membrane had essentially been peeled off.
The Following is information complied from Brookings Institute four and a half years following the effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana. While it is clear, that the city of New Orleans is well on its way towards recovery, there is still plenty of work to be done.
- Ongoing rebuilding activities are attracting people, jobs, and investments, further shoring up the greater New Orleans economy.
- New Orleans added more than 8,500 households in the past year, the biggest one-year expansion since 2007, reflecting a mix of new and returning residents.
- While home rebuilding has slowed dramatically since 2007, post-disaster infrastructure investments in the levee system, schools, police stations and other public facilities have continued apace. Since July 2008, FEMA has paid over $800 million for infrastructure repair projects across the five-parish area. In the city of New Orleans, 94 facilities and public works projects were completed as of April 2009, and 113 more were under construction.
- Affordable housing for low-income workers and significant flood risk remain the area’s major challenges.
- Residents and leaders are eager to get beyond “disaster recovery” to implement bold plans for creating a sustainable, inclusive, and prosperous city and region.
- Locally, key moves are creating the foundation for transformation to meet residents’ long-term aspirations.
- This past year, population growth picked up pace in the city of New Orleans, reaching 76.4 percent of pre-Katrina residences actively receiving mail, a 4.3 percentage point increase from last August.
- Although the New Orleans population continues to grow, new neighborhood-level data available quarterly shows that twelve neighborhoods lost more than 50 active-address households from June 2008 to June 2009.
- As of June 2009, nine neighborhoods still have less than half of the active residential addresses they did before Katrina.
- Total enrollment at New Orleans’ colleges and universities grew 5 percent since spring 2008.
- Although unemployment in the New Orleans metro has risen in the fourth year after Katrina, it remains lower than the national level.
- In its fourth year of disaster recovery, the pace of home reconstruction and new construction has slowed in New Orleans.
- As of June 2009, the Road Home program has disbursed $7.95 billion in grants to 124,219 underinsured homeowners, the vast majority of whom will rebuild.
- FEMA has obligated an additional $900 million for infrastructure repairs in Louisiana since last July, bringing the total to nearly $7.8 billion, of which 58 percent has been paid to localities. Nearly four years after Katrina, total funding approved for disaster recovery is still on the rise—particularly in hard hit parishes where damage is so extensive that local governments are overwhelmed trying to document it all.
- By June 2008, Orleans and Plaquemines parishes had received less than 50 percent of the FEMA Public Assistance funds obligated to them.
- New Orleans remains vulnerable to storm-related flooding–but how vulnerable is currently unknown.
- The levee failures associated with Katrina left New Orleans with an unprecedented level of residential blight. However, since September 2008, the number of unoccupied residential addresses in New Orleans has declined from 69,727 to 65,888 in March 2009 as repopulation and redevelopment continue.
- A very large number of homeowners are determined to rebuild their homes, even in heavily damaged parts of the city, as indicated by the number of Road Home recipients electing the “stay and rebuild” option.
