Hurricane Katrina Failure

Hurricane Katrina was the largest and 3rd strongest hurricane ever recorded to make landfall in the U.S.(dosomething.org) This hurricane was so costly that it also became the costliest hurricane ever in history reaching a number at $150 billion dollars. This number includes Louisiana and Mississippi alone. It was a devastating time for those living in the southern states hit by the hurricane, especially those in New Orleans. This topic became very difficult for people in the south to cope on, but it was also a learning experience physically, and financially. If Katrina never existed, the levees in New Orleans would still be vulnerable and weak, but now that it happened, they are built stronger and stealthier to uphold stronger impacts of any …show more content…
Bush pushed through many tragedies in his time of presidency. Between 2001 and 2009, President Bush had been given the most difficult decisions to ever make in his life. Throughout most of his presidency he had been faced with War, debt, and economic recession. First there was the terrorist attack on 9/11 which killed many people, and the same year the United States invaded Afghanistan in an attempt to overthrow the Taliban government. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and in 2005 Hurricane Katrina toppled over the gulf coast. Lastly, in 2008 the United States had experienced a huge financial crisis since the Great Depression. Many people thought, after Hurricane Katrina, that President Bush was not worthy to be a president, because of how long he took to help aid the people who were in desperate need of help. The people did not realize though that Bush was doing the best he could as he stated in his book Decision Points, “When we learned that Katrina was headed for New Orleans, I put FEMA on its highest level of alert. The government prestaged more than 3.7 million liters of water, 4.6 million pounds of ice, 1.86 million meals ready to eat, and 33 medical teams…”(Bush …show more content…
“Built by the Army Corps of Engineers, the levees had a troubled history”(Bush 313). The fact is that the levees were only designed to withstand small storms. Surely, they should have known that hurricanes were common on the gulf coast, and it was possible that a hurricane could develop into a high category at any time. Hurricane Katrina had brought in a lot of water itself which put more pressure on the levee wall and ground. Therefore the extra pressure must have created water pressure and weakened the wall causing it to push over and cause flooding. “Some also see the tragedy of Katrina as rooted in issues of class and poverty rather than race”(Hennin 9). In fewer terms, classism caused more damage than racism. About 30% of their population lived at or below poverty level in that time, and a lot of people had no choice but to seek shelter instead of evacuate. There was nothing they could do considering their position in