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. I wake up in the morning, and the first thing I say is: Where are my babies? Thornton, pacing inside, turned to one of the mechanics. Back in 2005, Nagin went on the Today Show and said, "it wouldn't be unreasonable to have 10,000" deaths from Hurricane Katrina. Well, Thornton replied, our generator has 10 inches to spare. The domes water supply gave out Wednesday, and toilets began to overflow, filling the cavernous stadium with a nauseating smell. In many ways, the horrors of Hurricane Katrina were also exaggerated and in turn led to additional tragedies, such as the police shootings of unarmed residents and subsequent cover-up on Danziger Bridge. According to PBS, two weeks after the storm, 25% of the children remained unaccounted for. In the book, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast author Douglas Brinkley takes you on a journey through the political corruption and under calculation of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina's effects. [5] Maj. Gen. Bennett C. Landreneau of the Louisiana National Guard, said that the number of people taking shelter in the Superdome rose to around 15,00020,000 as search and rescue teams brought more people from areas hit hard by the flooding.[6]. katrina Why Did Hurricane Katrina Kt Women So Hard? On the flight out west, Thornton looked down and saw his home in Lakewood South, as well as the seven feet of water surrounding it. 70% of New Orleans occupied housing, 134,000 units, were damaged in the storm. At the peak of the Katrina recovery effort, 51,039 National Guard soldiers from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and three territories worked in Louisiana and Mississippi, making Katrina by far . FEMA photo/Andrea Booher. When Hurricane Katrina first made landfall in Florida between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, it was a category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of 70 miles per hour. appreciated. This story has been shared 120,685 times. [22][23][24] The last large group from the Superdome was evacuated on September 3. Some 1.2 million Louisianans were displaced for months or even years, and thousands never returned. All of our employees had left town with the mandatory evacuation, he said. Soon after they arrived, officialsenacted contraflow, shutting down all roads leading in and opening up every lane out of the city. And as Vox writes, this wasn't necessarily by choice "but rather because they were too poor to afford a car or bus fare to leave." People try to get to higher ground as water rises on August 30, 2005, in New Orleans. By the evening of August 25, when it made landfall north of the Broward-Miami-Dade county line, it had intensified into a category 1 hurricane. The Industrial Canal was later breached as well, flooding the neighborhood known as the Lower Ninth Ward. "[2], Despite these previous periods of emergency use, as Katrina approached the city, officials had not stockpiled enough generator fuel, food, and other supplies to handle the needs of the thousands of people seeking refuge there. Meanwhile, flooding continued to worsen in New Orleans. Their first game, against Mississippi State University, was played on September 17 at Independence Stadium in Shreveport, Louisiana. 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. Roughly 14,000 people were inside now. I remember looking out my window and I could see the rain blowing sideways and the trees bent over, Doug said. 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. They would back the fuel resupply truck up to the door, smash a hole in the wall, and run a line directly from the truck to the generator. One of the biggest issues was communication, since landlines weren't working, cell towers were down, and offices were flooded, writes State of Emergency. The men hooked up the line, fuel started flowing. At least 1,833 died in the hurricane and. It also had burned through half of the fuel in the 1,000-gallon tank. A Warner Bros. The tiny jail cell down in the bowels of the Dome, which they kept for game-day security, was filling up. The facility housed 15,000 refugees who fled the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. Photo credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay. It took two days for 1,000 more FEMA officials to arrive, but once they did, FEMA "slowed the evacuation with unworkable paperwork and certification requirements." 25% were caused by injury and trauma and 11% were caused by heart conditions. [41], After the events surrounding Katrina, the Superdome was not used during the 2005 NFL season. That afternoon, Mayor Nagin asked to meet with Thornton and Mouton. Before Hurricane Katrina, B.W. 11:09. They were taken to the Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Baton Rouge. In addition, a Bleacher Report article quotes Thornton saying "We're not a hospital. Updates? Its tenants, the New Orleans Saints, were talking about an open-air stadium on the Mississippi river or moving to another city. On the day the storm hit, two sets of notes sat tucked in a drawer . 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.". Thats been the history. Meanwhile, NOLA.com reports that New Orleans police officers were given authorization to shoot looters. This was especially clear in the poor evacuations of nursing homes. It ran into the reserve tank. [49][50] Grambling State University beat Southern University, 5035.[51]. The smell of the air became humid, tropical. Sept. 1, 2006, 3:09 PM PDT / Source: The Associated Press. A man in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward rides a canoe in high water on August 31, 2005. We've received your submission. The Superdome with the newly repaired roof, August 15, 2006. First went the disabled and the elderly. A helicopter rescues a family from a rooftop on September 1, 2005. So they hoofed it. . The National Weather Service writes that Hurricane Katrina is "one of the five deadliest hurricanes to ever strike the United States.". [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. The line to get in was already a quarter-mile long. 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. Katrina makes landfall near Grand Isle, Louisiana. https://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/08/refuge-of-last-resort-five-days-inside-the-superdome-for-hurricane-katrina, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. 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. Many local agencies found themselves unable to respond to the increasingly desperate situation, as their own headquarters and control centres were under 20 feet (6 metres) of water. He didnt realize how bad things are other there, Wells said. By 4:30 p.m., the winds were dying down and Thornton and Mouton went outside and surveyed the building. First delivery to the Superdome on August 31, 2005. On the morning of August 29, 2005, Katrina made landfall around 60 miles southeast of New Orleans. 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. They had no good options. About850 patients with serious medical conditions some in hospice care would arrive to ride out the storm there; most of them from parts of the city not protected by the levee system. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. 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. 25% were caused by injury and trauma and 11% were caused by heart conditions. After levees and flood walls protecting New Orleans failed, much of the city was underwater. [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 generator kept burning. At noon, they opened the doors and thousands of New Orleanians started shuffling in, carrying ice chests, kids toys, clothes, and whatever belongings they could carry. Duette Sims stands in the heavily damaged Christian Community Baptist Church in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward on August 28, 2007. Following the historical damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina, the name Katrina was retired from the lists of names. Levees at various locations in the city had failed, and the pumping stations, overwhelmed with water and damaged by the storm, werent working. 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." Although up to 1.7 million people were evacuated in Louisiana alone, hundreds of thousands of people were stranded during the hurricane. It was already known that the generators would not provide lights or air conditioning for the whole dome if the power failed, and also pumps providing water to second-level restrooms wouldn't function. [15] Evacuees began to break into the luxury suites, concession stands, vending machines, and offices to look for food and other supplies. By the following afternoon Katrina had become one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, with winds in excess of 170 miles (275 km) per hour. In addition, many of the underlying systemic inequalities and problems that resulted in the severity of the disaster still have not been addressed. Results: Hurricane Katrina was responsible for the death of up to 1,170 persons in Louisiana; the risk of death increased with age. Do you think this is going to work? he asked. 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. [13], On September 2, 475 buses were sent by FEMA to pick up evacuees from the dome and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, where more than 20,000people had been crowded in similarly poor living conditions. Hurricane Katrina had intruded on the last safe space. Blanco declined to seek reelection in 2007, and died in 2019. Please check your email for a confirmation. By 2021, the estimated population had increased to 376,971, according to the Census. From Morgan City, Louisiana, to Biloxi, Mississippi, to Mobile, Alabama, Hurricane Katrina's wind, rain, and . A hurricane warning is issued for north central Gulf . Outside, there was anarchy. One crisis had been averted. 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. Residents of the B.W. . Crack vials littered the bathrooms. Hurricane Katrina made its second and third landfalls in the Gulf Coast region on Monday, August 29, 2005, as a Category 3 hurricane. Some people even chose to wear medical masks to ease the smell. The food inside the freezers had soon rotted, and "the smell was inescapable.". Early the next morning Thorntonwoke from a fitful sleep, then went out into the hallway outside his office. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. 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." 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. And when the levees were breached, there were only two FEMA workers on the ground. That night, around 6 p.m., Thornton got a phone call. At St. Rita's Nursing Home, residents were reportedly abandoned by the staff, and 35 people drowned as a result. Experts don't know exactly how many people lost their lives during Hurricane Katrina, but 1,800 is one of the low estimates, and over 1 million people lost their homes and were displaced. I would rather have been in jail, Janice Jones said while being taken out of the dome. He flew on to Gonzales, where his wife was waiting for him. Tulane University postponed its scheduled football game against the University of Southern Mississippi until November 26. Food rotted inside of hundreds of refrigerators and freezers spread throughout the building; the smell was inescapable. At one point, the storm became a Category 5, but weakened before striking land. A woman cries after returning to her house and business, destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, on August 30, 2005, in Biloxi, Mississippi. 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. 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. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Katrina is the costliest U.S. hurricane on record, inflicting some $125 billion in total damages. On April 25, 2006, workers in the Lower Ninth Ward rebuild the levee that was breached by Hurricane Katrina along the Industrial Canal. The majority of all federal aid, approximately $75 billion of $120.5 billion, funded emergency relief operations. [32] While numerous people told the Times-Picayune that they had witnessed the rape of two girls in the ladies' restroom and the killing of one of them, police and military officials said they knew nothing about the incidents. ", 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." A man pushes his bicycle through flood waters near the Superdome in New Orleans on Aug. 31, 2005. Hurricane Katrina made landfall off the coast of Louisiana on August 29, 2005. But over the Gulf of Mexico, some 165 miles west of Key West, the storm gathered strength above the warmer waters of the gulf. . You have to fend people off constantly. People wade through high water in front of the Superdome in New Orleans on August 30, 2005. Hurricane Katrina survivors arrive at the Houston Astrodome Red Cross Shelter after being evacuated from New Orleans. It quickly intensified when it reached the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of survivors are at the Astrodome after the Superdome became unsafe following the levee breaks in New Orleans. The backup generator for the lights was barely able to be kept afloat, and after the water supply gave out, the toilets "became inoperable and began to overflow." Families torn apart by the storm wouldnt re-connect for months in some cases. Nagin had no solution. The storm spent less than eight hours over land. The men sat in stunned silence. 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. 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. The storm was coming. On May 16, 2015, new homes stand in a development, built by the Make It Right Foundation, for residents whose homes were destroyed. It has been 10 years since Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed the city ofNew Orleans. 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 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. For the remainder of that night, it was just Doug Thornton and a few remaining members of his management and security teams. A neighborhood east of downtown New Orleans remains flooded on August 30, 2005. Supplies were dangerously low, with one mother saying officials told her to reuse diapers by scraping them out when they got dirty. It was worse than they imagined.. The Social Science Research Council writes that this disparity occurred because elderly people were neither evacuated nor protected effectively. [28] Instead, the State of Louisiana and the operator of the dome, SMG, chose to repair and renovate the dome beginning in early 2006. Doug dropped his wife off at their home in the affluent Lakewood South neighborhood of New Orleans, right near the levee at the 17th Street Canal, and drove to the Louisiana Superdome. The water pumps had failed, and without water pumps to the elevated building, they couldnt maintain water pressure. 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. In the bathrooms, every toilet had ceased to function. Later, approximately 114,000 households were housed in FEMA trailers. The federal response to Hurricane Katrina was just as bad as state and local responses. The Louisiana Superdome, once a mighty testament to architecture and ingenuity, became the biggest storm shelter in New Orleans the day before Katrina's arrival Monday. Thornton finally spoke. The National Guard had pulled back from many parts of the building. The total damage from Katrina is estimated to be $125 billion (or $190 billion in 2022 dollars), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Later that day, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco ordered New Orleans to be completely evacuated. Brown. Hurricane Katrina was a tropical cyclone that struck the southeastern United States in late August 2005. 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. [13], When the serious flooding of the city began on August 30 after the levees had broken, the Superdome began to fill slowly with water, though it remained confined only to the field level. The chief of police had been given bad information. 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. Is everyone here? . [2] Approximately 10,000 residents, along with about 150 National Guardsmen, sheltered in the Superdome anticipating Katrina's landfall. 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. And I expect they will.". Inside the Dome, though, a small group of women and men fought to retain whatever order they could. [35], On September 4, NOPD chief Eddie Compass reported, "We don't have any substantiated rapes. NOLA.com reports that FEMA also "turned away offers of personnel and supplies from the Department of Interior and denied a request from the state Wildlife & Fisheries agency for 300 rubber boats.". A FEMA medical team at the Superdome on August 31, 2005. 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.. Out of 60 nursing homes in New Orleans, 21 had evacuated their residents in advance of Katrina. Miller told a reporter. Mayor, youve got to get these people out of here, he said. Theres five feet of water on Poydras Street.. 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. At 10 a.m., the Thorntons headed together to the Superdome. According to Talk Poverty, "a Black homeowner in New Orleans was more than three times as likely to have been flooded as a white homeowner. Winds of 125 mph and storm surges of 28 feet devastated much of Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi. These are some messed up things that happened during Hurricane Katrina. With limited power, no plumbing, a shredded roof and not nearly enough supplies to deal with 30,000 evacuees, it became a symbol of how unprepared the city and country had been for a storm experts knew could arrive. This was it. On August 29, at about 6:20 AM EDT, the electricity supply to the dome failed. 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. Whatever they needed was theirs. - About 25,000 storm evacuees were sheltered at the Louisiana Superdome, a sports arena. Before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, there were roughly 2,000 foster children registered in the state. [4], On August 28, 2005, at 6 am, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announced that the Superdome would be used as a public shelter. Nothing.. Many of them boarded without having any idea of where they were headed. Still, about 100,000 people were trapped in the city when the storm hit, and many took last-ditch refuge in the New Orleans Superdome and the Ernest J. Morial Convention Center as the storm approached. It was the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. 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. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005 as a Category 3 storm. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, the public school system of New Orleans was one of the lowest-performing districts in the state of Louisiana. 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. 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. The office asked him if he could open up the Superdome as a refuge of last resort for the city of New Orleans. Instead, its lethality was a direct result of people and the decisions that they made, in regards to the engineering of the levees as well as the poor evacuation plans. For detailed information on the effect on Tulane, see, Effect of Hurricane Katrina on the Louisiana Superdome, Effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, "Effect of Hurricane Katrina on the Louisiana Superdome", Learn how and when to remove this template message, Effect of Hurricane Katrina on the New Orleans Saints, Effect of Hurricane Katrina on Tulane University, Effect of Hurricane Katrina on the New Orleans Hornets, "How New Orleans' Evacuation Plan Fell Apart", "Hurricane Katrina as Seen Through the Eyes of the Saints' Biggest Fans", "At least 10,000 find refuge at the Superdome", "Governor: Evac Superdome, Rescue Centers", "Trapped in the Superdome: Refuge becomes a hellhole", "Photo in the News: Hurricane Shreds Superdome Roof", "NFL 2005: Homeless Saints face long road in 2005", "Almost 10 years after Katrina, Michael Brown's still out to lunch: Jarvis DeBerry", "Refuge of last resort: Five days inside the Superdome for Hurricane Katrina", "From Superdome to Astrodome: Katrina's refugees will be moved to Houston in bus convoy", "Superdome evacuation disrupted after shots fired", "10 Years Since Katrina: When The Astrodome Was A Mass Shelter", "Astrodome to become new home for storm refugees", "Astrodome at capacity, but buses with evacuees keep coming", "Neighbouring states struggle to cope with influx of people", "Dome closed for a year, could be scrapped", "NFL, at Saints' urging, kicks in $20 million for dome repairs", "Superdome returns with glitz, glamor and Monday night football", "Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy", "Reports of anarchy at Superdome overstated", "Higher Death Toll Seen; Police Ordered to Stop Looters", "7 facts about Hurricane Katrina that show just how incompetent the government response was", "Four years on, Katrina remains cursed by rumour, cliche, lies and racism", "Saints' home games: 4 at LSU, 3 in Alamodome", "Errors cost Saints early, often in poor excuse for 'home' opener", "32nd annual Bayou Classic moved to Houston", "SOUTHERN JAGUARS FALL 50-35 TO GRAMBLING STATE IN BAYOU CLASSIC XXXII", Temporary home venues in 2005 due to Hurricane Katrina, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Effect_of_Hurricane_Katrina_on_the_Louisiana_Superdome&oldid=1113156691, Articles needing additional references from October 2014, All articles needing additional references, Wikipedia introduction cleanup from February 2022, Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify from February 2022, All articles covered by WikiProject Wikify, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2016, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 30 September 2022, at 02:13. We had a very, lets just say, heated conversation with one of those guys about where they were positioning those trucks, said Thornton. Denise Thornton was tasked with deciding the order of evacuation. They couldnt find any vehicles to transport the patients safely. However, there weren't enough trucks for the patients, so they had to stay in the dome. He went to his 6 a.m. status meeting with the National Guard and SMG staff, and twenty minutes in the lights flickered off, then back on. Nearly 56% of the losses occurred in Louisiana and nearly 30% occurred in Mississippi. [21] The Astrodome started to fill up, so authorities began to transfer people to the nearby Reliant Arena, Reliant Center, and George R. Brown Convention Center in Downtown Houston in the following days. [7] According to many, the smell inside the stadium was revolting due to the breakdown of the plumbing system, which included all toilets and urinals in the building, forcing people to urinate and defecate in other areas such as garbage cans and sinks. The Superdome was gone. That night a National Guardsmangot jumped as he walked through a dark, flooded locker room. The storm that would later become Hurricane Katrina surfaced on August 23, 2005, as a tropical depression over the Bahamas, approximately 350 miles (560 km) east of Miami. When they got back to the Dome, they arrived to chaos. [13], On August 31, it was announced that the Superdome evacuees would be moved to the Astrodome in Houston. A FEMA employee told Thornton and Mouton they expected to find lots ofdead bodies, and had decided to bring them here, next to the place where those left in the city were fighting to live. There were two reports of rape, one involving a child.
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