Hurricane Katrina Crisis Essay

Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest hurricanes in United States history, struck New Orleans in 2005. By the time the hurricane made landfall, heavy rains had already threatened the city’s infrastructure. The levees contributed to the flooding which submerged approximately 80% of the metropolitan area. It is believed that then-president George W. Bush and Federal officials were warned that the levees would likely be breached by the storm, but were negligent when it came to taking the necessary steps to preventing the crisis. To support this claim, research will examine the weakness of the levees along with the forecasts filed by Homeland Security officials, their accuracy in terms of predicting how structural failures could have been avoided, …show more content…
National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield warned that the “greatest potential for the nightmare scenarios, in the Gulf of Mexico anyway, is that New Orleans and southeast Louisiana area” (Msnbc 2005). Paying attention to Mayfield’s precautions, Federal Emergency Management Agency, also known as FEMA, piloted a “Hurricane Pam” exercise thirteen months before Katrina struck to evaluate how the city would handle a hypothetical Category 3 hurricane. The exercise projected an opening in the levee structure would flood the city and damage nearly 87% of homes (Msnbc 2005). Two days before the storm hit, former President George W. Bush received in depth warnings in a 41-page evaluation via email concerning Hurricane Katrina’s probable effect, including prophetic predictions of breached levees, considerable flooding, and loss of life and possessions. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee ranking Democrat, reacted to the assessment in an announcement saying the “administration 's failure to fully heed the warnings of its analysts "compounded the tragedy”” (Warrick