Hurricane Katrina Levees Essay

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New Orleans is vulnerable to flooding due to it being built like a fishbowl that is below sea level due to all of the levees that were built. These levees were built as a way to control rising river waters and ward off floods, as it had been done for thousands of years. Hurricane Katrina struck both Louisiana and Mississippi on August 25th, 2005. When the hurricane hit, it drove walls of water into the gulf coast, as well as into the surrounding rivers, lakes, and ponds. The lakes could not hold the floodwaters back, and due to this, the levees broke. When the levees broke, it flooded roughly eighty percent of New Orleans. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan, after dropping to a category 4 storm, moved into the Gulf of Mexico and started to cause havoc…show more content…
When the storm surge, which was reported to be as high as 9 meters in some places, hit land, overwhelmed many of the city’s already unstable levees and drainage canals. The water soaked through the soil underneath some levees and swept others away completely. Within hours, the low-lying places like some of the parishes and the Ninth Ward were under so much water that people had to scramble to their attics and rooftops for safety. By the end of the whole ordeal, nearly 80 percent of New Orleans was some amount of water. Over 50 breaches in region's levee system were recorded, some of which resulted in massive flooding of New Orleans. The 17th Street Canal levee, the Industrial Canal, London Ave Canal, the Intracoastal Waterway, and Lake Pontachartrain levees all had cracks or some other damage that caused the breaches in the levees to cause the flooding. St. Tammy Parish, Jefferson Parish, Terrebonne Parish, Plaquemines Parish, St. Bernard Parish, and Washington Parish were all hit hard. There was flooding, downed power lines, homes, businesses, and schools destroyed. In some of the parishes, the homes and other buildings were condemned due to mold and water damage. Some schools did not open until October if they were

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