Hurricane+Katrina+G6

Overview
Hurricane Katrina is one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the United States. Among the hurricanes in the Atlantic it is the sixth strongest ever recorded. Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005. The hurricane crossed the Southern part of Florida as a moderate category 1 hurricane. When it crossed Florida it killed some people, after it became more rapid and much stronger, this is because it went through the Gulf of Mexico. On August 29, it struck southeast Louisiana as a Category 5 hurricane. It caused destruction along the coast from Florida all the way to Texas because of the storm's surge. New Orleans suffered the most from Katrina. New Orleans lost many lives and took incredible property damage from Katrina.

Central Issue[[image:katrina.jpg width="150" height="139" align="right" caption="New Orleans" link="http://www.dismalworld.com/im/disasters/hurricane-katrina-1.jpg"]]
The economic effects of the hurricane were incredible. The money that the areas wanted for reconstruction of the areas that Katrina struck was $105 billion. Katrina damaged 30 oil platforms and caused the closure of nine oil refineries. The oil production in the six month period after Katrina was 24% of the normal production, and gas was 18% of the normal production. Katrina caused over one million people to be moved to different states. The largest increase of people was 35,000 in Houston, Texas. It also greatly effected the forest industry. Over 1.3 million acres of forest land was destroyed in Mississippi. The strom also caused beach erosion. The waves of the storm destroyed the Chanddeleur Islands. Over 20% of the marshes in the area had been flooded with water. The damage of Katrina resulted in the closing of sixteen wildlife refugees.

Conclusion/Historical Significance
The American Society of Civil Engineers presented a report that states the failures in the levee were because of design flaws. The US army Corps of Engineers failed to pay enough attention to the safety of the public. New modeling has been done to the levee making it much more efficient. The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet is a 200 meter wide canal designed to provide a shortcut for the storm surge making it 20% higher and 100%-100% faster. Many of the levees have beeen reconstructed because of Hurricane Katrina, which hopefully means that people will now be much safer from hurricanes in the Atlantic.