In the early hours of August 29th 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and surrounding areas of the United States. Whilst moving towards land in the form of Florida on the 25th of August 2005, Katrina started of as a tropical storm then slowly turned into a category one hurricane. After passing Florida, the hurricane gradually increased to category two and then three and then, when around 300 or so miles out from New Orleans(8), it reached a category five level when winds amounted to around 175 mph. Moving through Louisiana, wind speeds decreased to 120 mph but Katrina still being at a category three level. It then started calming down more than 150 miles inland near Meridian, Mississippi by downgrading to a tropical depression(1). Hurricane
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Economic effects affected the whole city of New Orleans as many were left unemployed. Before the storm, the region was already one of the poorest in America with one of the highest unemployment rates. Social effects impacted many people 's lives by leaving hundreds of thousands without access to their homes or jobs as well as causing a huge number of people to be (mainly the young and the elderly) separated from relatives. Some people had a false sense of security as many had lived through Hurricane Betsy and believed that Katrina wouldn’t be any different, but they didn’t realise their levee systems could break which resulted in the major damage eventually caused by …show more content…
Many of the social, economic, political and environmental situations they were in didn’t help them to avoid the disaster either, as I have highlighted above. As well as people being vulnerable to Hurricane Katrina, some coped better than others.
For example, homes along the beach got help first as they were mostly wealthy but still got grants up to $150,000 immediately for whatever they wanted.
Affluent homeowners got resources from insurance policies and from the government. FEMA and the Red Cross had set up in the wealthier majority part of town in the west whereas in East Biloxi, largely African American and much poorer had more people helpless and few emergency services(6). It seems Katrina was perhaps the way to see how America’s race lines were
Economic effects affected the whole city of New Orleans as many were left unemployed. Before the storm, the region was already one of the poorest in America with one of the highest unemployment rates. Social effects impacted many people 's lives by leaving hundreds of thousands without access to their homes or jobs as well as causing a huge number of people to be (mainly the young and the elderly) separated from relatives. Some people had a false sense of security as many had lived through Hurricane Betsy and believed that Katrina wouldn’t be any different, but they didn’t realise their levee systems could break which resulted in the major damage eventually caused by …show more content…
Many of the social, economic, political and environmental situations they were in didn’t help them to avoid the disaster either, as I have highlighted above. As well as people being vulnerable to Hurricane Katrina, some coped better than others.
For example, homes along the beach got help first as they were mostly wealthy but still got grants up to $150,000 immediately for whatever they wanted.
Affluent homeowners got resources from insurance policies and from the government. FEMA and the Red Cross had set up in the wealthier majority part of town in the west whereas in East Biloxi, largely African American and much poorer had more people helpless and few emergency services(6). It seems Katrina was perhaps the way to see how America’s race lines were