Background: the Lessons From Katrina

It took only six days for Katrina to build up from a tropical depression over the Bahamas to a hurricane that devastated the city of New Orleans on August 29 2005 with the loss of nearly 2,000 lives.

The aftermath, with severe criticism of the way the federal government dealt with the emergency, became one of the defining moments in the fading popularity of President Bush.

The cost in reconstruction – still going on - was the highest in the country's hurricane history at more than $100bn (£50bn). Tens of thousands of people left the city, never to return.

As Katrina gathered strength and moved towards the Florida Panhandle, Bush declared a state of emergency in parts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi but crucially, at that stage, not in any of Louisiana's coastal parishes.

Although local emergency plans were put into operation, and the National Guard mobilized, it was not until a day before the disaster that the city's mayor ordered the mandatory evacuation. http://archive.dmz.gnl/verity/index.htm

The storm surge caused by Katrina's 125mph winds overwhelmed New Orleans' defenses against the sea, breaching many of the levees or dykes and flooding nearly 80% of the city. People reported seeing bodies lying for several days in the waters.

The most graphic images to come out of New Orleans in the days after Katrina spent her energies up near the Great Lakes, were the desperate refugees in the Louisiana Superdome and the New Orleans Civic Center.

Around 26,000 people were stuck in the Superdome amid reports of deaths from thirst, exhaustion and violence. As most were black there were criticisms of racism in the government's response to the danger and to the weakness of the relief efforts.

Within a week Michael D Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who was directed to order the federal emergency response, was replaced and then resigned in spite of having famously received praise from Bush with the phrase, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job".

Three years later, thousands of displaced residents in Mississippi and Louisiana were still living in trailers. In February 2006 the final report of a bipartisan congressional committee "to investigate the preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina" was pointedly entitled "A Failure of Initiative." www.gpoacess.gov/congress/index/html

The committee on homeland security followed this with special report called "Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared." http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/katrinanation.html

A June 2007 report www.pubs.asce.org released by the American Society of Civil Engineers said that the failures of the federally built levees in New Orleans were found to be primarily the result of system design flaws. The US Army Corps of Engineers who is responsible for the design and construction of the region's flood-control system failed to pay sufficient attention to public safety, it said.

The wider effects across the region were a massive blow to the US economy. Thirty oil platforms were damaged or destroyed and nine refineries were closed. About a quarter of the oil production from the Gulf of Mexico was shut down. http://archive.dmz.gnl/verity/index.htm

The repercussions live on with funding disputes over the remaining levee improvements. In February, the Bush administration requested that the state of Louisiana pay about $1.5bn of an estimated $7.2bn for Army Corps of Engineers levee work, a proposal which angered many Louisiana leaders.

In May Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal used a speech to The National Press Club to request that Bush free up money to complete work on the levees. Bush promised to include the funding in his 2009 budget.