A Brief Description on Hurricane Katrina

Running head - A BRIEF DESCRIPTION ON HURRICANE KATRINA
A Brief Description on Hurricane Katrina
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1A BRIEF DESCRIPTION ON HURRICANE KATRINA
Hurricanes which are natural disasters are defined as a typical types of storm that is also
known as cyclone, occurs over water bodies mainly. The typical water types of water bodies over
which mainly hurricanes occurs are tropical and subtropical (Cahyanto et al. 2016). Cyclone
occurs mainly due to low pressure in the weather and the air in the low pressure starts to rotate in
clockwise direction. The typical type of cyclone is classified as tropical depression when the
winds started to flow with a speed of less than 39 miles per hour. The cyclone is classified as a
typical storm when the speed of the wind flow is greater than 39 miles per hour. The following
assignment provides brief description about hurricanes, the hurricane Katrina, its effects, and
how the catastrophic effects could have been evaded.
A cyclone is classified as a hurricane when the speed of the wind flow reaches a rapid
speed of 79 miles per hour. Hurricanes are originated over the basin of Atlantic, which is
composed of Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, the eastern part of the North
Pacific Ocean and the Central North Pacific Oceans. Hurricanes are the most dangerous form of
storm on the face of earth. The type of cyclone maximizes a height of 50,000 feet and the area of
the storm spans across 125 miles (Worsnop et al. 2017). The eyes of the storm ranges from 5 to
30 miles wide which is extremely wide. The typical cyclone occurs near the equator which is
pushed by the trade winds towards west – to the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the
southeastern coast of the United States of America. Due to the extreme low air pressure and the
winds, the ocean waters are mounded to pile up at the eye of the cyclone. This causes monstrous
surges of storm when all this water reaches the nearby lands.
Hurricanes are mostly distributed 5 categories, 1 being the least and 5 being the highest.
When winds of the hurricane flows with a speed of more than 170 miles per hour, the typical

2A BRIEF DESCRIPTION ON HURRICANE KATRINA
hurricane is classified as category 5 hurricane. One of the most violent hurricane that was
recorded was Hurricane Katrina (Osofsky et al. 2017).
Hurricane Katrina have been extremely violent and destructive kind of hurricane that
mankind have faced. The category 5 hurricane struck its deadly effects on the landmass of
Florida, Louisiana, which are some prominent and important cities of New Orleans. The
hurricane occurred on August 2005. The hurricane brought catastrophic damages with it that had
affected Florida and Texas. The particular storm had its origins over the Bahamas on 23rd of
August 2005. Slowly the storm started to merge with the tropical waves (Deryugina, Kawano
and Levitt 2018). An overall of 1836 people died in the dangerous hurricane and leaving
thousands homeless. Before this, the United States of America have not faced such deadly
hurricane after 1928. Mainly, the failures of the drainage system and other engineering failures in
the flood protection system known as the levees system. The fatal failure caused the death of so
many people and have struck the United States of America really hard.
It was reported that more than 50 failures were found in the levees and the flood walls
that were meant to protect New Orleans and Louisiana from the deadly hurricane Katrina. The
failures in the levees and the flood walls caused flood in more the 80% of New Orleans and St.
Bernard Parish was fully flooded. Billion gallons of water that were supposed to be held by the
flood walls and the levees flooded the whole of New Orleans and the remaining attached areas.
The faulty design of the levee system that was constructed by the United States Army Corp of
Engineers and the responsibility of the local maintenance board are responsible for the deadly
effect of the hurricane Katrina (Brinkley and Brewer 2016). After the completion of the project,
the United States Army Corp of Engineers handed over the design and the maintenance
responsibility to the local levee boards of New Orleans. When hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans