USA: Hurricane Katrina - Aug 2005

The materials contained in this supplementary document complement those found in the existing IRP Guidance Note on Recovery – Health. The discussions and case studies contained herein portray an expanded and oftentimes fresh perspective on many of the issues found in the original guidance note on several new and emerging issues for which there exist best practices and lessons learned.

Focus on tropical cyclones on American continent “Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are the same weather phenomenon; we just use different names for these storms in different places. In the Atlantic and Northeast Pacific, the term “hurricane” is used. The same type of disturbance in the Northwest Pacific is called a “typhoon” and “cyclones” occur in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean” (NOAA, 2017).

By Brigitte Leoni

MEXICO, 14 March, 2017 - Shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the southern USA, 200 Mexican troops crossed the US border outside Laredo, Texas, and made their way towards San Antonio. It was the first time a Mexican army contingent had entered Texas since the Battle of the Alamo in 1836.

Shweta Jayawardhan

Abstract

Content

The Guidance Note on Recovery: Private Sector draws from the wider body of knowledge on private sector recovery and from documented experiences of past and present disaster planning and recovery e orts. Materials have been collected through desk review and direct consultations with relevant experts. These experiences and lessons learned are classi ed into the following four major issues:

1. The Disaster Recovery Role of the Private Sector

2. Engaging the Private Sector in Disaster Recovery

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation - Wed, 2 Dec 2015 19:21 GMT

Author: Megan Rowling

By Megan Rowling

PARIS, Dec 2 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Hurricane Katrina brought storm surges crashing into New Orleans in August 2005, Beverly Wright lost all her family photographs, going back to her great grandparents, in the flood.

Read more on AlertNet.

28 AUGUST 2015, GENEVA – The head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Margareta Wahlström, today said the true legacy of Hurricane Katrina, America’s costliest hurricane disaster, was to raise the bar for disaster risk management worldwide. In a statement issued to mark the 10th anniversary of the category 5 hurricane which claimed over 1,800 lives and inundated 80% of New Orleans, Ms. Wahlström said:

Ten years ago Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and the American Red Cross launched a disaster response larger than ever seen before. To this day nothing has reached the magnitude of the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina relief operation.

Katrina’s fury caused the loss of more than 1,800 lives. The storm left behind more than $81 billion in destruction and damaged or destroyed as many as 350,000 residences from Texas to Florida.

HURRICANE Katrina struck southern areas of the USA ten years ago this week, a devastating event in one of the most active and expensive hurricane seasons in US history. With an established presence across America, The Salvation Army was uniquely positioned to support survivors during and immediately after the storms, and for the years following. Today, The Salvation Army continues to be a source of hope, stability and service to residents of Mississippi and Louisiana.

By Letitia Stein

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 6 (Reuters) - A decade after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans seems to have found its rhythm again: the French Quarter is choked with tourists, construction cranes tower over the skyline, and hipsters bike to cafes in gentrifying neighborhoods.

But recovery has been uneven in the city, which took the brunt of the 2005 storm that killed more than 1,800 people and was the costliest in U.S. history.

Read the full article

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre recently released their annual Global Estimates of People Displaced by Disasters, which reports that almost 20 million people were newly displaced by sudden-onset disasters in 100 countries in 2014. Since 2008, an average of 26.4 million people have been displaced by disasters every year—equivalent to one person every second.

Advice for disaster risk reduction specialists and protected area managers on how best to use protected area systems as effective buffers, to prevent natural hazards from developing into unnatural disasters

Nigel Dudley, Camille Buyck, Naoya Furuta, Claire Pedrot, Fabrice Renaud and Karen Sudmeier-Rieux

PREFACE

Reference: IP/11/1365

Brussels, 17 November 2011 - Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, and W. Craig Fugate, Administrator of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), U.S. Department of Homeland Security, met today in Brussels to discuss the priorities for cooperation between the European Commission and FEMA in disaster management and emergency response.

Hurricane Katrina is the costliest disaster in U.S. history and among the three costliest in the world ever. And as Hurricane Irene reminds us, the potential for a recurrence is not hard to imagine. As such, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast stand as a lesson about what it takes to rebuild after a major catastrophe.

Unfortunately, the demand for such learning seems to only grow. In the past few years, we have seen a steady torrent of disasters worldwide—Haiti, Christchurch, Sichuan China, Japan—and the tornadoes that recently ripped through Joplin and the South.

Population growth, urbanization and climate change expose increasing numbers of people to natural hazards in urban areas. From New Orleans in 2005 to Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 2010, recent urban disasters in developing and developed countries have drawn attention to challenges in post-disaster reconstruction of urban areas.

Cette année, les catastrophes liées aux crues en Australie, Colombie, Indonésie, Japon, Sri Lanka et aux États-Unis – pour n’en citer que quelques-unes – ont à nouveau démontré que toutes les nations sont exposées aux effets dévastateurs des fortes tempêtes et des crues. La croissance démographique, l'urbanisation et la dégradation de l'environnement dans les zones côtières associées aux incidences du changement climatique devraient encore accroître les risques.

Flood-related disasters this year in Australia, Colombia, Indonesia, Japan, Sri Lanka and the United States of America – to name but a few – have yet again highlighted that all nations are susceptible to the damaging effects of major storms and flood events. Population growth, urban development and environmental degradation in coastal areas, combined with the impacts of climate change, are expected to increase the risks.

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