GIS: New Orleans, LA Following
Hurricane Katrina
EM SC 100S Writing Assignment
DJ Bennett
October 26, 2011
Executive Summary:
On August 29, 2005 the city of New Orleans in southeast Louisiana was hit hard
by Hurricane Katrina and became one of the largest, costliest national disasters in history.
Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005 before crossing over
southern Florida as a category 1 hurricane. Then, Katrina strengthened intensely in the
Gulf of Mexico and hit southern Louisiana as a category 3 hurricane Monday morning,
August 29. Katrina caused severe destruction along the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas.
The most significant destruction came in New Orleans where the storm caused the levee
system to fail, and ultimately flooded 80% of the city and surrounding neighborhoods.
Hurricane Katrina was one of the five deadliest hurricanes in United States history.
The Gulf Coast of Louisiana is always at risk of being in the path of a major
hurricane, specifically New Orleans because of its’ geographical position. The geography
of the city of New Orleans makes it especially susceptible because the city’s elevation is
below sea level, meaning it has a bowl shape with higher land and water bodies
surrounding it. To make the situation even worse New Orleans has a large impoverished
population with bad access to transportation for evacuation purposes in case of
emergency. The fear of being hit by a major hurricane in this area would become a reality
when Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
This paper will explore the different ways in which a GIS was used by agencies
during and after Hurricane Katrina. This includes how previous GIS applications were
transformed for use with rescue efforts, how new GIS applications were put into place
during the rescue phase of the response effort and how GIS aided in the rebuilding of
New Orleans.
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Introduction:
Hurricane Katrina first made landfall on the southern Florida coast as a Category
One hurricane before continuing into the Gulf of Mexico. Here the storm would violently
intensify in the warm Gulf waters and threaten the northern Gulf Coast region. It was
predicted to make landfall around the Florida and Alabama border, missing the Louisiana
coast completely. However, in a matter of two days the storm had shifted paths,
becoming a category 5 hurricane that would hit the heart of the Louisiana coast in the city
of New Orleans. On August 29, Katrina would make landfall to the east of New Orleans
as a category 4 and would leave insurmountable, historic damage to the city.
When Katrina made landfall, information was very hard to come by as power
outages covered almost all of southern Louisiana. It took several days for the emergency
response to begin as staff was hard to reach and emergency efforts needed at this scale
were not set in place in advance. Part of the emergency planning overlooked was a way
for emergency responders to locate citizens throughout the city without typical landmarks
and directional tools since those were due to flooding. This is where GIS came into play;
one application was able to work around this constraint of responders not being able to
locate street signs and land markers. This GIS system that was originally used for
transportation analysis would now become a life-saving instrument. This GIS technology
would also become extremely useful in the rebuilding of the city as it provided key maps
to show developers where areas were hit hardest. GIS would show itself as an incredibly
adaptable tool that would help in the recovery of the city of New Orleans after the
landfall of hurricane Katrina.
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Adaption of Previous GIS System:
As stated earlier, emergency response for this amount of destruction caused by
one storm was never organized. This storm presented rescuers difficulty in locating
citizens in the city of New Orleans because they could not use any street signs, markers
and other locational tools available due to flooding. The levies around the city failed and
caused the low-lying city to quickly become under water. Those stranded called in
providing street addresses, but to emergency responders this was no help because there
was no way tell where the streets were. Responders then looked to the adaptability of a
GIS tool to help in the search and locations of those stranded. The GIS application
developed by the New Orleans Regional Planning Commission intended for the
Department of Transportation would now be an important tool in the rescue effort. The
GIS tool would link the street addresses with global position coordinates so that first
responders had the information they needed to locate stranded citizens. The GIS would
provide spot-on coordinates of individuals in the city and responders could plug them
into computer software and go to the exact location the citizen provided. The adaption of
a GIS system intended for transportation analysis was life saving in response to the major
flooding in the city of New Orleans.
Damage Analysis:
When Hurricane Katrina hit the New Orleans area, the levees that were supposed
to protect the city from rising floodwaters were overtopped or destroyed causing the city
to be underwater. Responders were faced with the task of locating citizens without
normal means of navigation as street signs and markers were not visible. Another set
back was that most first responders were not familiar with the New Orleans area so even
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though some buildings could be distinguished to find individuals, responders could not
identify some common markers to the city. Thankfully, a GIS application would be put in
place to give locations given by stranded citizens a global position coordinate so that
responders could go out and using mapping and tacking devices could hunt for survivors.
A map of the toll of damage to areas, like the image below, would be produced to tell
responders where most important areas to reach were located.
http://www.lsu.edu/fweil/KatrinaResearch
The image shown provides dots of various colors correlating to either no damage, some
damage, major damage and complete destruction. This would be crucial information
responders would need to locate hardest hit areas so that they could reach them before
areas that may not have been hit as hard. This image also displays the extent of flooding
and that too would be valuable information for when the rebuilding process would begin.
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GIS aided in saving lives from the historic flooding that hit New Orleans by providing
first responders with key global positions of those in need and areas of great damage.
Recovery:
After Katrina, New Orleans faced a substantial rebuilding process in order to
bring back an important, historic city. The New Orleans Regional Planning Commission
would once again utilize GIS technologies in order to provide information on areas that
would need construction. GIS would provide organizations and companies with layered
maps of flooding depth, range of damage in the New Orleans area, as well as real-time
maps of what areas looked like and if they were safe to access. GIS would provide those
who needed it previous maps of what the city looked like in the aid of the reconstruction
of various parts of the city. Those in the reconstruction would utilize all the maps GIS
provided them in order to rebuild the city and know how to restore to the city to how it
was. Using GIS maps New Orleans was able to respond from one of the most
catastrophic storms and rebuild its’ city structure.
Conclusion:
The GIS response to Hurricane Katrina was a great success and showed the tools
ability to adapt to emergency situations. After the landfall of Katrina, GIS provided
responders with an easy, guided way to find stranded citizens as well as giving them
areas of the city that had been hit hard and points that needed to be contacted as soon as
possible. Without GIS lives could have been lost with response efforts being slowed
down tremendously by lack of navigation tools. After the storm had passed restoring
efforts began and once again GIS was utilized in order to produce ways to show how the
city needed to be reconstructed. GIS was an incredibly valuable, efficient tool during the
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search for lost citizens as well as the recovery of the city of New Orleans after Hurricane
Katrina.
References:
DeCapua, Chelsea. "Applications of Geospatial Technology in International Disasters
and During Hurricane Katrina." Aug. 2007. Web. 17 Oct. 2011.
<www.gri.msstate.edu/research/katrina>
Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. “The New Orleans Index: Tracking
Recovery of New Orleans and the Metro Area.” New Orleans: Greater New
Orleans Community Center. 2007.
<http://www.gnocdc.org/NOLAIndex/NOLAIndex.pdf>
"Regional Planning Commission Serving the New Orleans Metropolitan Region serving
the New Orleans Metropolitan Region." Regional Planning Commission. Web. 16
Oct. 2011. <http://www.norpc.org/>.
"Returning to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina." National Center for Biotechnology
Information. Web. 15 Oct. 2011. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art>
Weil, Frederick. "Post-Hurricane Katrina Research and Recovery Work." Louisiana State
University. Web. 15 Oct. 2011. <http://www.lsu.edu/fweil/KatrinaRese>
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