Hurricane Katrina Facts
HURRICANE KATRINA BY THE NUMBERS | Disaster | |
| 463,000 | The population of New Orleans (Orleans Parish) pre-Katrina |
| 150,000 | The approximate number of residents in the greater New Orleans area who were unable to evacuate (most poor and disabled) |
| 80% | The percentage of New Orleans under water the day after Katrina made landfall |
| 108,456 | Square miles of damage caused by Katrina along the Gulf Coast (approximate size of the United Kingdom) |
| 40,000,000+ | Total cubic yards of debris left by Katrina (2,000,000 cubic yards of rubble after 9/11) |
| 15% | The percentage of NOLA police officers who left their posts |
| 1,697 | Official death toll |
| 200,000 | Homes lost |
| 288,700 | Number left homeless in Louisiana after Katrina |
| 400,000+ | Jobs lost in Louisiana |
| $22 billion | Estimated damage caused by Katrina in Louisiana |
| 5 | Number of levees breached (over 50 total breaches/failures reported) |
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| Response | |
| 2.5 million/1.3 million | Number of liters of water and MREs, respectively, delivered to the Superdome by FEMA and the National Guard before Katrina hit |
| 2,500,000 | Number of households requesting FEMA assistance |
| 31 | Number of Louisiana parishes covered by federal disaster declarations in mid-September |
| 9/4 | Last residents evacuated from the Superdome |
| 58,000 | Number of National Guard troops activated in the area |
| $116 billion | Amount appropriated by federal government for Katrina recovery |
| <50% | Amount that has been applied to municipal projects |
| $4.25 billion | Private funds raised immediately after Katrina |
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| Recovery | |
| 9/22/2005 | The first neighborhood (Algiers) is opened for re-entry |
| 10/5/2005 | All New Orleans residents allowed to return, except for residents of the Ninth Ward |
| 79 | Number of schools in New Orleans back in operation (128 pre-Katrina) |
| 37,745 | Number of FEMA trailers in Mississippi and Louisiana (some estimates as high as 51,000 in Louisiana alone) |
| 100,000 | Number of people living in the FEMA trailers |
| ~230,000 | Population of New Orleans (Orleans Parish) one year later |
| 1 in 25 | Homeless rate in New Orleans post-Katrina (a major factor is shortage of affordable housing) |
| $10 billion | Cost to rebuild levees to Federal standards |
Books, Films, and other Resources about Hurricane Katrina (all descriptions excerpted from Amazon.com)
Books/Articles/Reports
1. Failure of Initiative: The Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina (available at http://katrina.house.gov/full_katrina_report.htm)
2. 2006 Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned -- The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Preparedness and Recommendations (available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/reports/katrina-lessons-learned.pdf)
3. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Missippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley
Bestselling historian Douglas Brinkley, a professor at Tulane University, lived through the destruction of Hurricane Katrina with his fellow New Orleans residents, and now in The Great Deluge he has written one of the first complete accounts of that harrowing week, which sorts out the bewildering events of the storm and its aftermath, telling the stories of unsung heroes and incompetent officials alike. Get a sample of his story--and clarify your own memories--by looking through the detailed timeline he has put together of the preparation, the hurricane, and the response to one of the worst disasters in American history.
4. Dead in Attic: After Katrina by Chris Rose
The physical and psychic dislocation wrought by Hurricane Katrina is painstakingly recollected in this brilliant collection of columns by award-winning New Orleans Times-Picayune columnist Rose. After evacuating his family first to Mississippi and then to his native Maryland, Rose returned almost immediately to chronicle his adopted hometown's journey to "hell and back." Rose deftly sketches portraits of the living, from the cat lady who survives the storm only to die from injuries sustained during a post-hurricane mugging, to the California National Guard troops who gratefully chow down on steaks Rose managed to turn up in an unscathed French Quarter freezer. He's equally adept at evoking the spirit of the dead and missing, summed up by the title, quoting the entirety of an epitaph spray-painted on one home. Although the usual suspects (FEMA and Mayor Ray Nagin, among others) receive their fair share of barbs, Rose's rancor toward the powers that be is surprisingly muted. In contrast, he chronicles his own descent into mental illness (and subsequent recovery) with unsparing detail; though his maniacal dedication to witnessing the innumerable tragedies wrought by "The Thing" took him down a dark, dangerous path ("three friends of mine have, in fact, killed themselves in the past year"), it also produced one of the finest first-person accounts yet in the growing Katrina canon.
5. Breach of Faith Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City by Jed Horne
Hurricane Katrina shredded one of the great cities of the South, and as levees failed and the federal relief effort proved lethally incompetent, a natural disaster became a man-made catastrophe. As an editor of New Orleans’ daily newspaper, the Pulitzer Prize—winning Times-Picayune, Jed Horne has had a front-row seat to the unfolding drama of the city’s collapse into chaos and its continuing struggle to survive. Films/Documentaries
1. When the Levees Broke - A Requiem In Four Acts (Documentary) (2006)One year after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans director Spike Lee presents a four-hour four-part chronicle recounting through words and images one of our country's most profound natural disasters. In addition to revisiting the hours leading up to the arrival of Katrina a Category 5 hurricane before it hit the coast of Louisiana When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts tells the personal stories of those who lived to tell about it at the same time exploring the underbelly of a nation where the divide along race and class lines has never been more pronounced.
2. Hurricane on the Bayou (DVD - Jun 5, 2007)Unfolding against the poignant backdrop of the most costly natural disaster in America's history MacGillivray Freeman's IMAX® cameras follow a group of four musicians both legendary and rising as they explore the electrifying culture of New Orleans: speed through the beautiful alligator-filled bayous on airboats; recount their heart-wrenching personal stories of Katrina; and most of all bring the focus to the rapidly disappearing wetlands that are New Orleans' first line of defense against deadly storms.
3. National Geographic - Inside Hurricane Katrina (2005)From the creators of critically acclaimed Inside 9/11 comes another powerful journalistic account, Inside Hurricane Katrina. Go beyond the round-the-clock news coverage for a comprehensive look behind the devastation caused by nature's fury and human error. How did this happen? Can it happen again? Why weren't emergency personnel fully ready to respond to a real disaster? Using comprehensive analysis of events, hours of government audio tapes, and personal interviews, National Geographic takes viewers into the eye of Katrina to uncover the decisions and circumstances that determined the fate of the Gulf residents.
4. NOVA - Hurricane Katrina: The Storm That Drowned a City (DVD - Feb 28, 2006)In a compelling hour-by-hour reconstruction of the ferocious storm, NOVA exposes crucial failures in preparation and engineering that led to the worst disaster in U.S. history. The film probes the titanic forces behind hurricanes and the latest technology for tracking and predicting them, showing how scientists precisely foresaw the impact of a strong hurricane on New Orleans a year before Katrina struck. NOVA investigates the fatal flaws in New Orleans’ levees and the huge challenge posed by protecting and rebuilding the city.Hurricane Katrina: The Storm that Drowned a City presents astonishing storm footage, suspenseful eyewitness testimony, and a penetrating analysis of what went wrong. Viewers relive the storm through the eyes of survivors and the stories of top engineers, hurricane experts, and emergency officials as they grappled with the arrival of the storm and its traumatic aftermath.
5. Refuge of Last Resort - The True Hurricane Katrina Story (Documentary) (Widescreen – 2007)This no holds documentary chronicles the days before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. Told from the viewpoint of several families stuck in New Orleans, this moving and unflinching story says so much by saying so little. Most of this footage has never been seen by the public, and there is absolutely no stock footage used in this film.
Multimedia/Interactive Resources
http://lagic.lsu.edu/images/hurricanes/2005_LAGIC_HURRICANE_ATLAS.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/2005_HURRICANEKATRINA_GRAPHIC/index.html
http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/flashflood.swf
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/graphics/hurricane/hurricane2005/flash.htm
Monday, June 01, 2009, Administrator