Katrina
Kasırgası, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri tarihinin en yıkıcı ve en
ölümcül kasırgalarından biri. 2005 yılı Atlas Okyanusu kasırga
mevsiminin genelde 5., tropik kasırgalar arasında 11. ve Saffir-Simpson
Kasırga Ölçeği'ne göre 5. Vikipedi
Toplam can kaybı: 1.833
En yüksek rüzgar hızı: 280 km/h
En düşük basınç: 902 mb
Tarih: 23 Ağustos 2005 – 30 Ağustos 2005
Hurricane Katrina formed as Tropical Depression Twelve over the
southeastern Bahamas on August 23, 2005, as the result of an interaction
of a tropical wave and the remains of Tropical Depression Ten. The system was upgraded to tropical storm status on the morning of August 24 and at this point, the storm was given the name Katrina. The tropical storm continued to move towards Florida, and became a hurricane only two hours before it made landfall between Hallandale Beach and Aventura
on the morning of August 25. The storm weakened over land, but it
regained hurricane status about one hour after entering the Gulf of
Mexico.[1]
The storm rapidly intensified after entering the Gulf, growing from a Category 3 hurricane to a Category 5 hurricane in just nine hours. This rapid growth was due to the storm's movement over the "unusually warm" waters of the Loop Current, which increased wind speeds.[8] On Saturday, August 27, the storm reached Category 3 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, becoming the third major hurricane of the season. An eyewall replacement cycle disrupted the intensification, but caused the storm to nearly double in size. Katrina again rapidly intensified, attaining Category 5 status on the morning of August 28 and reached its peak strength at 1800 UTC that day, with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph (280 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 902 mbar (26.6 inHg). The pressure measurement made Katrina the fourth most intense Atlantic hurricane on record at the time, only to be surpassed by Hurricanes Rita and Wilma later in the season; it was also the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico at the time. However, this record was later broken by Hurricane Rita.[1]
Katrina on August 28, nearing the Gulf Coast.
Katrina made its second landfall at 1110 UTC (6:10 a.m. CDT) on
Monday, August 29 as a Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of
125 mph (205 km/h) near Buras-Triumph, Louisiana.
At landfall, hurricane-force winds extended outward 120 miles (190 km)
from the center and the storm's central pressure was 920 mbar (27 inHg).
After moving over southeastern Louisiana and Breton Sound,
it made its third landfall near the Louisiana/Mississippi border with
120 mph (195 km/h) sustained winds, still at Category 3 intensity.
Katrina maintained strength well into Mississippi, finally losing
hurricane strength more than 150 miles (240 km) inland near Meridian, Mississippi. It was downgraded to a tropical depression near Clarksville, Tennessee, but its remnants were last distinguishable in the eastern Great Lakes region on August 31, when it was absorbed by a frontal boundary. The resulting extratropical storm moved rapidly to the northeast and affected eastern Canada.[1]
Flanked by Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, left, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush meets with members of the White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Recovery on August 31, 2005, in the Cabinet Room of the White House.
On the morning of Friday, August 26, at 10 am CDT (1500 UTC),
Katrina had strengthened to a Category 3 storm in the Gulf of Mexico.
Later that afternoon, the NHC realized that Katrina had yet to make the
turn toward the Florida Panhandle and ended up revising the predicted
track of the storm from the panhandle to the Mississippi coast.[9][10]
The NHC issued a hurricane watch for southeastern Louisiana, including
the New Orleans area at 10 am CDT Saturday, August 27. That afternoon
the NHC extended the watch to cover the Mississippi and Alabama
coastlines as well as the Louisiana coast to Intracoastal City.
The United States Coast Guard began prepositioning resources in a ring around the expected impact zone and activated more than 400 reservists. On August 27, it moved its personnel out of the New Orleans region prior to the mandatory evacuation.[11] Aircrews from the Aviation Training Center, in Mobile, staged rescue aircraft from Texas to Florida.[12] All aircraft were returning towards the Gulf of Mexico by the afternoon of August 29. Air crews, many of whom lost their homes during the hurricane, began a round-the-clock rescue effort in New Orleans, and along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines.[13]
President of the United States George W. Bush declared a state of emergency in selected regions of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi on Saturday, the 27th, two days before the hurricane made landfall.[14] That same evening, the NHC upgraded the storm alert status from hurricane watch to hurricane warning over the stretch of coastline between Morgan City, Louisiana to the Alabama-Florida border, 12 hours after the watch alert had been issued, and also issued a tropical storm warning for the westernmost Florida Panhandle.[1]
During video conferences involving the president on August 28 and 29, the director of the National Hurricane Center, Max Mayfield, expressed concern that Katrina might push its storm surge over the city's levees and flood walls. In one conference, he stated, "I do not think anyone can tell you with confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but that's obviously a very, very great concern."[15]
On Sunday, August 28, as the sheer size of Katrina became clear, the NHC extended the tropical storm warning zone to cover most of the Louisiana coastline and a larger portion of the Florida Panhandle. The National Weather Service's New Orleans/Baton Rouge office issued a vividly worded bulletin predicting that the area would be "uninhabitable for weeks" after "devastating damage" caused by Katrina, which at that time rivaled the intensity of Hurricane Camille.[16] "On Sunday, August 28, President Bush spoke with Governor Blanco to encourage her to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans." (Per page 235 of Special Report of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs)[17]
Voluntary and mandatory evacuations were issued for large areas of southeast Louisiana as well as coastal Mississippi and Alabama. About 1.2 million residents of the Gulf Coast were covered under a voluntary or mandatory evacuation order.[1]
Radar loop of Hurricane Katrina making landfall in Louisiana
On August 26, the state of Mississippi activated its National Guard
in preparation for the storm's landfall. Additionally, the state
government activated its Emergency Operations Center the next day, and
local governments began issuing evacuation orders. By 6:00 pm CDT
on August 28, 11 counties and eleven cities issued evacuation orders, a
number which increased to 41 counties and 61 cities by the following
morning. Moreover, 57 emergency shelters were established on coastal
communities, with 31 additional shelters available to open if needed.[7]
Louisiana's hurricane evacuation plan calls for local governments in
areas along and near the coast to evacuate in three phases, starting
with the immediate coast 50 hours before the start of tropical storm
force winds. Persons in areas designated Phase II begin evacuating
40 hours before the onset of tropical storm winds and those in Phase III
areas (including New Orleans) evacuate 30 hours before the start of
such winds.[22]
Many private caregiving facilities that relied on bus companies and ambulance services for evacuation were unable to evacuate their charges because they waited too long. Louisiana's Emergency Operations Plan Supplement 1C (Part II, Section II, Paragraph D) calls for use of school and other public buses in evacuations.[23] Although buses that later flooded were available to transport those dependent upon public transportation, not enough bus drivers were available to drive them as Governor Blanco did not sign an emergency waiver to allow any licensed driver to transport evacuees on school buses.[24] However, 20 year old Jabbar Gibson armed with only a standard operator's permit took it upon himself to take a school bus and drive it to Houston with 50 to 70 evacuees.[25][26] Some estimates claimed that 80% of the 1.3 million residents of the greater New Orleans metropolitan area evacuated, leaving behind substantially fewer people than remained in the city during the Hurricane Ivan evacuation.[27]
By Sunday, August 28, most infrastructure along the Gulf Coast had been shut down, including all freight and Amtrak rail traffic into the evacuation areas as well as the Waterford Nuclear Generating Station.[28] The NHC maintained the coastal warnings until late on August 29, by which time Hurricane Katrina was over central Mississippi.[1]
Vertical cross-section of New Orleans, showing maximum levee height of 23 feet (7 m). Vertical scale exaggerated.
By August 26, the possibility of unprecedented cataclysm was already
being considered. Many of the computer models had shifted the potential
path of Katrina 150 miles (240 km) westward from the Florida Panhandle,
putting the city of New Orleans directly in the center of their track
probabilities; the chances of a direct hit were forecast at 17%, with
strike probability rising to 29% by August 28.[29]
This scenario was considered a potential catastrophe because some parts
of New Orleans and the metro area are below sea level. Since the storm
surge produced by the hurricane's right-front quadrant (containing the
strongest winds) was forecast to be 28 feet (8.5 m), emergency
management officials in New Orleans feared that the storm surge could go
over the tops of levees protecting the city, causing major flooding.[30]
At a news conference at 10 am on August 28, shortly after Katrina was upgraded to a Category 5 storm, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin ordered the first-ever mandatory evacuation of the city, calling Katrina "a storm that most of us have long feared."[31] The city government also established several "refuges of last resort" for citizens who could not leave the city, including the massive Louisiana Superdome, which sheltered approximately 26,000 people and provided them with food and water for several days as the storm came ashore.[32][33]
Florida Governor Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency on August 24 in advance of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in Florida. Shelters were opened and schools closed in several counties in the southern part of the state. A number of evacuation orders were also issued, mostly voluntary, although a mandatory evacuation was ordered for vulnerable housing in Martin County.[34]
The storm rapidly intensified after entering the Gulf, growing from a Category 3 hurricane to a Category 5 hurricane in just nine hours. This rapid growth was due to the storm's movement over the "unusually warm" waters of the Loop Current, which increased wind speeds.[8] On Saturday, August 27, the storm reached Category 3 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, becoming the third major hurricane of the season. An eyewall replacement cycle disrupted the intensification, but caused the storm to nearly double in size. Katrina again rapidly intensified, attaining Category 5 status on the morning of August 28 and reached its peak strength at 1800 UTC that day, with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph (280 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 902 mbar (26.6 inHg). The pressure measurement made Katrina the fourth most intense Atlantic hurricane on record at the time, only to be surpassed by Hurricanes Rita and Wilma later in the season; it was also the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico at the time. However, this record was later broken by Hurricane Rita.[1]
Preparations
Main article: Preparations for Hurricane Katrina
Federal government
The United States Coast Guard began prepositioning resources in a ring around the expected impact zone and activated more than 400 reservists. On August 27, it moved its personnel out of the New Orleans region prior to the mandatory evacuation.[11] Aircrews from the Aviation Training Center, in Mobile, staged rescue aircraft from Texas to Florida.[12] All aircraft were returning towards the Gulf of Mexico by the afternoon of August 29. Air crews, many of whom lost their homes during the hurricane, began a round-the-clock rescue effort in New Orleans, and along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines.[13]
President of the United States George W. Bush declared a state of emergency in selected regions of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi on Saturday, the 27th, two days before the hurricane made landfall.[14] That same evening, the NHC upgraded the storm alert status from hurricane watch to hurricane warning over the stretch of coastline between Morgan City, Louisiana to the Alabama-Florida border, 12 hours after the watch alert had been issued, and also issued a tropical storm warning for the westernmost Florida Panhandle.[1]
During video conferences involving the president on August 28 and 29, the director of the National Hurricane Center, Max Mayfield, expressed concern that Katrina might push its storm surge over the city's levees and flood walls. In one conference, he stated, "I do not think anyone can tell you with confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but that's obviously a very, very great concern."[15]
On Sunday, August 28, as the sheer size of Katrina became clear, the NHC extended the tropical storm warning zone to cover most of the Louisiana coastline and a larger portion of the Florida Panhandle. The National Weather Service's New Orleans/Baton Rouge office issued a vividly worded bulletin predicting that the area would be "uninhabitable for weeks" after "devastating damage" caused by Katrina, which at that time rivaled the intensity of Hurricane Camille.[16] "On Sunday, August 28, President Bush spoke with Governor Blanco to encourage her to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans." (Per page 235 of Special Report of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs)[17]
Voluntary and mandatory evacuations were issued for large areas of southeast Louisiana as well as coastal Mississippi and Alabama. About 1.2 million residents of the Gulf Coast were covered under a voluntary or mandatory evacuation order.[1]
Investigation of State of Emergency declaration
In a September 26, 2005 hearing, former FEMA chief Michael Brown testified before a U.S. House subcommittee about FEMA's response. During that hearing, Representative Stephen Buyer (R-IN) inquired as to why President Bush's declaration of state of emergency of August 27 had not included the coastal parishes of Orleans, Jefferson, and Plaquemines.[18] (In fact, the declaration did not include any of Louisiana's coastal parishes, whereas the coastal counties were included in the declarations for Mississippi[19] and Alabama.[20]) Brown testified that this was because Louisiana Governor Blanco had not included those parishes in her initial request for aid, a decision that he found "shocking." After the hearing, Blanco released a copy of her letter, which showed she had requested assistance for "all the southeastern parishes including the City of New Orleans" as well specifically naming 14 parishes including Jefferson, Orleans and Plaquemines.[21]Gulf Coast
Many private caregiving facilities that relied on bus companies and ambulance services for evacuation were unable to evacuate their charges because they waited too long. Louisiana's Emergency Operations Plan Supplement 1C (Part II, Section II, Paragraph D) calls for use of school and other public buses in evacuations.[23] Although buses that later flooded were available to transport those dependent upon public transportation, not enough bus drivers were available to drive them as Governor Blanco did not sign an emergency waiver to allow any licensed driver to transport evacuees on school buses.[24] However, 20 year old Jabbar Gibson armed with only a standard operator's permit took it upon himself to take a school bus and drive it to Houston with 50 to 70 evacuees.[25][26] Some estimates claimed that 80% of the 1.3 million residents of the greater New Orleans metropolitan area evacuated, leaving behind substantially fewer people than remained in the city during the Hurricane Ivan evacuation.[27]
By Sunday, August 28, most infrastructure along the Gulf Coast had been shut down, including all freight and Amtrak rail traffic into the evacuation areas as well as the Waterford Nuclear Generating Station.[28] The NHC maintained the coastal warnings until late on August 29, by which time Hurricane Katrina was over central Mississippi.[1]
City of New Orleans
See also: Hurricane preparedness for New Orleans
At a news conference at 10 am on August 28, shortly after Katrina was upgraded to a Category 5 storm, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin ordered the first-ever mandatory evacuation of the city, calling Katrina "a storm that most of us have long feared."[31] The city government also established several "refuges of last resort" for citizens who could not leave the city, including the massive Louisiana Superdome, which sheltered approximately 26,000 people and provided them with food and water for several days as the storm came ashore.[32][33]
Florida
Many people living in the South Florida area were unaware when Katrina strengthened from a tropical storm to a hurricane in one day and struck southern Florida near the Miami-Dade – Broward county line. The hurricane struck between the cities of Aventura, in Miami-Dade County, and Hallandale, in Broward County, on Thursday, August 25, 2005. However, National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasts had correctly predicted that Katrina would intensify to hurricane strength before landfall, and hurricane watches and warnings were issued 31.5 hours and 19.5 hours before landfall, respectively — only slightly less than the target thresholds of 36 and 24 hours.[1]Florida Governor Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency on August 24 in advance of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in Florida. Shelters were opened and schools closed in several counties in the southern part of the state. A number of evacuation orders were also issued, mostly voluntary, although a mandatory evacuation was ordered for vulnerable housing in Martin County.[34]
