As the center of Hurricane Katrina passed southeast of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, winds downtown were in the Category 1 range with frequent intense gusts. The storm surge caused approximately 23 breaches in the drainage canal and navigational canal levees and flood walls. As mandated in the Flood Control Act of 1965, responsibility for the design and construction of the city’s levees belongs to the United States Army Corps of Engineers and responsibility for their maintenance belongs to the Orleans Levee District. The failures of levees and flood walls during Katrina are considered by experts to be the worst engineering disaster in the history of the United States. By August 31, 2005, 80% of New Orleans was flooded, with some parts under of water. The famous French Quarter and Garden District escaped flooding because those areas are above sea level. The major breaches included the 17th Street Canal levee, the Industrial Canal levee, and the London Avenue Canal flood wall. These breaches caused the majority of the flooding, according to a June 2007 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The flood disaster halted oil production and refining which increased oil prices worldwide.
Between 80 and 90 percent of the residents of New Orleans were evacuated before the hurricane struck, testifying to some of the success of the evacuation measures. Despite this, not enough attention was paid to those without a car, credit cards, road experience or family living out of town. The Louisiana Superdome was used to house and support some of those who were unable to evacuate. Television shots frequently focused on the Superdome as a symbol of the flooding occurring in New Orleans.
The disaster had major implications for a large segment of the population, economy, and politics of the entire United States. It has prompted a Congressional review of the Army Corps of Engineers and the failure of portions of the federally built flood protection system which experts agree should have protected the city’s inhabitants from Katrina’s surge. Katrina has also stimulated significant research in the academic community into urban planning, real estate finance, and economic issues in the wake of a catastrophe.John A. Kilpatrick and Sofia Dermisi, “The Aftermath of Katrina: Recommendations for Real Estate Research”, ‘’Journal of Real Estate Literature’’, Spring, 2007.
Background
The original residents of New Orleans settled on the high ground along the Mississippi River. Later developments eventually extended to nearby Lake Pontchartrain, built upon fill to bring them above the average lake level. Navigable commercial waterways extended from the lake to downtown. After 1940, the state decided to close those waterways following the completion of a new Industrial Canal for waterborne commerce, which opened in 1923. Closure of the waterways resulted in a drastic lowering of the water table by the city's drainage system, causing some areas to settle by up to 8 feet (2 m) due to the compacting and desiccation of the underlying organic soils.
After the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, United States Congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1928 which authorized the Corps of Engineers to design and construct flood control structures, along with levees, on the Mississippi River to protect populated areas from floods. It also affirmed the principle of local participation in federally funded projects but acknowledged that the $292 million already spent by local interests was sufficient to cover local participatory costs. It is instructive to note that, in addition, sovereign immunity was given to the Corps of Engineers under Section 3 of the Flood Control Act of 1928, which states “no liability of any kind would attach or rest upon the United States for any damage from or by floods or flood waters at any place, provided that if on any stretch of the banks of the Mississippi River it was impracticable to construct levees." 33 U.S.C. § 702c. Section 702c is sometimes referred as "Section 3 of the act," based on where it appears in the Public law.
Heavy flooding caused by Hurricane Betsy in 1965 brought concerns regarding flooding from hurricanes to the forefront. In response, the Congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1965 which mandated that henceforth, the Corps of Engineers is the agency responsible for design and construction of flood protection projects, to include those in Greater New Orleans. The local interests' role was maintenance once the projects were complete.
A 1999–2001 study, led by Richard Campanella of the Tulane School of Architecture, used LIDAR technology and found that 51% of the terrestrial surface of the contiguous urbanized portions of Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard parishes lie at or above sea level, with the highest neighborhoods at above mean sea level. Forty-nine percent lies below sea level, in places to equivalent depths.
Also that year, Congress authorized the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project (LPVHPP) which reiterated the principle of local participation in federally funded projects. The project was initially estimated to take 13 years, but when Katrina struck in 2005, almost 40 years later, the project was only 60–90% complete with a revised projected completion date of 2015.
On August 29, 2005, flood walls and levees catastrophically failed throughout the metro area. Some collapsed well below design thresholds (17th Street and London Avenue Canals and also the northeast breach of the Industrial Canal). Others collapsed after a brief period of overtopping (southeast breach of the Industrial Canal) caused scouring or erosion of the earthen levee walls. In April 2007, the American Society of Civil Engineers issued its report and determined the flooding of New Orleans to be "the worst engineering catastrophe in US History."https://levees.org/2/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/The-New-Orleans-Levees-The-Worst-Engineering-Catastrophe-in-US-History-What-Went-Wrong-and-Why.pdf The Wayback Machine
Pre-Katrina preparations
The eye of Hurricane Katrina was forecast to pass through the city of New Orleans. In that event, the wind was predicted to come from the north as the storm passed, forcing large volumes of water from Lake Pontchartrain against the levees and possibly into the city. It was also forecast that the storm surge in Lake Pontchartrain would reach , with waves reaching above the storm surge.
On August 28, at 10:00 a.m. CDT, the National Weather Service (NWS) field office in New Orleans issued a bulletin predicting catastrophic damage to New Orleans and the surrounding region. Anticipated effects included, at the very least, the partial destruction of half of the well-constructed houses in the city, severe damage to most industrial buildings, rendering them inoperable, the “total destruction” of all wood-framed low-rise apartment buildings, all windows blowing out in high-rise office buildings, and the creation of a huge debris field of trees, telephone poles, cars, and collapsed buildings.‘’National Weather Service/New Orleans, Louisiana.’’ August 28, 2005. Lack of clean water was predicted to “make human suffering incredible by modern standards.”
It was also predicted that the standing water caused by the storm surge would render most of the city uninhabitable for weeks and that the destruction of oil and petrochemical refineries in the surrounding area would spill waste into the floodwaters. The resulting mess would coat every surface, converting the city into a toxic marsh until water could be drained. Some experts said that it could take six months or longer to pump all the water out of the city.Galle, Julie. “Special Report: Vulnerable Cities: New Orleans, LA .” ‘’The Weather Channel.’’ Accessed on April 30, 2006.
Evacuation order On the night of Saturday, August 27, Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, called the governors of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi to warn them of the severity of the coming storm. He issued a special warning to Mayor Ray Nagin, telling him that some levees in the greater New Orleans area could be overtopped. Later, Mayfield would tell Brian Williams with NBC Nightly News that he went to bed that night believing he had done what he could. The following day, he made a video call to U.S. President George W. Bush at his farm in Crawford, Texas about the intensity of the storm.
Many New Orleans residents took precautions to secure their homes and prepare for possible evacuation on August 26 and 27. On August 27 the state of Louisiana was declared an emergency area by the Federal Government, and by mid-morning of that day, many local gas stations which were not yet out of gas had long lines. Nagin first called for a voluntary evacuation of the city at 5:00 p.m. on August 27 and subsequently ordered a citywide mandatory evacuation at 9:30 a.m. on August 28, the first such order in the city’s history. In a live news conference, Mayor Nagin predicted that “the storm surge most likely will topple our levee system”, and warned that oil production in the Gulf of Mexico would be shut down.
Many neighboring areas and parishes also called for evacuations. By mid-afternoon, officials in Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, Lafourche, Terrebonne, Jefferson, St. Tammany, and Washington parishes had called for voluntary or mandatory evacuations.”Nolan, Bruce. “Katrina Takes Aim .” Times-Picayune. August 28, 2005.
Although Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city, many people refused to leave or were unable to do so. In Plaquemines Parish, an official described those staying behind as “gambling with their own lives.” Reasons were numerous, including a belief that their homes or the buildings in which they planned to stay offered sufficient protection, lack of financial resources or access to transportation, or a feeling of obligation to protect their property. These reasons were complicated by the fact that an evacuation the previous year for Hurricane Ivan had resulted in gridlocked traffic for six to ten hours. The fact that Katrina occurred at the end of the month before pay checks were in the hands of many was also significant. A “refuge of last resort” was designated at the Louisiana Superdome. Beginning at noon on August 28 and running for several hours, city buses were redeployed to shuttle local residents from 12 pickup points throughout the city to the “shelters of last resort.”Olsen, Lise. “City had evacuation plan but strayed from strategy .” Houston Chronicle. September 8, 2005.
By the time Hurricane Katrina came ashore early the next morning, Mayor Nagin estimated that approximately one million people had fled the city and its surrounding suburbs. By the evening of August 28, over 100,000 people remained in the city, with 20,000 taking shelter at the Louisiana Superdome, along with 300 National Guard troops. The Superdome had been used as a shelter in the past, such as during 1998’s Hurricane Georges, because it was estimated to be able to withstand winds of up to and water levels of . While supplies of MREs (Meals ready to eat) and bottled water were available at the Superdome, Nagin told survivors to bring blankets and enough food for several days, warning that it would not be a comfortable place.
Direct effects
Hurricane Katrina made its second and third landfalls in the Gulf Coast region on Monday, August 29, 2005, as a Category 3 hurricane. Later that day, area affiliates of local television station WDSU reported New Orleans was experiencing widespread flooding due to breaches of several Army Corps-built levees, was without power, and experienced several instances of catastrophic damage in residential and business areas. Entire neighborhoods on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain were flooded.