How was the US prepared for Hurricane Katrina?

Question

america

Answer 1

America? The question was how was New Orleans prepared? They weren't and they have no one to blame but their own leadership... right up to the state leadership level.

Answer 2

I assume you know that preparations could have been vastly superior to how they were.

Hurricane Pam was a simulation run a whole year before Hurricane Katrina that predicted almost exactly what would happen. This led to decisions to implement certain preparations, which had not been funded as of when Katrina came alone, and still have not been funded.

There's also some corruption at the local and state level.

The Army Corps of Engineers had the job of maintaining walls to protect places from floods. They used historical data to predict how bad storms might be. However, the weather scientists figured out that weather comes in like cycles ... El Nina, El Nasty, such that for 20-50 uears things are relatively mild, then 20-50 years we will have worse storms. Throw in climate change on top of that. So the scientists were saying we are in the early stages of a worse bunch of hurricanes, while the military was using statistics from the mild seasons.

The weather forecasting people do a wonderful job of predicting days in advance when horrible weather is coming, so that people can evacuate from the path of a storm. This is dependent on some NASA weather satelites that are falling apart, should have been replaced years ago, are expected to fail any day now.

I am wondering if Europe is using those same satelites or if the European Space Agency has an independent system. Something perhaps to ask in a different category.

So the communities to be hit were warned in more than adequate time to evacuate, and millons of well-to-do Americans did get out of the way in time.

However, the US Census has New Orleans as one of the poorest cities in America & the nature of welfare funding is that at beginning of month they get a check which is all spent by middle of month, so at end of month, when Katrina arrived, they did not have money for bus far or gasoline for cars.

This was well known to the politicians, and they had various plans for what to do in an emergency, but having a plan, and following it, are two different things.

There are also people with long memories of past storms, where they returned to their homes to find not storm damage but looting damage, and they did not really believe the government saying this one would be worse than usual ... they think they heard that story before ... so they stay home to protect home from looters.

People had been told to stock up with several days food in their homes, for various reasons. But when you wake up in the middle of the night to find that all of downstairs (where the kitchen refrigerator food supply is stored) is flooded, the waters have risen to your bed on the second floor, are continuing to rise, the elecrtric power is out, you basically have to get onto the roof as fast as you can, at this point you probably do not have good clothes on, flashlight, or enough food to keep you going several days.

While New Orleans is below sea level, if global warming predictions are correct, a lot more cities will be below sea level in 50 years. I betcha very few of them are as "prepared" for this as New Orleans was "prepared" for hurricane Katrina.

Answer 3

They weren't. back in the late 90's the US CoE stated that the Dikes and Levies wouldn't withstand a Cat-4 or 5 hurricain and that the minor patches being done to them wouldn't hold if one occured, the government did nothing. FEMA has said over the years that if a massive disaster occured (one to the scale of Katrina, far bigger than Oklahoma May 3rd tornado and the San Fran '89 Earthquake) that they wouldn't be locally perpaired for it and it would take time for them to go in if they didn't get for warning to prepair for it, this would require more funding, they didn't get it, and Brown dropped the ball on the warnings anyway.

Answer 4

The us was not prepared for the people of Katrina. It wasn't the hurricane that suffered it was the people. I don't think the us was prepared for the amount of poverty and welfare that came out of New Orleans.

Answer 5

It wasn't. And it's not prepared for the next category 5 hurricane, either. -RKO- 06/30/07

Answer 6

With every day pass, our country is getting into more and more trouble. The inflation, unemployment and falling value of dollar are the main concern for our Government but authorities are just sleeping, they don’t want to face the fact. Media is also involve in it, they are force to stop showing the real economic situation to the people. I start getting more concern about my future as well as my family after watching the response of our Government for the people that affected by hurricane Katrina.

According to recent studies made by World Bank, the coming crisis will be far worse than initially predicted. So if you're already preparing for the crisis (or haven't started yet) make sure you watch this video at http://www.familysurvival.tv and discover the 4 BIG issues you'll have to deal with when the crisis hits, and how to solve them fast (before the disaster strikes your town!) without spending $1,000s on overrated items and useless survival books.

Answer 7

Poorly, to tell you the truth. The response took about three or four days for food and water (the government says to only stock for two days- hah!). It's still a wreck down here.

Answer 8

it's impossible to protect ones self totally from mother nature...thanks to the satellites detecting the hurricane , everyone was notified and should have used common sense to move out of that area..... our materialistic things can be had again.....yet lives snuffed out because of complete stupidity.
Humans verses Mother Nature will continue and guess who will win.
I live on an island in the pacific with an active volcano, more than likely we will have no way of getting out of here should she blow up but if some scientist warns me in advance you bet i'm outta here.
People in New Orleans chose to live in the flatlands/wetlands, no one forced them.

Life is about choices

Answer 9

They were prepared for devastation but not for the human wreckage that inundated a great city I have very fond memories of..

Answer 10

they had those locks set up as a barricade, but the hurricane was just to big