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Ive been through a lot of hurricanes. The NOPD was gone. As buses finally started arriving to pluck refugees from the Louisiana Superdome yesterday, a horrifying picture emerged of the squalor, violence and mayhem that they faced during the days spent huddled in the stadium. Discovery Company. Cooper housing project. A lightning bolt strikes above a destroyed church in the Lower Ninth Ward on August 5, 2006. The skies darkened, and the wind started to pick up. Mouton was there, walking quickly toward him. In the bathrooms, every toilet had ceased to function. A refill was supposed to be on the way that day, but opening the door for the fuel truck would flood the room. The New Orleans Saints played four of their scheduled home games at LSU's Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, three at the Alamodome in San Antonio, and one at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. 99% of the 1.2 million personal property claims, The National Flood Insurance Program paid out $16 billion in claims, The majority of all federal aid, approximately $75 billion of $120.5 billion. That night, NOPD Chief of Police Eddie Compass arrived to see Thornton and Col. Mouton. A 2008 report from the Louisiana Health Department put the total at . The chief of police had been given bad information. This death was one of only six deaths at the Superdome: one person overdosed and four others died of natural causes. [52] The Mountaineers won, 3835. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. They got it to the city and waited for their supplies. She had heard a lot, from the National Guard, from her husband, from rumors among the employees. A bustling black market has also emerged, with cigarettes, at $10 a pack, and anti-diuretics, which help forestall going to the bathroom, hot items. Although New Orleans levees and flood walls had been designed to withstand a category 3 hurricane, half of the network gave way to the waters. [33] False reports of gunshots also disrupted medical evacuations at the dome. Thousands of survivors are at the Astrodome after the Superdome became unsafe following the levee breaks in New Orleans. There were two reports of rape, one involving a child. The bad news is its going to take us several days to pump the water out of the city even if they can stop the water flow from coming in, Thornton recalls Nagin saying. According to an article in Time, "Over the years city officials have stressed that they didn't want to make it too comfortable at the Superdome since it was always safer to leave the city altogether. And since the hurricane evacuation plan stipulated that "the primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles," according to "Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared" (the Senate committee's report), this left the state's most impoverished and vulnerable families, the large majority of whom were people of color, without anywhere to go as Hurricane Katrina hit. One crisis had been averted. I was able to see how bad it was, even though it was night. katrina Why Did Hurricane Katrina Kt Women So Hard? 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. The buildings air conditioning system would no longer run, nor would the refrigeration system keeping massive amounts of food from spoiling. She came up with the list, talked to the dozens of people there, her husbands employees, people she knew a little bit before the storm and now knew like family. And despite the fact that this was meant to be a temporary shelter, they ended up being stranded in the stadium for a week. And I expect they will.". And it's possible that the deaths may have even numbered as high as 10,000. June 2006 - The Government Accountability Office releases a report that concludes at least $1 billion in disaster relief payments made by FEMA were improper and potentially fraudulent. Three people died one a distraught man who jumped to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for. But Thornton wasnt thinking about that right then. The NOPD was gone. Within an hour, nearly every building in lower Plaquemines Parish would be destroyed. This was especially clear in the poor evacuations of nursing homes. Inside the Dome, though, a small group of women and men fought to retain whatever order they could. - About 25,000 storm evacuees were sheltered at the Louisiana Superdome, a sports arena. According to FiveThirtyEight, the Black middle class in particular was all but wiped out, and Black household incomes have fallen. Children slept in pools of urine. Every sink was broken. Thousands were looking for a place to go after leaving the Superdome shelter. He flew on to Gonzales, where his wife was waiting for him. In addition, many of the underlying systemic inequalities and problems that resulted in the severity of the disaster still have not been addressed. Parishioners gather during Sunday services in the rebuilt church on May 10, 2015. Finally. A man in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward rides a canoe in high water on August 31, 2005. [citation needed] Residents who evacuated to the Superdome were warned to bring their own supplies with them. Nagin told the men to get him a list of supplies they needed, and he would get it from FEMA. More women are coming forward with stories of sexual. [46] Before that first game, the team announced it had sold out its entire home schedule to season ticket holders a first in the franchise's history.[47]. In contrast, over half the nursing homes in New Orleans decided against early evacuation. On August 29, at about 6:20 AM EDT, the electricity supply to the dome failed. Some levees buttressing the Industrial Canal, the 17th Street Canal, and other areas were overtopped by the storm surge, and others were breached after these structures failed outright from the buildup of water pressure behind them. The men hooked up the line, fuel started flowing. While Mouton and Thornton worked to find space for them to operate, two massive, 18-wheeler refrigerated trucks pulled into the loading dock, not far from the door where new arrivals entered the building. [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. He starts off the essay with his own personal account of the damage that Hurricane Katrina left. In this satellite image, a close-up of the center of Hurricane Katrina's rotation is seen at 9:45 a.m. EST on August 29, 2005 over southeastern Louisiana. Nothing.. In addition, a Bleacher Report article quotes Thornton saying "We're not a hospital. 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. He started bawling. The hurricane and its aftermath claimed more than 1,800 lives, and it ranked as the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. 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. Then the women and the children. There is feces on the walls, said Bryan Hebert, 43. A group of Amish student volunteers tour the Lower Ninth Ward on February 24, 2006. A Warner Bros. After passing over Florida, Katrina again weakened, and was reclassified as a tropical storm. And just from the sound of the rain and the wind, I said, Look. WATCH: Cities of the Underworld: Hurricane Katrina on HISTORY Vault. He just broke down. We pee on the floor. 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. Thornton held a status meeting at 5 p.m. with Lt. Col. Doug Mouton, an old friend who had arrived to take command of the 370 National Guard troops at the Superdome. New Orleans went from having a public school system to having a school system composed almost entirely of charter schools, most of them run by charter management organizations. Hurricane Katrina was a tropical cyclone that struck the southeastern United States in late August 2005. "Because medical care for foster children is paid for by in-state Medicaid, accessing prescription drugs was complicated" (per PBS), and many families evacuated out of state. 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. 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. NPR reports that before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, "Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, FEMA Director Michael Brown and other top Homeland Security officials received emails on their blackberries warning that Katrina posed a dire threat." All Rights Reserved. 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. Katrina caused over 1,800 deaths and $100 billion in . Nagin had no solution. The office asked him if he could open up the Superdome as a refuge of last resort for the city of New Orleans. Rumours spread in the press of reports of rapes, violent assaults, murders, drug abuse, and gang activity inside the Superdome, most of which were entirely unsubstantiated and without witnesses. First went the disabled and the elderly. 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. A woman gets carried out of floodwaters after being trapped in her home in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, on August 30, 2005. [9] Although 80 percent of the roof had been destroyed, ultimately, the damage to the roof proved not to be catastrophic, with the two repairable holes and the ripping off of most of the replaceable white rubber membrane on the outer layer. Four died of natural causes, one had a drug overdose, and one committed suicide. A helicopter rescues a family from a rooftop on September 1, 2005. We will investigate if the individuals come forward. ", Socialist Alternative writes the budget of the Crops was slashed after 2003, largely to pay for the Iraq War and tax cuts for the wealthy: "A refusal to invest tens of millions of dollars into strengthening levees has led to a catastrophe that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars." Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. [1], Hurricane Katrina was the third time the dome had been used as a public shelter. And as the media portrayed New Orleans as a lawless place filled with violence with overblown and unverified reports, police and rescue efforts were redirected against the imaginary violence. 23 Most of these pieces show the Superdome's population rising by at least 10,000, swelling to as many 25,000. [28] Instead, the State of Louisiana and the operator of the dome, SMG, chose to repair and renovate the dome beginning in early 2006. I wake up in the morning, and the first thing I say is: Where are my babies? In Louisiana, where more than 1,500 people are believed to have died due to Katrinas impact, drowning (40 percent), injury and trauma (25 percent), and heart conditions (11 percent) were the major causes of death, according to a report published in 2008 by the American Medical Association. The massive hurricane exposed major issues with the citys infrastructure, left thousands upon thousands of people without any place to stay, destroying their homes and leaving their neighborhoods in ruins. 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. WATCH:I Was There: Hurricane Katrina: Rescue Swimmer. Fights broke out. Michael Appleton/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images. Doug Thornton knew he had to get his people out. The hurricane and its aftermath claimed more than 1,800 lives, and it ranked as the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving at the Superdome for nearly four hours, a near-riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show up. The men found a weak spot in the wall, a metal panel around head height, and punched a hole through it. September 1, 2005. Socialist Alternative writes that police were given the task of "defending the private property of businesses like the GAP and casinos" rather than concentrating on rescuing people. The Bayou Classic was moved from the Superdome to Reliant Stadium in Houston. The day . Only after Katrina passed were people going to be bussed to shelters. A woman slumped over in a wheelchair in a back corner, a This was it. [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. 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. About 16,000 people. The food inside the freezers had soon rotted, and "the smell was inescapable.". [15] Evacuees began to break into the luxury suites, concession stands, vending machines, and offices to look for food and other supplies. The Superdome was, as far as Thornton was concerned, completely destroyed. Theyd evacuate the group in shifts later that night, they decided, taking them west to a helipad at the Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, outside Baton Rouge. During the recovery stage, the process wasn't much better. [4] However, when looking into the origins of the claims about 200mph (320km/h) wind security in the Superdome, CNN reported that no engineering study had ever been completed on the amount of wind the structure could withstand. In death, she became a symbol of government failure an anonymous woman slumped in a wheelchair, abandoned outside one of the city's . As some people tried to get supplies to survive, the media portrayed them as "looters," a term that the LA Times notes is more often applied to Black people than white people. A neighborhood east of downtown New Orleans remains flooded on August 30, 2005. By 7 p.m. everyone was inside and had been checked. However, this didn't happen because the storm was too strong it happened due to the failures of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Duette Sims stands in the heavily damaged Christian Community Baptist Church in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward on August 28, 2007. Deaths in the Superdome. Food rotted inside the hundreds of unpowered refrigerators and freezers spread throughout the building. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005 as a Category 3 storm. In New Orleans, where much of the greater metropolitan area is below sea level, federal officials initially believed that the city had dodged the bullet. While New Orleans had been spared a direct hit by the intense winds of the storm, the true threat was soon apparent. The men sat in stunned silence. This place wont be here in six days.. 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. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Because they had lost power and were relying on the generators, a lot of the buildings outlets had ceased to function, meaning many ofthe machines being used to keep the medical patients safe and alive were failing. [14] With no power or clean water supply, sanitary conditions within the Superdome had rapidly deteriorated. Though leaving in the light of day would be easier, it could also cause hysteria from those left behind in the Dome. The air conditioning ducts would have mold in them by now. In the hours before the storm hit and thenafter it left when the levees failedand everything changed the people who remained in New Orleans streamed toward a place where usually they would go to watch football, the massive structure at the citys heart, the Superdome. Some trapped inside also believe the curse is real. ", 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. This story has been shared 177,659 times. Whatever they needed was theirs. This story has been shared 120,685 times. After Hurricane Katrina, which damaged more than 100 school buildings, the state seized control of almost all urban schools and turned them over to independent charter groups. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. [35], On September 4, NOPD chief Eddie Compass reported, "We don't have any substantiated rapes. He made two requests: Hed need a large contingent of National Guardsmen, and a few hours Sunday morning to prepare. Drowning was the major cause of death and people 75 years old and older were the most affected population cohort. Katrina makes landfall near Grand Isle, Louisiana. They were acquitted in 2007. Hurricane Katrina survivors arrive at the Houston Astrodome Red Cross Shelter after being evacuated from New Orleans. With top winds of around 80 mph, the storm was relatively weak, but enough to knock out power for about 1 million and cause $630 million of damage. Despite the planned use of the Superdome as an evacuation center, government officials at the local, state and federal level were criticized for poor preparation and response, especially Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin, President George W. Bush, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Michael D. Meanwhile, flooding continued to worsen in New Orleans. They found a 50-foot fuel line and screwed it into the reserve tank of the generator, then ran it out to the truck, which was parked in several feet of water outside the exterior door. That night SMG sent a private helicopter to evacuate the staff and their families. [33][40] It was confirmed that no one was murdered in the Superdome. The water was still rising. 11:09. A woman cries after returning to her house and business, destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, on August 30, 2005, in Biloxi, Mississippi. The population of the festering, battered dome had gone from 15,000 to 30,000 in a short time as helicopters and vehicles capable of cutting through the water picked up stranded citizens and brought them to the only place left to go in the entire city. But subsequent investigations revealed that not only was there prior knowledge that the storm was going to hit but that "long-term warnings went unheeded and government officials neglected their duties to prepare for a forewarned catastrophe," according to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Thornton and Mouton unleashed days worth of frustration. The federal response to Hurricane Katrina was just as bad as state and local responses. The moonlight was shining on the water., She paused. Hurricane Katrina caused up to $161 billion worth of damage, largely due to the fact that the breached levees led to flooding in 80% of New Orleans. FEMA infamously brought in trailers, "hastily built and steeped in toxic resins," that were used to house people after the hurricane. Crack vials littered the bathrooms. Although Louisiana and Mississippi were most heavily affected, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia also suffered casualties due to the disaster. Victims of Hurricane Katrina fight through the crowd as they line up for buses to evacuate the Superdome and New Orleans, Sept. 1, 2005. If we let everybody go into the parking garage then were going to lose control of the situation and it could be worse. 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. At one point, the storm became a Category 5, but weakened before striking land. Taking them in through the exterior door would have been quicker, but Thorntoncouldnt risk the flood of water if they opened the back door. He needed to start getting people out. The Social Science Research Council writes that this disparity occurred because elderly people were neither evacuated nor protected effectively. Robert Fontaine walks past a burning house fire in New Orleans' Seventh Ward on September 6, 2005. President George W. Bush looks out the window of Air Force One on August 31, 2005, as he flies over New Orleans. However, according to "Deaths Directly Caused by Hurricane Katrina" by Poppy Markwell and Raoult Ratard, only about one third of those deaths were due to drowning. The water pumps had failed, and without water pumps to the elevated building, they couldnt maintain water pressure. Never did we think wed be here for nearly a week.. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin were criticized for not ordering mandatory evacuations sooner. 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. With Hurricane George, it was 36 to 48 hours. The National Weather Service was revising its forecast again. On top of that, since most of the department's staff was sent to assist at state shelters, there was even a challenge of tracking down "missing workers.". Many of them boarded without having any idea of where they were headed. Some 25,000 crowded into the convention center, while more than 25,000 filled the Superdome. After levees and flood walls protecting New Orleans failed, much of the city was underwater. Why did Hurricane Katrina lead to widespread flooding? You could see water everywhere.. He didnt realize how bad things are other there, Wells said. The Data Center, a New Orleans-based research organization, estimated that the storm and subsequent flooding displaced more than 1 million people, leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless. 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." This is ready to break. 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. The Thorntons woke early to the sound of the wind. [8] Further damage included water damage to the electrical systems, and mold spread. Their first game, against Mississippi State University, was played on September 17 at Independence Stadium in Shreveport, Louisiana. [37] This was done as covertly as possible so as to not cause rioting or charges of favoritism. At its height as a category 5 hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico, Katrinas wind speeds exceeded 170 miles per hour. Authors . Before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, there were roughly 2,000 foster children registered in the state. 25% were caused by injury and trauma and 11% were caused by heart conditions. Thats been the history. Even though the dome never lost power, air conditioning, and running water during any of those storms, Superdome manager Doug Thornton recommended after Hurricane Georges for the dome to not be used as a shelter for anybody but special-needs evacuees. The agency also provided $6.7 billion in recovery aid to more than one million people and households. It ran into the reserve tank. Katrina makes landfall near Grand Isle, Louisiana as a Category 3 storm with winds near 127 mph.- Severe flooding damage to cities along the Gulf Coast, from New Orleans to Biloxi, Mississippi. Security checks were conducted, and people with medical illnesses or disabilities were moved to one side of the dome with supplies and medical personnel. 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. And cars were overturned on Poydras Street.. For the remainder of that night, it was just Doug Thornton and a few remaining members of his management and security teams. Thorntons staff opened up the concourses, allowing people to walk around the arena, stretch their legs, find neighbors and friends who were there as well. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. A few of these groups wandered the concourse, stealing food and attacking anyone who stood up to them. Itll be harder to manage them. The Superdome was gone. [44] The San Antonio Express-News reported that sources close to the Saints' organization said that Benson planned to void his lease agreement with New Orleans by declaring the Superdome unusable. [32] New Orleans Police Department chief Eddie Compass appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and reported seeing "little babies getting raped" and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin also said he saw hooligans raping and killing people. As Talk Poverty notes, it was directly due to "racially discriminatory housing practices," which meant that"the high-ground was taken by the time banks started loaning money to African Americans who wanted to buy a home.". 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.