Hurricane Katrina: Natural Disaster or Human Error

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of Hurricane Katrina, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since 1928. The total damages amounted to about $100 billion. Some say because the levees were poorly designed and the relief efforts poor, more people suffered losses than should have.

Hurricane Katrina was the storm Emergency officials were planning for. New Orleans has been flooded by hurricanes five times over the past century; in 1915, 1940, 1947, 1965, 1969 before Hurricane Katrina. Studies have been done on the levee systems and have shown that the levee systems are not adequate to keep Louisiana from flooding. Many of the residents were poor and did not own cars and would need transportation to leave the area during an evacuation. Louisiana was ripe for a catastrophe. This prompted Homeland Security to develop a plan of action for the next Hurricane.

In 2004 Emergency officials played out a Hurricane scenario, called Hurricane Pam, to help them plan how to deal with a case very similar to Katrina. ...

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officials in ordering a mandatory evacuation for New Orleans until 19 hours before landfall caused "preventable deaths" and "great suffering." Many people were left stranded with no way to get out. They were told to go to area shelters and buses would arrive to take them out of the area. NBC's Brian Williams reported, "Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco waited until after the storm hit to ask FEMA for buses. They didn't begin to arrive until four days after landfall. Meanwhile, dozens of city-owned school buses that could have been used for rescue were trapped under water. (2006)"

Hurricane Katrina was rated a category five over the Gulf. Emergency officials knew the levees could only ...

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