Natural Disaster: Hurricane Katrina
One of the largest natural disasters to strike the United States in recent years has been
Hurricane Katrina. The storm that would become Hurricane Katrina began to form on August 23,
2005. By August 29, it would reach the coast of the United States, causing disaster in Louisiana,
Alabama, and Mississippi. This disaster may not have been handled as well as it should have
been, but much was still done to save lives throughout the stages of this disaster.
As soon as there was knowledge that a large storm was headed in their direction,
meteorologists and other official urged people in coastal areas to evacuate due to the risk. One of
the largest risks was in New Orleans, due to the fact that it is a city with a large population that
was not prepared to handle a hurricane. The main issues being that it would had poor defenses
against flooding and that the people had insufficient access to emergency resources.
When the storm was imminent and the danger was obvious, mandatory evacuations
began to take place. The mayor of New Orleans stated that they must evacuate the city, and for
those unable to, they would have a shelter to take them in. This decision saved many lives, as
shortly after the hurricane struck, many of the buildings were underwater. There may not have
been much preparation otherwise, but evacuating and establishing shelters were crucial steps in
minimizing loss of life.
There was a significant amount of response in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Shelters were created such as the one in New Orleans’ football stadium that housed nearly
10,000 people. An issue with this is that it was not designed to be a shelter, so they were not
prepared for so many people to be living there. Fortunately, many countries such as Canada and
Australia contributed by sending supplies or other aid to ensure the affected people could
survive. There were also military and rescue groups sent to find and aid the survivors. Volunteer
work also played a role in helping to care for the victims of this disaster.
Recovery was a challenging task after Hurricane Katrina. It was slow at first, due to
flooding of many areas. Thanks to monetary donations from many sources though, efforts were
made to restore the damaged areas, and most of them have been rebuilt. The damage Hurricane
Katrina took on New Orleans’ economy has lessened over the years and many areas have been
rebuilt. Still, 11 years later the area has not completely recovered with some poorer areas still
struggling.
In the end, Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the importance of handling each step of a
disaster properly by the fact that it was done right in some ways, and showing the results of what
not preparing can lead to. Had they planned better ahead of time, the areas hit by Hurricane
Katrina could have been less prone to flood damage and recovered much faster. The order for a
mandatory evacuation was a decision that saved many lives, though. This is why Hurricane
Katrina is such a memorable disaster in our country’s history.
Block Chart for Natural Disaster: Hurricane Katrina
Man-Made Disaster: London’s Killer Fog 1952
Summary​: For five days in 1952 the city of London was gasping for air. London’s population
was accustomed to frequently seeing fog, however on these five December nights the Londoners
were inhaling smoke, laced with sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and soot. This left London
encased in a black cloud of, near, total darkness and killed over 12,000 people. The smoke was
produced by the thousands of residents living in London. Since it was winter the residents burned
coal in their chimney’s to stay warm in their houses. With the thousands of tons of soot being
pumped into the skies of London by its forest of chimneys and industrial smokestacks, a toxic
fog soon darkened the town completely.
Mitigation: ​Londoners had never experienced a toxic fog that was capable of killing thousands
of people. Experiencing fog/smog was a casual basis and there was never a need for the residents
who lived there to change their lifestyles due to it. This fog was so common that there was an
official name for it, called “pea souper”. However, during this cold December night the “pea
souper” quickly changed from a common experience to a poisonous brew unlike any other city
had seen before.
Preparedness: ​The people of London were very poorly prepared for this disaster, as there was
no experience to learn from since this disaster was the first of its kind. These smogs were
commonly know in Britain at this time and were often thought as unavoidable. However, The
Great Smog of London in 1952 was by far the worst toxic fog disaster known to this day. An
environmental historian, Dr. Stephen Mosle, stated, ​ “​Until this disaster hit, people had accepted
smog as a necessary evil. In Britain’s coal-fuelled cities, smoke was tolerated for more than a
century as a trade-off for jobs and home comforts.” So, instead of the Londoner’s preparing for
this type of event, they simply shrugged it off and hoped for the best. As Dr. Mosel said, the
people of London thought of the smog as unavailable and decided that there was nothing they
cold do about it.
Response: ​There was no immediate response to this disaster because no one truly understood
where the toxic fog was coming from. ​The residents in London were used to thick fogs spreading
across their city, and there was reportedly little panic about the situation at the beginning. Many
people only began to realize what type of disaster this was after the mortality rates were being
revealed. ​Due to the fog many services were being cancelled/closed down, including the
ambulance, thus leaving ill people to walk to the hospital themselves. Not only where the the
people being filled with toxins as they walked to the hospitals but many people found this as an
opportunity to rob those who weren’t able to fend for themselves at the time. For example, it was
stated that the crime rates shot through the rough when the smog hit. While the ill were walking
to the hospitals over 100 people were reported of being robbed and there was an increase of
murders as well.
Recovery: ​The recovery from this disaster was impossible due to the fact that thousands of
people lost their lives. ​ After the fog passed many people had changed their views toward
smokestacks in cities, and over the next few years after the disaster, environmental ​regulations
were being processed through the government. This led to the creation of the Clean Air Act,
which the British Parliament passed four years after the toxic fog struck London. However, with
that being said, the exact cause and nature of the killer fog was largely remained a mystery. The
residents in London, at this time, were left to their own theories after the toxic fog was gone. It
was only until recently (2012) when a team of researchers determined the likely causes for its
man-made disaster. Though it was easy to determine the only factor for this fog was connected
to the emissions from burning coal. However, the specific chemical processes that led to the
deadly mix of pollution and fog were not completely understood until a study led by Renyi
Zhang, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University, who determined that, “​Sulfate, in
turn, helps promote the formation of other particles, including nitrate and organic matter,
exacerbating the development of severe haze. Eventually, as the water in fog dries up, the acid
becomes concentrated, leaving corrosive, gross looking haze particles that coat every surface
they come in contact with, from sidewalks to human lungs.”
Process Diagram For Man-Made Disaster: London’s Killer Fog in 1952
Work Cited
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151221-the-lethal-effects-of-london-fog
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5955311/the-london-fog-that-killed-over-ten-thousand-people
http://www.history.com/news/the-killer-fog-that-blanketed-london-60-years-ago
https://solveyourproblem.com/emergency-disasters/hurricane-katrina-environment.shtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_effects_of_Hurricane_Katrina
http://environment.about.com/od/environmentalevents/a/katrina_impact.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London
http://www.history.com/topics/hurricane-katrina