Hurricane Katrina was an extremely destructive 2005 storm that caused more than 1,800 deaths along the U.S. Gulf Coast. [1], Hurricane Katrina was the third time the dome had been used as a public shelter. On August 27 Katrina strengthened to a category 3 hurricane, with top winds exceeding 115 miles (185 km) per hour and a circulation that covered virtually the entire Gulf of Mexico. FEMA photo/Andrea Booher. And despite the fact that this was meant to be a temporary shelter, they ended up being stranded in the stadium for a week. They worked furiously. There were no designated medical staff at work in the evacuation center, no established sick bay within the Superdome, and very few cots available that hadn't been brought in by evacuees. However, tens of thousands of residents could not or would not leave. Doug Thornton knew he had to get his people out. He just broke down. Hurricane Katrina had intruded on the last safe space. A fire erupted in a trash chute inside the dome, but a National Guard commander said it did not affect the evacuation. So that means youre going to have to be here probably another 5 or 6 days., Mr. Only after Katrina passed were people going to be bussed to shelters. But its the only shot we got.. The domes water supply gave out Wednesday, and toilets began to overflow, filling the cavernous stadium with a nauseating smell. Southern Mississippi won over Arkansas State, 3119. [citation needed] The building's engineering study was underway as Hurricane Katrina approached and was put on hold. The buildings air conditioning system would no longer run, nor would the refrigeration system keeping massive amounts of food from spoiling. Many of them boarded without having any idea of where they were headed. In addition, according to the journalSocial Science & Medicine, there were also long-term mental health consequences of Hurricane Katrina. It quickly intensified when it reached the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The facility housed 15,000 refugees who fled the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. And,. FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. Water poured onto the field. Tempers began to flare as hunger and thirst deepened. Hurricane Katrina was a devastating Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that resulted in 1,392 fatalities and caused damage estimated between $97.4 billion to $145.5 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding areas. The National Flood Insurance Program paid out $16 billion in claims. The arrival of 13,000 U.S. National Guard troops and 7,000 U.S. military troops deployed by President George W. Bush helped with evacuations and resupplying food and water to those stranded at the Superdome and convention center, all of whom were finally evacuated on September 3. The tropical depression that became Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005, and meteorologists were soon able to warn people in the Gulf Coast states that a major storm was. But inside the Superdome, things were deteriorating rapidly. Everyone remembers Kanye West's infamous comment that "George Bush doesn't care about Black people," but the issue ran far deeper than just the feelings of the president. Blood and feces covered the walls of the facility. No lights. A 2008 report from the Louisiana Health Department put the total at . During the recovery stage, the process wasn't much better. Please select which sections you would like to print: Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Although post-traumatic stress symptoms showed a decline in the years after the hurricane, "one in six still had symptoms indicative of probable post-traumatic stress disorder.". When Hurricane Katrina forced New Orleans poet Shelton Alexander to evacuate his home, he took his truck and video camera to the Superdome. The National Guards headquarters had flooded, so the entire operation had moved to the Superdome. Never did we think wed be here for nearly a week.. It continued on a course to the northeast, crossing the Mississippi Sound and making a second landfall later that morning near the mouth of the Pearl River. I wake up in the morning, and the first thing I say is: Where are my babies? [41], After the events surrounding Katrina, the Superdome was not used during the 2005 NFL season. Most deaths were caused by acute and chronic diseases (47%), and drowning (33%). 2. FEMA had sent the trucks to act as a makeshift morgue. Hurricane Katrina had intruded on the last safe place. It also had burned through half of the fuel in the 1,000-gallon tank. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). In 2004, the federal government sponsored a "planning exercise" involving local, state, and federal officials that resembled the eventual impact of Hurricane Katrina. This is a national disgrace, he said. They knew what that meant: The Superdome was now running on its backup generator, which could power the lights but not much more. [citation needed] Residents who evacuated to the Superdome were warned to bring their own supplies with them. They knew they needed to do a security check before allowing the people inside they couldnt risk anyone bringing guns and knives inside the Dome. By 2021, the estimated population had increased to 376,971, according to the Census. You have to fend people off constantly. Mouton suggested checking the water level every thirty minutes. Huge crowds of seething and tense people jammed the main concourse outside the dome hoping to get on the buses to the Astrodome in Houston, 350 miles away. I would rather have been in jail, Janice Jones said while being taken out of the dome. Thornton and Mouton climbed into a Humvee and drove toward the New Orleans Convention Center, dodging debris and navigating through a little standing water down Poydras Street. [30][31], As of August 31, there had been three deaths in the Superdome: two elderly medical patients who were suffering from existing illness, and a man who committed suicide by jumping from the upper level seats. 23 Most of these pieces show the Superdome's population rising by at least 10,000, swelling to as many 25,000. [13][35] The attacker was later jailed. On Wednesday morning, Mouton and Thornton checked the water first thing. knock out power for about 1 million and cause $630 million of damage, Cities of the Underworld: Hurricane Katrina, about 100,000 people were trapped in the city when the storm hit, fourth highest of any hurricane in U.S. history, according to a report published in 2008 by the American Medical Association. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. The office asked him if he could open up the Superdome as a refuge of last resort for the city of New Orleans. Ive been in there seven days, and I havent had a bath. It took 17 men several hours to do the job. The agency also provided $6.7 billion in recovery aid to more than one million people and households. Sept. 1, 2006, 3:09 PM PDT / Source: The Associated Press. Governor Blanco's comment regarding M-16s was likely in response to the reports of snipers shooting at police and rescue workers. For now, theyd monitor. First went the disabled and the elderly. [29] However, the eventual cost to renovate and repair the dome was roughly $185 million and it was reopened for the Saints' first home game in the city in September 2006. At one point, a desperate man, who had all the belongings he had brought to the Superdome stolen, tried to escape and had to be calmed by National Guardsmen. The heavy death toll of the hurricane and the subsequent flooding it caused drew international attention, along with widespread and lasting criticism of how local, state and federal authorities handled the storm and its aftermath. . [10][11] On August 28, the Louisiana National Guard delivered three truckloads of water and seven truckloads of MREs (meals ready to eat), enough to supply 15,000 people for three days. It's also believed that many of these deaths could have been preventable if emergency and hospital services hadn't been as disrupted as they were. Inside the Superdome, things were descending further into hell. ", Messed Up Things That Happened During Hurricane Katrina, wonder if New Orleans can handle another Katrina, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared, Slow Violence, Neoliberalism, and Environmental Picaresque, Deaths Directly Caused by Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Ivan it was less than that. [36] A group of about 100 tourists were "smuggled" out from the Superdome to the New Orleans Arena next door, where 800 medical needs patients were being held. Nagin had no solution. WATCH: Cities of the Underworld: Hurricane Katrina on HISTORY Vault. The mass exodus from the Gulf Coast and New Orleans during and after Katrina represented one of the largest and most sudden relocations of people in U.S. history. Before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, there were roughly 2,000 foster children registered in the state. The generator was near ground level behind the Superdome, and water was pushing against its exterior door. With the failure of the air conditioning, temperatures inside the Superdome reached the high 90s, with heavy humidity. Unfortunately, due to the sensationalist stories regarding the Superdome, the rumors were used to justify "turn[ing] New Orleans into a prison city," according to The Guardian. At least 1,833 died in the hurricane and. The levee system that held back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne had been completely overwhelmed by 10 inches (25 cm) of rain and Katrinas storm surge. Supplies were dangerously low, with one mother saying officials told her to reuse diapers by scraping them out when they got dirty. Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina stranded thousands of New Orleans residents. Then, one of the mechanicshad an idea: Bypass the tank altogether. This is 40 or 50 feet up in the air. And despite the fact that this was meant to be a temporary shelter, they ended up being stranded in the stadium for a week. Doug and Denise Thornton woke early to drive back to New Orleans. It was used as an emergency shelter although it was neither designed nor tested for the task. Brown. By then it was too late for Thornton to call in the staff hed need to keep it running. NBC News reports that although there were stories of freezers full of bodies, "no such pile of bodies was [ever] found.". Caleb Wells. The generator kept burning. The dome's emergency generator was able to power the internal lighting but little else; the building's air conditioning system would no longer operate, nor would the refrigeration system which was keeping food from spoiling. Several hundredof Thorntons part-time employees had shown up as well, unable to evacuate, and hed placed them in one of the club lounges along with the families of some New Orleans Police Department officers. Supplies were running low, and as the National Guard began to ration things like water and diapers the crowd grew incensed and accused them of hoarding goods for their own use. Rather, the hurricane was named in accordance with the World Meteorological Organizations lists of hurricane names, which rotate every six years. And cars were overturned on Poydras Street.. Hurricane Katrina not only left more than 1,800 human deaths in its wake, it also rendered thousands homeless as more than 800,000 housing units were destroyed or damaged in the storm. And as Rob Nixon notes in "Slow Violence, Neoliberalism, and Environmental Picaresque," "Discrimination predates disaster: in failures to maintain protective structures, failures at pre-emergency hazard mitigation, failures to maintain infrastructure, failures to organize evacuation plans for those who lack private transport, all of which make the poor and racial minorities disproportionately vulnerable to catastrophe." As a result, thousands of people became stranded at the Superdome, while thousands more ended up on the roofs of their homes as floodwaters reached heights of 20 feet. This story has been shared 177,659 times. The guardsmans gun went off during the confrontation. This was especially clear in the poor evacuations of nursing homes. There is no particular person for whom Hurricane Katrina was named. It was going to be the big one. They drove four hours from Bossier City where Doug, an executive with SMG, managed a facility back to New Orleans, a lone car on the inbound side of the highway as thousands upon thousands of cars sat in traffic on the outbound lanes. These are some messed up things that happened during Hurricane Katrina. My instincts as a building manager are to evacuate, he said. Victims of Hurricane Katrina fight through the crowd as they line up for buses to evacuate the Superdome and New Orleans, Sept. 1, 2005. After levees and flood walls protecting New Orleans failed, much of the city was underwater. When buses finally arrived yesterday, a desperate group of refugees broke loose from a cordon of National Guardsmen, but were stopped by heavily armed police toting machine guns. We can't house people for five or six days. [39] However, that number also counted four bodies that were near the dome. [45] However, the Saints announced that they would be returning to New Orleans, with the first home game taking place on September 25, 2006 against the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football. Apart from the foster children, roughly 5,000 additional children were listed as missing in the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina. The White House writes that by February 2006, there were still over 2,000 people who were counted as missing, and many are still missing over 15 years after the storm. Twenty-five thousand miserable people many of whom lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina hunkered down with little food and little water, overflowing toilets, stifling heat and the unbearable stench of human waste. Thornton and his skeleton crew he only had 18 management staff and security officers there, along with the National Guard had to figure out how to best prepare the building to serve as a shelter. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. The Blackhawks had landed on the top parking level of the Superdome, and then the sandbags were driven down to the back door by the generator room. Daryl Thompson and his daughter Dejanae, 3 months old, wait with other displaced residents on a highway to catch a ride out of New Orleans on August 31, 2005. The 2005 hurricane and subsequent levee failures led to death and destructionand dealt a lasting blow to leadership and the Gulf region. Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. A storm surge more than 26 feet (8 metres) high slammed into the coastal cities of Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi, devastating homes and resorts along the beachfront. Dozens of churches were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. We need to get these people into the parking garages, where at least they can get out of the building and into some fresh air.. Later, approximately 114,000 households were housed in FEMA trailers. Governor Blanco herself stated, "They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. The men hooked up the line, fuel started flowing. "[3], The Superdome was built to withstand most natural catastrophes. A FEMA employee told Thornton and Mouton they expected to find lots of dead bodies, and had decided to bring them here, right next to the place where those left in the city were fighting to live. There was a plan. This is a national emergency. Sustained winds of 70 miles (115 km) per hour lashed the Florida peninsula, and rainfall totals of 5 inches (13 cm) were reported in some areas. Some of those who left later returned, and by 2020 the population reached just over 390,000, or about 80 percent of its pre-Katrina population. This place wont be here in six days.. Mayor, youve got to get these people out of here, he said. That night, NOPD Chief of Police Eddie Compass arrived to see Thornton and Col. Mouton. But the day before the hurricane hit, with the roads jammed with the vehicles of a million fleeing residents, the city of New Orleans decided to house people in the Superdome temporarily. Thornton felt the seconds ticking, each one more dangerous than the last. [28] Instead, the State of Louisiana and the operator of the dome, SMG, chose to repair and renovate the dome beginning in early 2006. Hours before three major levees were breached, President Bush announced that New Orleans had "dodged a bullet," despite the fact that Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco had already requested federal assistance two days before the hurricane hit, according to The Society Pages. Another 20,000 people gathered at the Convention Center for assistance, an evacuation site the federal government was unaware of until three days after the storm. Reports of other rapes were widespread. We pee on the floor. At one point, the storm became a Category 5, but weakened before striking land. The moonlight was shining on the water., She paused. The National Weather Service was revising its forecast again. Out of 60 nursing homes in New Orleans, 21 had evacuated their residents in advance of Katrina. Although there was a "maintenance regime" theoretically in place for the levees, the Senate committee found that it was "in no way commensurate with the risk posed to these persons and their property." We will investigate if the individuals come forward. Satellite view of the Superdome showing the damaged roof with the New Orleans Arena to the right on August 30, 2005. The majority of all federal aid, approximately $75 billion of $120.5 billion, funded emergency relief operations. We cant spare 6 feet.. It has been 10 years since Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed the city ofNew Orleans. We're not a hotel. A storm worth worrying about had entered the gulf. And food was running short. Out of the at least 1,800 deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina, nearly half were elderly people. However, "many of its admonitory lessons were either ignored or inadequately applied." Terry Ebbert, head of the citys emergency operations, warned that the slow evacuation at the Superdome had become an incredibly explosive situation, and he bitterly complained that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was not offering enough help. The NOPD was gone. [42] Their first "home" game was played on September 19, 2005 against the New York Giants at Giants Stadium, which resulted in a 2710 loss. It was Mayor Ray Nagins office. About 16,000 people. Out of the at least 1,800 deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina, nearly half were elderly people. Katrinas death toll is the fourth highest of any hurricane in U.S. history, after the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed between 8,000 and 12,000 people; Hurricane Maria, which killed more than 4,600 people in Puerto Rico in 2017; and the Okeechobee Hurricane, which hit Florida in 1928 and killed as many as 3,000. If we let everybody go into the parking garage then were going to lose control of the situation and it could be worse. A group of Amish student volunteers tour the Lower Ninth Ward on February 24, 2006. There is feces all over the place.. Their first game, against Mississippi State University, was played on September 17 at Independence Stadium in Shreveport, Louisiana. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Because of the ensuing. Upon making landfall, it had 120-140 mph winds and stretched 400 miles across the coast. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin were criticized for not ordering mandatory evacuations sooner. Well, Thornton replied, our generator has 10 inches to spare. Katrina makes landfall near Grand Isle, Louisiana. Then the male employees, and, finally, the men who worked security would be the last to leave. In death, she became a symbol of government failure an anonymous woman slumped in a wheelchair, abandoned outside one of the city's . Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. It wasnt until midnight that things started to settle down. But that was the only light they could see. Three people died one a distraught man who jumped to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for. The men sat in stunned silence. This is a nuthouse, said April Thomas, 42, there with her 11 children. On the day the storm hit, two sets of notes sat tucked in a drawer . Many Katrina evacuees made it to Houston, Texas, where they were housed in the Astrodome and other shelters. A FEMA medical team at the Superdome on August 31, 2005. Up to 47% "were caused by acute and chronic diseases." They found the building in better shape than the Superdome fewer windows were blown out and the building, unlike the Superdome, had a roof. In the bathrooms, every toilet had ceased to function. Cooper held about 1,000 families and was the city's largest housing project. A woman gets carried out of floodwaters after being trapped in her home in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, on August 30, 2005. People seek high ground on Interstate 90 as a helicopter prepares to land at the Superdome in New Orleans on August 31, 2005. Katrina caused over 1,800 deaths and $100 billion in . The Society Pages writes that there were six deaths in the Superdome: one by suicide, one by overdose, and four from natural causes. To see all these downtown buildings completely shut down, Thornton said. He could only offer supplies. Insurance companies have paid an estimated $41.1 billion on 1.7 million different claims for damage to vehicles, homes, and businesses in six states. Twenty-five thousand miserable people - many of whom lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina - hunkered down with little food and little water, overflowing toilets, stifling heat and the. Isaac Chipps contributed reporting to this story. By 11 a.m. on August 30, Katrina had dwindled to heavy rainfall and winds of about 35 mph. More women are coming forward with stories of sexual. It hit land as a Category 3 storm with winds reaching speeds as high as 120 miles per hour. 2023 Cable News Network. Following the historical damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina, the name Katrina was retired from the lists of names. Outside, there was anarchy. Photo. It was previously used in 1998 during Hurricane Georges and again in 2004 during Hurricane Ivan, on both occasions for less than two days at most. Mouton found out that there were sandbags available on Franklin Avenue inLakefront.