Cutting Edge Research

Coastal Impact Study:
Nation Under Siege

A Lesson Learned?

Scientists forewarned of the consequences of a hurricane hitting New Orleans. The above image illustrates the counties affected by Hurricane Katrina (in gray). A single catastrophe in just one city, in one way or another, affected the entire country. The cost to avert this tragedy was approximately two billion dollars. It will cost taxpayers 200 to 300 billion dollars to rebuild this one city.

An excerpt from the article Gone With the Water, published in National Geographic Magazine in October, 2004, one year before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans:
“The next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city ... more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however-the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.

The storm hit ... pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over ... it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste ... It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless ... It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. When did this calamity happen? It hasn't - yet...”


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Katrina evacuee destinations by county
Source: FEMA, Census Bureau