Temas Variados

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States.[3] Among recordedAtlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall. At least 1,836 people died in the actual hurricane and in the subsequent floods, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobeehurricane; total property damage was estimated at $81 billion (2005 USD),[3] nearly triple the damage wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.[4]

Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23,2005 and crossed southern Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding there before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm weakened before making itssecond landfall as a Category 3 storm on the morning of Monday, August 29 in southeast Louisiana. It caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to thestorm surge. The most significant number of deaths occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed, in many cases hours after the storm had movedinland.[5] Eventually 80% of the city and large tracts of neighboring parishes became flooded, and the floodwaters lingered for weeks.[5] However, the worst property damage occurred in coastal areas, such asall Mississippi beachfront towns, which were flooded over 90% in hours, as boats and casino barges rammed buildings, pushing cars and houses inland, with waters reaching 6–12 miles (10–19 km) from thebeach.

The hurricane protection failures in New Orleans prompted a lawsuit against the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the designers and builders of the levee system as mandated by the FloodControl Act of 1965. Responsibility for the failures and flooding was laid squarely on the Army Corps in January 2008[by whom?], but the federal agency could not be held financially liable due to...