Some 25,000 crowded into the convention center, while more than 25,000 filled the Superdome. On June 4, 2006, Pamela Mahogany was interviewed for her personal experience involving the events following Hurricane Katrina. At least 1,833 died in the hurricane and subsequent floods. By 7 p.m. everyone was inside and had been checked. [45] However, the Saints announced that they would be returning to New Orleans, with the first home game taking place on September 25, 2006 against the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football. And we look up and see a metal beam, a massive beam, that had been windblown into the aluminum siding. All they could do was try to protect the generator. At 1:30 in the morning, Denise Thornton walked with her group up to the helipad, out in the open air, and there it was. And although they were deemed unsuitable for habitation, according to Grist, little has been done to ensure that people no longer live in toxic trailers. Food rotted inside of hundreds of refrigerators and freezers spread throughout the building; the smell was inescapable. The tiny jail cell down in the bowels of the Dome, which they kept for game-day security, was filling up. 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. Her husband would be on the last helicopter. And food was running short. Hurricane Katrina was a devastating Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that resulted in 1,392 fatalities and caused damage estimated between $97.4 billion to $145.5 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding areas. We took him to the terrace and said, Look. , As he saw the floodwaters rising around the stadium, the man broke down. That night, NOPD Chief of Police Eddie Compass arrived to see Thornton and Col. Mouton. The flooding destroyed New Orleans, the Nation's thirty-fifth largest city. [33] False reports of gunshots also disrupted medical evacuations at the dome. Please select which sections you would like to print: Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. On the morning of August 29, the storm made landfall as a category 4 hurricane at Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, approximately 45 miles (70 km) southeast of New Orleans. The Louisiana Superdome was used as a "shelter of last resort" for those in New Orleans unable to evacuate from the city when Hurricane Katrina struck on August 29, 2005. [41], After the events surrounding Katrina, the Superdome was not used during the 2005 NFL season. He could only offer supplies. The owners, Salvador and Mabel Mangano, ended up facing the only criminal charges directly related to Hurricane Katrina, as they were charged with negligent homicide due to their refusal to evacuate their residents. In April 2000, according to the Data Center, the population of New Orleans was 484,674; by July 2006, not quite a year after Katrina, it had dropped by more than 250,000, to some 230,172. From Morgan City, Louisiana, to Biloxi, Mississippi, to Mobile, Alabama, Hurricane Katrina's wind, rain, and . Lets think about that very carefully, he said. The Black population of New Orleans has also fallen, since out of the 175,000 Black residents who left New Orleans, over 75,000 never returned. Most of the tragedies associated with Hurricane Katrina could have been avoided, but due to a variety of reasons, the hurricane quickly became one of the worst disasters to ever occur in the United States. [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. And although President Bush said on September 1, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," days before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the White House was informed that the levees were likely to overtop and breach. 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. People try to get to higher ground as water rises on August 30, 2005, in New Orleans. Severe flooding damage to cities along the Gulf Coast, from New Orleans to Biloxi, Mississippi. First went the disabled and the elderly. A violent, free-for-all riot seemed sure to break out with the next bit of bad news. . In New Orleans, the evacuation plan reportedly "fell apart even before the storm hit." So they hoofed it. Katrina caused over 1,800 deaths and $100 billion in . 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. Her escape out. He didnt realize how bad things are other there, Wells said. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Children slept in pools of urine. Brown. Some of those who left later returned, and by 2020 the population reached just over 390,000, or about 80 percent of its pre-Katrina population. [4] However, when looking into the origins of the claims about 200mph (320km/h) wind security in the Superdome, CNN reported that no engineering study had ever been completed on the amount of wind the structure could withstand. This story has been shared 120,685 times. Hurricane Ivan it was less than that. Thornton and his skeleton crew he only had 18 management staff and security officers there, along with the National Guard had to figure out how to best prepare the building to serve as a shelter. It wasnt until midnight that things started to settle down. We wont be able to feed these folks. [4], On August 28, 2005, at 6 am, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announced that the Superdome would be used as a public shelter. The arrival of 13,000 U.S. National Guard troops and 7,000 U.S. military troops deployed by President George W. Bush helped with evacuations and resupplying food and water to those stranded at the Superdome and convention center, all of whom were finally evacuated on September 3. Hurricane Katrina caused up to $161 billion worth of damage, largely due to the fact that the breached levees led to flooding in 80% of New Orleans. 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. FEMA reached out that morning: It was sending 400 buses to begin an evacuation. [39] However, that number also counted four bodies that were near the dome. By 4:30 p.m., the winds were dying down and Thornton and Mouton went outside and surveyed the building. 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. The air conditioning ducts would have mold in them by now. The day . The storm initially formed as a tropical depression southeast of the Bahamas on August 23. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city the previous day, and an estimated 1.2 million people left ahead of the storm. Apart from the foster children, roughly 5,000 additional children were listed as missing in the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina. During the recovery stage, the process wasn't much better. Those without cars were in theory going to be picked up by city buses at stops throughout the city and taken two hours north of New Orleans. Thousands of survivors are at the Astrodome after the Superdome became unsafe following the levee breaks in New Orleans. The Superdome was, as far as Thornton was concerned, completely destroyed. [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]. 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. "Hurricane Katrina survivors in the Superdome." . This was it. [52] The Mountaineers won, 3835. Socialist Alternative writes that police were given the task of "defending the private property of businesses like the GAP and casinos" rather than concentrating on rescuing people. The Data Center, a New Orleans-based research organization, estimated that the storm and subsequent flooding displaced more than 1 million people, leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless. According to PBS, two weeks after the storm, 25% of the children remained unaccounted for. Heres a look at some statistics from Hurricane Katrina. Blanco declined to seek reelection in 2007, and died in 2019. Later, approximately 114,000 households were housed in FEMA trailers. They had to find out if they could move these people. It took 17 men several hours to do the job. [Mouton] saved thousands of lives.. One of the worst disasters in U.S. history, Katrina caused an estimated $161 billion in damage. The men had little time to celebrate though water was still coming in under the door. Hurricane Katrina survivors arrive at the Houston Astrodome Red Cross Shelter after being evacuated from New Orleans. Though downgraded to a category 3, the storms relatively slow forward movement (around 12 mph) covered the region with far more rain than a fast-moving storm would have. However, this didn't happen because the storm was too strong it happened due to the failures of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A neighborhood east of downtown New Orleans remains flooded on August 30, 2005. The Thorntons woke early to the sound of the wind. Weve been here since 6 a.m., and this is getting worse and worse, State Police Officer K.W. By the time the storm strengthened to a category 3 hurricane, winds exceeded 115 miles per hour. Did you encounter any technical issues? Updates? A FEMA employee told Thornton and Mouton they expected to find lots of dead bodies, and had decided to bring them here, right next to the place where those left in the city were fighting to live. The heavy death toll of the hurricane and the subsequent flooding it caused drew international attention, along with widespread and lasting criticism of how local, state and federal authorities handled the storm and its aftermath. Duette Sims stands in the heavily damaged Christian Community Baptist Church in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward on August 28, 2007. Meanwhile, foster families struggled with making sure that their children had their medication. . Results: Hurricane Katrina was responsible for the death of up to 1,170 persons in Louisiana; the risk of death increased with age. At 5 a.m. on August 29, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which administered the levees, received a report that water had broken through the concrete flood wall between the 17th Street Canal and the city.