Today marks one year after the devastating force of a Category 4 hurricane left its mark on the Magnolia state, and already casinos are bustling with business amid FEMA trailers.
In some communities, debris is gone, but the painful process of rebuilding has yet to start. Families are left with nothing to start from because of carefully-worded insurance coverage.
Katrina started as little more than an afterthought, a tropical depression that formed over the southeastern Bahamas on Aug. 23, 2005. Two days later, the newly-named tropical storm became a hurricane and struck the southern tip of Florida. Meteorologists’ worst fears became a reality as the storm re-intensified from the warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico and the Category 3 moved closer to the Mississippi/Louisiana coastline.
As early as Aug. 26, the possibility of mass flooding throughout the city of New Orleans had been seriously considered. The chance was slight, only 17 percent, but that rose to 29 percent two days later.
The Army Corps of Engineers commissioned a study three years earlier which modeled the effects and aftermath of a Category 5 striking the city. The model predicted an enormous disaster, with extreme loss of life.
State climatologist and Mississippi State professor Charles Wax said the warning signs had been present in New Orleans for years.
“From the ’70s on, we’d been waiting really for a disaster like that to happen,” Wax said. “New Orleans is a prime candidate. It’s below sea level, surrounded by a swamp.”
At a news conference the day before Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city. Nagin made the decision shortly after Katrina was upgraded to a Category 5.
Just 70 miles away, local governments across 11 Mississippi counties had issued evacuation orders, increasing to 41 counties by the morning of August 28.
Hurricane-force winds began pelting the Coast that night, followed by a record 28-foot storm surge. Combined with normal Gulf wave height, the sea waves were as high as 55 feet, flooding communities as far as 12 miles inland. Casinos were washed away or carried ashore, houses were torn from their foundations and in a matter of hours more than 200 people lost their lives.
New Orleans, though spared by the storm itself, began flooding early that afternoon. The massive amounts of rainfall and wind gusts caused by the outer bands of Katrina had caused Lake Ponchartrain to overflow its banks and as a result, several levees breached under the stress.
Three hours later, the east side of New Orleans was under 5 feet of water. Many residents were stranded on rooftops, some drowned and several were determined not to leave their property. The death toll in Louisiana numbered more than 1,500 people.
Seven days after predictions of a Category 4 hurricane arose, the first convoy of trucks and buses rolled into New Orleans, carrying food, water and other supplies. Communities along the Gulf Coast waited longer, some for weeks at a time.
During the finger-pointing and media coverage, FEMA chief Michael Brown resigned. Reforms for the aging emergency agency wouldn’t be announced for another six months.
Insurance companies refused to cover homeowners whose property was damaged by flooding, even if the property had been first damaged by wind. Billions of dollars were saved by companies like Allstate and State Farm, and thousands of property owners lost not only their homes but any value it may have had.
On May 2, FEMA closed its long-term recovery office in New Orleans. Whether that is a precursor to a full reorganization of the agency is uncertain; what is certain for millions of coastal residents is that hurricane season is once again here.
“We’re expecting above normal activity over the next ten years,” Wax said. “Nov. 30 is when the season ends, and we’re in the peak now.”
Wax said he sees sporadic progress coming to the Coast even though the event happened a year ago.
“It’s important to note that the devastation is a year ago, and to some extent it looks like it just happened,” he said. “It’s amazing that it has been a year, and we have students who come home, still in trailers.”