Hurricanes Katrina

Self-Test 4.3A The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported that the pressure in the eye of hurricane Katrina (2005) fell as low as 902 mbar. What is that pressure in atmospheres ... 

This study examines the relationships of a database consisting of soil Pb, blood Pb (BPb) of children 6 years and younger, and scholastic achievement rates of 4th grade students from the Louisiana education assessment program (LEAP 21) in New Orleans. The data was from years 2000-2005 and reflects the pre-Hurricane Katrina conditions of New Orleans. Prior to the flood, schools were organized by attendance districts or neighborhood schools. This arrangement provided the opportunity to conduct a series of statistical tests to evaluate the associations between soil Pb, BPb and... 

Mielke, H.W. Powell, E.T., Gonzales, C.R., Mielke, P.W., Jr. 2006a. Hurricane Katrina s impact on New Orleans soils treated with low lead Mississippi River alluvium. Environmental Science and Technology, 40 (24), 7623 -7628... 

The present refining and delivery system for gasoline is stretched thin. Sudden events, such as Hurricane Katrina, can result in shortages causing price jumps around the country. Hubbert s prediction is frequently challenged. The world seems so vast that there must be more oil, but oil is a finite resource that will run out some time. If we prepare for other forms of energy, that transition will be smoother. If we are unprepared there may... 

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA 6 flood sediments from Hurricane Katrina (2005)... 

Coastal estuary wetlands are susceptible to arsenic contamination because of hurricanes or other storms. Sediments deposited in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, were often contaminated with arsenic that exceeded human health standards (Cobb et al., 2006). The arsenic may have originated from runoff containing lawn herbicide residues and the leachates of wood treated with CCA preservatives (Cobb et al, 2006), 4576. 

Cobb, G.P., Abel, M.T., Rainwater, T.R. et al. (2006) Metal distributions in New Orleans following hurricanes Katrina and Rita a continuation study. Environmental Science and Technology, 40(15), 4571-77. 

Dubey, B., Solo-Gabriele, H.M. and Townsend, T.G. (2007) Quantities of arsenic-treated wood in demolition debris generated by hurricane Katrina. Environmental Science and Technology, 41(5), 1533-36. 

Figure 1.1 Flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina destroyed many areas...

Hurricane Katrina s destruction was devastating. The hurricane killed more than 2,000 people, left thousands of people homeless, and caused more than 80 billion in damages. It was the costliest hurricane in American history.1,2... 

Climate of 2005 Summary of Hurricane Katrina. NOAA Satellite and Information Service, National Climatic Data Center Web Site. Available online. URL http //www.ncdc. noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2005/katrina.html. Accessed October 25, 2006. 

Palser, Barb. Hurricane Katrina Aftermath of a Disaster. Minnesota Compass Point Books, August 2006. 

Apparently, a future direction for studies into climatic instability and related catastrophic events, like Hurricane Katrina (13 years after the most powerful in the history of Miami Hurricane Andrew) in late August 2005 did huge economic damage, completely flooding New Orleans and destroying many buildings, is a search for connections between temperature variations at different scales in different basins... 

In particular, we acknowledge professor Menachem Lewin for his many important contributions to cotton chemistry and for inspiring this book. Without his strong support it would not exist. Glenn P. Johnson, ARS, SRRC, USDA was invaluable in converting and updating the previous chapter to this book. Fortunately, this book was mostly finished before hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans and the USDA Southern Regional Research Center where many of the contributors to this book worked. 

Hospitals and other health care facilities may further classify disasters as either internal or external. External disasters are those that do not affect the hospital infrastructure but do tax hospital resources due to numbers of patients or types of injuries (Cans, 2001). For example, a tornado that produced numerous injuries and deaths in a community would be considered an external disaster. Internal disasters cause disruption of normal hospital function due to injuries or deaths of hospital personnel or damage to the physical plant, as with a hospital fire, power failure, or chemical spill (Aghababian, Lewis, Cans, Curley, 1994). Unfortunately, one type of hospital disaster does not necessarily preclude the other, and features of both internal and external disasters may be present if a natural phenomenon affects both the community and the hospital. This was the case with Hurricane Andrew (1992), which caused significant destruction in hospitals, in clinics, and in the surrounding community when it struck south Florida (Sabatino, 1992), and Hurricane Katrina (2005) when it impacted the Gulf Coast, rupturing the levee in New Orleans (Berggren, 2005). 

Figure 1.4 New Orleans, LA, September 9,2005—Neighborhoods throughout the area remain flooded as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Crews work on areas where there have been breaks in the levee in order to avoid additional flooding.

Disaster planning must include a community mutual aid plan in the event that the hospital (s), nursing home(s), or other residential health care facility needs to be evacuated. Plans for evacuation of health care facilities must be realistic and achievable, and contain sufficient specific detail as to where patients will be relocated to and who will be there to care for them. Patient evacuation was a major challenge to disaster response efforts following Hurricane Katrina, and was hampered by the destruction of all major transportation routes in and out of the city. Pre-planning for the possibility of the need to evacuate entire health care facilities must address alternative modes of transportation and include adequate security measures (see Figure 1.4). 

Figure 1.5 New Orleans, LA, August 31, 2005—People walk through the New Orleans floodwaters to get to higher ground. New Orleans was under a mandatory evacuation order as a result of flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Following Hurricane Katrina all of the hospitals located in New Orleans had to be evacuated. You are a nurse working on Louisiana s Gulf Coast and are concerned that another hurricane may hit. What are you doing to prepare Where would you find re-... 

Berggren, R. (2005). Hurricane Katrina Unexpected necessities— Inside Charity Hospital. New England Journal of Medicine, 353(15), 1550-1553. 

Lessons learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. 

First used in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Federal Medical Shelters (FMS) are 250-bed capacity shelters equipped with equipment supplied, in part, from the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS). Staffed by 150 USPHS, DOD, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the National Disaster Medical... 

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations also defines a third level of crisis—a catastrophe. A catastrophe is considered a disaster in which the community and hospital are overwhelmed and isolated for 3 or more days. This is exemplified by the Sumatra tsunami in 2004 and by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005 (Berger, 2006). For our purposes, this category will be considered a disaster. 

The scope of a disaster can vary greatly and is partially dependent on the location of the disaster. A disaster in a rural community may not be considered a major event in an urban area because of the greater resource availability characteristic of urban areas. Conversely, an event that would have an impact in an urban setting may have next to no impact in rural areas because of low population densities. State, regional, and federal support does exist and will likely be made available in the event of a disaster (Richards, Burstein, Waeckerle, Hutson, 1999). However, because a required chain of notification must be completed to obtain outside support and because it takes time for state or federal officials to marshal the proper resources, disasters are usually local for the first days (Auf der Heide, 1989, 2006 Kaji Waeckerle, 2003), which was exemplified by the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. After the first few days, the extent of the support may be limited by the nature of the disaster. A widespread infectious epidemic may require that... 

Nates, J. L., Moyer, V. A. (2005). Lessons from Hurricane Katrina, tsunamis, and other disasters. Lancet, 366, 1144-1146. 

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