History Repeats Itself with Hurricane Katrina

History Repeats Itself with Hurricane Katrina Jennifer A Adams The University of Akron Spring 2015 !2 Abstract Hurricane Katrina began as a tropical depression 175 miles southeast of Nassau on August 23, 2005. On August 26, as a Category 1 Hurricane, Katrina made landfall over southeast Florida. Once in the Gulf of Mexico, the atmosphere and high ocean temperatures fueled Katrina to a Category 5 and put her on a path toward Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. No-one was prepared for the Category 4 hurricane that was to make landfall in Southeast Louisiana, not once but twice on August 29, 2005. Two days before landfall, the state of Louisiana began voluntary evacuations. With less than 24 hours until landfall, the Superdome and other hurricane evacuation centers began opening and receiving citizens. Mandatory evacuation did not begin until it was almost too late to evacuate. When the sun came up, on the morning of August 30, the officials began to see where they failed. This paper will review how Southeast Louisiana is no stranger to hurricanes yet was unprepared for numerous large-scale storms and how history, resiliency, and social science research can help prepare not only Louisiana but all other communities be prepared for the next large or small scale storm. !3 History Repeats Itself To those along the coasts of The Gulf of Mexico tropical storms and hurricanes are a regular occurrence. The first recorded hurricane in Louisiana dates back to the Spanish explorer Ponifo de Narvarez on October 23, 1527. (Kingery, 2006). The first written history of a hurricane was from a storm that began on September 22, 1722 and ended September 24, 1722. This storm packed 15 hours of hurricane force winds, three days of flooding, and 8 foot storm surges. It destroyed the area hospital and 36 huts. Ships were sunk in the harbors and lakes. River and tidal overflow reached a 3 foot high levee that was built to protect New Orleans — water poured into the city. Because of this storm, a more comprehensive levee system was begun trying to keep Mother Nature out of New Orleans. At this time, lawmakers were considering New Orleans to be the capital of Louisiana Company. With the amount of damage, they chose to move the capital 90 miles north to Baton Rouge. Damage was recorded from the following storms: Hurricane of 1776, Hurricane of 1779 (ships from the harbor were found in the middle of the woods), Hurricane of 1794 (the storm surge produced crop damage and the Plaquemines engulfed Fort St. Peter and drowned the chief engineer), Hurricane of 1800, and Hurricane of 1811. The Hurricane of August 19, 1812 left most of New Orleans under water as the storm surge submerged southern areas of the city and left at least 100 dead. The levee system was destroyed and Plaquemines Parish was under fifteen feet of water. The Great Barbados Hurricane of August 16, 1831 killed over 1500 people and storm surge damaged sugarcane crops from Baton Rouge to below New Orleans. !4 Between 1851 and 2010, Louisiana as a state had a total of 57 hurricanes, of which 20 were considered major (major is defined as a Category 3 or higher) (NOAA, 2011) including the equivalent of a Category 4 Hurricane (see Appendix A for the Saffir Simpson Hurricane Scale) in 1915 that caused drainage pumps in New Orleans to lose power; parts of Mid-City neighborhoods to suffer significant flooding. Damage from this storm included 13-foot storm surges, levees south of New Orleans were decimated and miles of levees in Plaquemines Parish were washed away and caused significant flooding (over 200 people died). In a report dated October 14, 1915 to The Sewage and Water Board of New Orleans from Geo G Earl; he highly recommended more substantial and higher levees for the protection of the city due in part to high lake tides coming into the city from Lake Pontchartrain. This hurricane was the deadliest in New Orleans until Hurricane Betsy in 1965. As New Orleans started its day on September 10, 1965, it was again in the eye of the storm; Hurricane Betsy, a Category 3 Hurricane. Winds gusted to 125 mph. A 10 foot storm surge was produced causing extreme flooding in New Orleans. The Industrial Canal levee broke in two places and put over 300 blocks of the Ninth Ward, the area known as “Below Industrial Canal”, under water. As Betsy bore down, there was a levee breach near the bridge at Claiborne Ave. In the Ninth Ward, the lowest part of below-sea-level in New Orleans, cars were still under water a week after the storm. (Rogers, E. & Rogers, W. 1975). During August 17 and 18, 1969, Hurricane Camille came ashore with winds of 215 — 220 mph. Hurricane Camille topped seawalls along the Mississippi Shore and inundated more than 860,000 acres of land in Louisiana. The tidal surge was a United !5 States Record (16 feet) and caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards to north of Baton Rouge. Almost total destruction was seen from Venice to Buras. Water washed over US Highway 90 to a depth of 10 feet. The years between 1970 and 1990 saw little hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. There was an average of 1.5 major hurricanes per year recorded, of which most never made landfall. (Halimeda Kilbourne, K. et. al., 2007). In 1992, Hurricane Andrew , a Category 4 Hurricane, opened the eyes of the Emergency Managers to the problems with evacuating southeast Louisiana. Over 1.2 million people were evacuated from Parishes in Southeast and South Central Louisiana. Even though the storm was not a direct hit on New Orleans or even the southeast part of Louisiana, officials say had the hurricane hit more populated areas the damage and number of lives lost could have been worse. Instead, it came aground farther to the west in less populated marshes where people do not live and as it moved farther inland, it lost a lot of its strength. Winds were recorded in the 140mph range; however, because of the large number that were evacuated the number of casualties was lower than it could have been. Louisiana had at least 40 plus hours lead time on this hurricane and was able to evacuate those that may have been in harms way. (Applebome, 1992). The Timeline On August 23, 2005 the National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued a Public Advisory (#1) for Tropical Depression 12 as it developed approximately 200 miles SE of Nassau, the Bahamas. On August 24th, Tropical Depression 12 was named Tropical Storm Katrina. !6 (NHC, Tropical Storm Katrina Advisory Number 4). On Thursday, August 25, in discussion number 9, the NHC changed Katrina’s status from a Tropical Storm to a Hurricane. In this same discussion, the NHC stated after a Florida landfall, Katrina will move into the Gulf of Mexico with a potential second landfall between Mobile, Alabama and Grand Isle, Louisiana. At approximately 6:30pm EDT, Katrina came aground in Florida as a Category 1 Hurricane. On the morning of Friday, August 26, Hurricane Katrina became a Category 2 Hurricane. In the afternoon, Governor Kathleen Blanco declared a State of Emergency and activated the Louisiana National Guard. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour followed suit. A 5pm NHC advisory placed landfall as a Category 4 Hurricane approximately at the Mississippi and Alabama state lines. Six hours later, NHC Advisory 15 changed the landfall west to approximately the Louisiana and Mississippi state lines, just east of New Orleans. The predicted landfall was now Monday, August 29, 2005. 2000 troops were put on alert when Governor Blanco declared a State of Emergency for Louisiana and requested National Guard troop assistance. This Emergency Declaration activated the emergency response and recovery program which consisted of supporting the evacuation of the coastal areas, implementing the state special needs and sheltering plan, and making preparations for providing emergency support services. At 4am, Saturday, August 27, Hurricane Katrina became a Category 3 Hurricane. During a National Weather Service (NWS) Teleconference at 7:30am, the probable path of Katrina is expected to go through metropolitan New Orleans area. At 9:00am, Phase I of the Louisiana Emergency Evacuation Plan (Evacuation Plan) was implemented; citizens in coastal areas south of the Intracoastal Waterway (where there is not any !7 levee protection) are to evacuate 50 hours before a Category 3 or higher hurricane. NHC discussion and advisory #17 updated the Hurricane Watch area to SouthEast Louisiana including metropolitan New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. That afternoon, Governor Blanco wrote President George W. Bush and requested a federal state of emergency. She stated an effective response was beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments and federal assistance was necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety. President Bush granted this request and specifically stated “FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion.” Bush specifically named FEMA to head the disaster management and recovery, and named William Lokey as the Federal Coordinating Officer (FCO). From noon until 4:00pm, Phase II of the Evacuation Plan was implemented; areas south of the Mississippi River with levee protection but vulnerable were evacuated. The last phase of the Evacuation Plan was implemented at 4:00pm; Contraflow began. Contraflow is where all lanes of certain highways are directed in one direction, out of the warning area — this includes areas on the East Bank of the Mississippi River in the New Orleans Metropolitan Area, which are vulnerable even with the levee system. In an evening joint press conference on Saturday, August 27, Mayor Nagin with Governor Blanco issued a State of Emergency for New Orleans and issued a voluntary evacuation order. He advised the citizens that the Superdome would be open Sunday morning as a refuge of last resort for those who could not get out of the city. (However, prior to this press conference, the Superdome was to be used as a special needs shelter). Algiers and the 9th Ward were urged to evacuate. Amtrak had volunteered its services to New Orleans to use as a means of transporting evacuees. The City did not !8 respond to Amtrak. The last train left the city of New Orleans empty around 8:30pm. Max Mayfield, the NHC director, did something he had never done before and made private phone calls to the Governors of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi and also to Mayor Nagin of New Orleans to advise them of what was coming their way. He warned them when Katrina made landfall she would most certainly be a Category 4 Hurricane, with predictions of 20,000 deaths and water levels possible in the range of 30-feet in populated areas. The August 27, 2005 10:00pm, NHC Hurricane Katrina Advisory Number 25 began with “...POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE NORTHERN GULF COAST…”. This advisory stated the storm surge could be 15 - 20 feet above tide, with some areas as high as 25 feet. Rainfall of 5” - 10” was predicted, with some areas to receive 15”. A hurricane warning was issued from Morgan City, LA to the Alabama/Florida state line, including New Orleans. Hurricane force winds were expected within 24 hours. By 6:00am on Sunday, August 28, All flood gates were closed and all rail traffic into and out of the city had been suspended. By 8:00am, Hurricane Katrina had become a Category 5 Hurricane, with maximum sustained winds near 160mph, threatening catastrophic damage along the Gulf Coast. The Superdome was opened at 8:00am as one of eight special needs shelters. (By noon, it was a “refuge of last resort” as one of ten shelters operating in the city). A 9:30am press conference with Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco issued the first ever mandatory evacuation of the city of New Orleans. An urgent weather message issued at 10:11am CDT from the NWS New Orleans, began “…DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED… HURRICANE KATRINA… A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH… !9 RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969”. This urgent message continued: MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED. THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE. HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY…A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT. AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK. POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS. At noon, the Rural Transit Authority (RTA) sent buses to twelve locations in New Orleans to transport people to the Superdome. 500 members of the LA National Guard were used for security and food distribution. At 4:13pm The National Weather Service New Orleans gave a stark warning: “Extremely dangerous Hurricane Katrina continues to approach the Mississippi River !10 Delta… Devastating Damage Expected”. The rest of the warning repeated what was warned in the 10am warning. Hurricane Katrina Advisory Number 24 (NHC), 4:00pm, made it abundantly clear “some levees in the Greater New Orleans Area could be overtopped.” By evening, there were over 25,000 residents registered at the Superdome. Food and water were available for 15,000 for three days. At 5:00pm, Contraflow in Louisiana was suspended. Department of Transportation (DOT) traffic counters at Latoya Ave. recorded 36,586 vehicles since the initiation of Contraflow. 1.2 million people or 90% of the city of New Orleans escaped within a 24 hour time period. The Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport closed and left 450 passengers and 30 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel stranded. At approximately 6:30am on Monday, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall at Buras as a strong Category 4 Hurricane with sustained winds of 140 — 145 MPH. There were storm surges of 20 — 30 feet that overtopped the levees of the East and West Banks of the Mississippi River. Hurricane Katrina sent water into Plaquemines Parish moving buildings off their foundations or completely destroying them. The NHC issued a Flash Flood Warning at 9:15am. There was catastrophic flooding in New Orleans due in part to massive overtopping of levees in East Orleans and St. Bernard Parish. The levees at Industrial Canal and 17th Street broke. The London Ave. and Canal Ave. flood walls were breached. There was 10 — 15 feet of water in Orleans Parish, 6 — 8 feet of water in the 9th Ward, and 3 — 8 feet of water near Industrial Canal and Tennessee St. People were forced to move to attics and rooftops. By mid-afternoon, Search and Rescue had begun. By the end of the day, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife had rescued 1500 people, the National Guard !11 helicopters had rescued 2296 and transported 1970 people, and the United States Coast Guard had rescued 1200 people in Louisiana. Evacuation Behavior Thomas Drabek’s social science research on evacuation behavior in 1999 is reiterated in his book The Human Side of Disaster (2013). He discusses the responses to disaster and the different types of evacuation. The initial response to any warning is disbelief. This disbelief can and will result in premature deaths. Denial is another type of respnse. “Never believed it would happen to me/it won’t get here.” Typically those in the warning areas do not believe what the warning messages say. There are four main types of confirmations citizens seek to confirm warning messages. First, a person will appeal to authority. To verify the warning information is correct they will listen to the radio, watch TV, or go to multiple websites on the Internet. Next, they will appeal to a peer. They will call a family member, a friend, or even go outside and talk to their neighbor. Observational confirmation is where a citizen will watch out the window to see if the danger is visible. Or are the neighbors packing up and leaving? Finally, a person will receive latent confirmation through unintentional actions. A person may receive a call from a friend or family member. This person may ask if they too are leaving or asking if they are alright etc. (Drabek, 2013). People will almost always reinterpret the warning message, especially one that is vague and conflicting. This is “an active interpretation of information to make it fit into an ongoing social situation.” (Drabek, p. 70, 2013). They are trying to reduce or eliminate the threat potential to themselves. Finally, people feel invulnerable as if the !12 message is meant for others and not them. Because of levees, dikes, and other artificial safety infrastructure, people feel they are safe and the disaster cannot get to them. Gary T. Marx and Douglas McAdams (1994) using E. L. Quarentelli’s 1980 research, “evacuation behavior is likely to involve interaction and discussion among families and associates as how best to proceed.” (p. 66). It is relevant to note that families will leave as units. If all members of the family are not present when a decision to evacuate is made, a family will wait until all are present and accounted for before evacuating. T. Drakes research continues with a number of different responses to warning messages based on different social characteristics. Gender is the most significant and consistent quality that influences evacuation decisions. Females are more likely to believe a warning message. Children, primarily school-aged are scared and press the parents to evacuate. Ethnic minorities are skeptical due to previous unfair treatment. There may also be a language barrier. Elderly have learned to neutralize the warning message as they have heard them so many times. Think: the boy that cried wolf. The lack of precision in a warning message will have the elderly thinking “it hasn't happened here before, it isn't going to happen now”. There are times, however, the elderly do not even receive the message. Another group are the experienced ones, the ones that have sat and rode out the storm before and survived unscathed. They will once again not evacuate because they do not feel they are in harms way. Finally, economics. Those that are poor will not want to evacuate because they are suspicious of authority. Those that are wealthy will “know better”. These two extremes will simply be less !13 responsive. “Social factors can be just as constraining as physical dimensions.” (Drabek, p. 79, 2013). “We can’t move. People here can’t move. Everything we worked for and our ancestors worked for is here. We want to pass it on to our children.” (McQuaid & Schleifstein, 2002). Families evacuate through one of four social routes. They evacuate by default; they leave their homes and on returning, are turned away due to no re-entry. They evacuate by invitation. A friend or family member that is not involved will invite them over for dinner, or to visit, as a safe place should something actually happen. Men often are the ones that create the compromise evacuation. They are tired of arguing with children or family and to stop the arguing will compromise and evacuate. Finally, a conscious and deliberate choice will be made to evacuate (as a family). The Phases of Emergency Management There are four phases of Emergency Management: mitigation preparedness, response, and recovery. It should be noted, these phases often overlap each other and sometimes one cannot tell when one begins and the other ends. For example, when a tornado tears through a community, the first course of action is response, while this is happening recovery is already beginning, and mitigation comes from lessons learned while working on the recovery. The mitigation phase encompasses activities that are necessary to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people or property. These also lessen the actual or potential effects or consequences of an incident. Specific tasks can include but are not limited to “understanding, recognizing, communicating, planning for, and addressing risks: !14 building resilient systems, communities, and infrastructure to reduce vulnerability to incidents; and identifying, analyzing, and planning for area threats and hazards.” (FEMA, 2015). Preparedness is developing a response plan and training first responders. It identifies critical resources and develops agreements with responding agencies to ensure these resources are available when a crisis or disaster happens. It is those actions taken to organize and prepare for a disaster or crisis. This phase occurs before a crisis or disaster occurs. It is about planning and equipping for the response. (Kapucu & Ozerdem, 2013). The main purpose of this phase is to be able to handle efficiently and effectively in a crisis or disaster situation. If the planning, training, and exercising have been conducted before a crisis or disaster, a foundation has been created to better prepare for the expected or unexpected. “The response phase occurs when a disaster is imminent or soon after its onset.” (Kapuco & Ozerden, 2013). Response includes such activities as evacuation, sheltering, feeding, and providing other emergency aid and assistance. “Disaster response objectives include protecting lives, limiting property loss, and overcoming the disruptions that disasters cause.” (Sylves, 2015). Finally, the recovery phase. This can be broken into short-term and long-term recovery. None-the-less “recovery involves providing the immediate support during the early post-disaster period necessary to return vital life-support systems to minimum operation levels and continuing to provide support until the community returns to normal.” (Sylves, 2015). !15 Conclusion “Environmental hazards and the disasters they can create are not simply ‘natural events’, but social, cultural and political processes that test the capacity of society to organize itself, limit destabilization, and move onto a state of recovery.” (Bavel & Curtis, 2016). Historical records, social science research, and resiliency are the keys to any community and how prepared or not prepared they are for any type of crisis or disaster. Each of these keys plays an important part and all work as a system, during and after an event. “Failure to implement social science knowledge will result in death.” (Drabek, p. 88, 2013). Look to the social science research and use it as a tool for disaster and crisis planning and understanding communities and those people in general involved in warning messages and evacuation. Through his social science research on evacuees Thomas Drabek (2013) has given a formula for warning messages that include information about the threat and advice on what to do. Warning messages must answer four questions; 1. What is threatening?, 2. Who is threatened, what are the geographical boundaries, 3. When is it coming?, and 4. What protection measures should be taken? People have to be told what to do and why. Historical records and research provide insight into the “long-term reconstruction of the social, economic, and cultural impacts of hazards and shocks” on a community. (Bavel & Curtis, 2016). Historical records and research provide information on the socio-political structures, the economic organizations, informal institutions, that include cultural values and norms, and associated networks. The history of a community, not just the crisis and disasters, would allow one to see where there are social inequalities !16 and how those came to be. It would allow those doing the planning to understand why people live where they live. Understanding the disasters and crisis of the historical past and how the community related or responded would allow the planners to better understand why those vulnerable continue to do the same thing over and over with every disaster or crisis. Understanding the vast richness of information that history can provide could help planners understand why one community is resilient while another is not. Resiliency is the ability of a community to bounce back after a crisis or disaster. This bouncing back is not just limited to infrastructure and government, but the community as a whole. Its social structures, its after school activities, the 4th of July parade. However, without looking to the past and the crisis and disasters that have come before, how can a community properly prepare for what the future holds? A community needs also to look at how it has worked after each prior crisis or disaster. What groups have come together? What communities have been hit the hardest, not just structurally but socially. When preparing to be resilient a community must also look at the historical social research. What research has been previously done concerning our types of crisis or disaster and our social systems? How can this be applied in our preparedness? What steps can we put into place now, so when it does happen, our community is resilient and comes back stronger than before? !17 Appendix Appendix 1 Hurricane Katrina Graphical Route !18 Appendix 2 Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale http://arrajatabla.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/saffir-simpson_hurrican_scale.gif https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/tropical-cyclone-tracks !19 References Applebome, P. (27 August 1992). Hurricane Andrew; Hurricane Rips Louisiana Coast before Drying out. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/27/us/ hurricane-andrew-hurricane-rips-louisiana-coast-before-dying-out.html? pagewanted=1. Accessed 26 February 2017. Bavel, B., & Curtis, D. (March 2016). Better Understanding Disasters by Better Using History: Systematically Using the Historical Record as One Way to Advance Research into Disasters. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters. 34(1). Blake, E., & Gibney, E. (August 2011). The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Tropical Cyclones from 1851 to 2010. National Weather Service. National Hurricane Center. Miami, Florida. Drabek, T. (2013). The Human Side of Disaster. 2nd Edition. CRC Press. Boca Raton FL. Earl, Geo. G. (1915). The Hurricane of September 29th, 1915, and Subsequent Heavy Rainfalls (a report). http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/ America/United_States/Louisiana/New_Orleans/_Texts/ 1915_Hurricane*.html#noteC. Accessed 7 Feb 2017. FEMA. Independent Study Course. Fundamentals of Emergency Management. IS-0230.d. https://emilms.fema.gov/IS0230d/FEMsummary.htm. Accessed 21 February 2017. IEM Inc. (2006). Narrative Timeline of Hurricane Katrina Response Events Draft. Personal Document. (Available upon request). !20 Halimeda Kilbourne, K., Jury, M., Malmgren, B., Nyberg, J., Quinn, T. & Winter, A., (7 June 2007). Low Atlantic Hurricane Activity in the 1970s and 1980s Compared to the Past 270 Years. Nature. Vol 447. doi:10.1038/nature05895. Jonmitch78. New Orleans Hurricanes. A timeline. http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/ new-orleans-hurricanes. Accessed 20 February 2017. Kapuco, N. & Ozerdem, A. (2013). Managing Emergencies and Crisis. Jones & Bartlett Learning. Burlington, MA. Kingery, D. June 2006. Louisiana’s Hurricanes. State has centuries old history of damaging storms. www.louisiana101.com/Louisiana-hurricanes.doc. Accessed 27 January 2017. Marx, G. & McAdam, D. (1994). Collective Behavior and Social Movements, Process and Structure. Prentice Hall. New Jersey. McQuaid, J. & Schleifstein, M. (June 23, 2002). In Harm’s Way. The Times-Picayune. http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2002/06/in_harms_way.html. Accessed 20 February 2017. National Hurricane Center. Hurricane Katrina Advisory Archives. http:// www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/KATRINA.shtml. Accessed 20 February 2017. National Weather Service New Orleans LA. NWS LIX - Hurricane Katrina Warnings page. http://www.weather.gov/lix/katrina_warnings. Accessed 21 February 2017. Rogers, E. & Rogers, W. (1975). Riding the Nightmare Express. Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, http://hurricanearchive.org/items/show/26649. Accessed February 28, 2017. !21 Sylves, R. (2015). Disaster Policy and Politics: Emergency Management and Homeland Security. 2nd Edition. Sage Publishing. California, USA. U.S. House. February 15, 2006. Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina. A Failure of Initiative. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. U.S. Senate. (2005). Senate Report 109-322 - Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared. U.S. Government Printing Office. Washington D.C.