by Gail Kerry

Created on: August 29, 2008

The citizens of New Orleans and those living in other high risk areas learned a hard lesson after Hurricane Katrina. While many of them blamed the government, FEMA and even the American Red Cross for their demise, hopefully they also learned not to be complacent themselves. If one chooses to live in and around flood prone coastal areas, then one must assume some responsibility and prepare for the worst. Many New Orleans and Gulf Coast residents had become so accustomed to hurricanes and tropical storms that they refused to evacuate despite the warnings.

New Orleans residents were warned about the oncoming hurricane far enough in advance to have made emergency preparations and evacuate. New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin held a press conference in which he issued a mandatory evacuation order two days prior to Katrina's arrival. He also declared a state of emergency for New Orleans, which advised residents to undertake several precautionary measures such as stocking up on bottled water, batteries, and non-perishable food. As Hurricane Katrina approached, Governor Blanco expressed concern that "many people would play a familiar game of hurricane roulette". It seems that her fears were well-founded.

According to Mayor Nagin, he achieved an eighty percent evacuation rate prior to Katrina. Prior to Katrina, the evacuation rate was approximately sixty percent. Don't citizens who choose to live in high risk areas share in the responsibility for not evacuating or preparing for an impending disaster? The fact is, residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region are accustomed to the annual hurricane warnings and many natives take pride in riding them out. I say this from experience because I grew up in "The Big Easy".

My parents were not native to New Orleans but transplanted from the northeast. Our family took much greater precautions than others, because we hadn't become hardened to the nearly annual threat of disaster. Some people never left the city under any conditions, a sort of cultural eccentricity which is prevalent in New Orleans. I was living there when several hurricanes hit, including Hurricane Betsy in 1965, which flooded over 150,000 homes.

Although many people outside of New Orleans don't remember Betsy, (a category 3 hurricane), the levees in New Orleans failed then too. Not surprisingly, the now famous lower ninth ward flooded and people who did not leave their homes after being told to evacuate, perished.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built new levees

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>