Compare And Contrast The 1900 Hurricane In Galveston

On Friday evening, September 7, 1900, many of the 37,000 residents of Galveston, Texas, were settling down to dinner, few if any of them concerned about the steady 15 mph northerly wind rattling their windows. Within 48 hours, at least 8,000 of the townspeople would be dead, victims of the single worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Relatively few people are aware that the deadliest natural disaster in the United States was the hurricane that struck Galveston Island on September 8, 1900. One of the best resources that can be found to help fully understand the significance of this storm is Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson.

In many ways people’s overconfidence was very costly for Galvestonians due to the fact that lack of attention, over confidence and hypocrisy from their authorities as well as the narrator himself weren’t taking seriously the warnings from the Cuban authorities as the book Isaac’s Storm suggests in page 19-20 “The bureau’s men in Cuba said the storm was nothing to worry about; Cuba’s own weather observers, who had pioneered hurricane detection disagreed.” And also the narrator himself got warned by his brother on how the wind has been irregularly high as it points out in page 19-21”It was capable of measuring velocities as high as one hundred miles an hour, but conditions had never come close to testing capacity, nor did any rational soul believe

Economic Impact Industries were forced to move to Houston (“Martinez”). This caused a loss on huge sources of money for Galveston that otherwise would have been able to give Galveston a little bit of recovery. Individual losses plus public property losses such as paving, water works, schools, hospitals, and churches totaled to around, if not over, 30 million (“Resources”). Most of these losses would have had to been rebuilt immediately to keep the future of the younger people in the correct road to success. Because of all of the losses in the hurricane, Galveston never recovered economically (“Martinez”). Galveston is still at a large loss of money that it will probably never recover in our lifetimes. “The Texas Legislature agreed to a tax and sale of bonds to pay for raising the elevation of the city” (“Martinez”). Using the money raised from this tax, a 3 mile long seawall was built to protect the city from future floods

In the late summer of 2005, a terrible tragedy occurred that changed the lives of many in the south-east region of the United States. A Category 3, named storm, named Hurricane Katrina, hit the Gulf Coast on the 29th of August and led to the death of 1,836 and millions of dollars’ worth of damage (Waple 2005). The majority of the damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana. Waple writes in her article that winds “gusted over 100 mph in New Orleans, just west of the eye” (Waple 2005). Not only was the majority of the damage due to the direct catastrophes of the storm but also city’s levees could no longer hold thus breaking and releasing great masses of water. Approximately, 80% of the city was submerged at sea level. Despite the vast amount

In the turn of the new century, the people of Galveston were faced with a grim reminder. The event that destroyed the small island of Galveston, the Galveston Hurricane, had many social, political, and economic impacts that made this storm life-changing. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 improved Texas for the better and helped Galveston grow stronger as a city.

Hurricane Katrina not only provided new response for natural disasters but also for terrorist response and mitigation. Hurricane Katrina helped the Department of Homeland Security to see the vulnerability of the nation and how bad a single storm could affect the communities. After Hurricane Katrina DHS started to plan and “imagine” the possibilities of future disasters both natural and manmade as if they were actually going to happen. After 9/11 FEMA was downsized and DHS replaced most of its disaster and planning operations. This became clear after seeing the poor response FEMA had with Hurricane Katrina and the thousands of people left stranded without help. The aftermath of Katrina showed how much we needed both counterterrorism along with

Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest hurricanes that hit America. Federalism played a major role in the rescue missions for this natural disasters. It’s evident that the government failed in many ways during Hurricane Katrina. Federalism plays a huge part in preparing for natural disasters. The powers were not equally shared within the levels of government, which made the local government weak and had to completely rely on the federal government. The government of U.S. was not prepared enough for hurricane Katrina.

While Super storm Sandy directly killed 148 people, Hurricane Katrina killed 1,200 (United States). The main difference being who the leaders were. The states were the clear leaders during Hurricane Sandy as they should have been. They knew what they needed and they were willing to articulate those needs at the federal level. The federal government has never been good at seeing to the day to day needs of everyday citizens. It was not set up to do so. That role has always been delegated to the states. For some reason during Katrina state and local authorities decided it was the other way around and they suffered for it. Katrina was not only a perfect storm in nature, it was also a perfect storm on all levels of government. During the crisis of hurricane Katrina there was not a clear chain of command. State and local Leaders were looking toward the federal government for leadership in the relief

“When communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm,” (“Bush”). This is what former president George W. Bush said during his speech in New Orleans concerning the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina was a massive natural disaster that consisted of high powered winds and immense amounts of water. The hurricane was initially a category 3, but gradually rose to the classification of a category 5 storm, which is the largest storm there is (“Hurricane Irene”). In fact, there were accounts of winds recorded at about 127 miles per hour in the Gulf areas such as Grand Isle, Louisiana, and near the Mississippi River (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics”). All of these factors are made

When a natural disaster comes to mind you think many resources are utilized. You think many agencies from around the world must have come to help one of the biggest disasters the country has seen. Although that is not exactly what happened in New Orleans many agencies did come to help. Local, State, and Federal agencies were present during and after the hurricane. Governor Katherine Babineaux Blanco and Mayor Ray Nagin called a state of emergency and issued a mandatory evacuation, shortly after, President Bush to issue a state of emergency and mandatory evacuation on a federal level to ensure assistance from agencies like FEMA and the America Red Cross (Kamp). Mayor Ray Nagin also

Galveston, Texas is located 50 miles southeast of Houston. It is known as a barrier island on the Texas Gulf Coast of the United States. The city Galveston, Texas was the home of around 37,000 residents in the early 1900’s. This island grew from being a small settlement into one of the wealthiest cities in the country. It was normal for people to visit Galveston, Texas for it was known as a "tourist attraction". There was always the idea of building a seawall to protect Galveston from future hurricanes but it was never built. Although many hurricanes had hit the city several times in the past (before 1900) no one would have thought that a hurricane that would

Galveston was the leading port in the state of Texas and had a population of about 37,000 people during the 1900. Being a city on the gulf coast, getting hit by a hurricane was expected. Galveston has been hit with many hurricanes before but one particular hurricane almost wiped out the whole city. On September 8th, 1900, a potent hurricane producing wind up to 120 miles per hour and flooded the city with about 15 feet of water made landfall. The aftermath of the hurricane was horrific, it broke the city down to rubbles and a few thousands of people lost their lives. The city had a choice of either being wiped off the map from the hurricane’s damage or to start the rebuild process as soon as possible. Galveston chose to unite as one and

Hurricane Katrina resulted in massive loss of life and billions of dollars in property damage. There are many lessons worth learning from this event. Finger pointing started before the event was over. Most of the focus on Hurricane Katrina was on its impact on New Orleans; however, the storm ravaged a much wider area than that. This paper will briefly summarize the event, the impact on the city of New Orleans and the lessons learned to ensure preparedness today.

The Great Hurricane of 1938, or known to many as the Long Island Express, was known as one of the most disastrous hurricanes to hit New England. It wasn’t the high winds, heavy rain, and high waves/storm surge that gave this hurricane its title in history. The Great Hurricane had a fourth deadly weapon; the element of surprise. It was the beginning of September, a time where many packed up their summer clothes, boarded up their houses, and left to return back to the real world leaving their summer homes behind. When symptoms of a storm approached New England, many locals convinced themselves and others that it was just the normal “line storm” which occasionally comes in September. It wasn’t until Sept 21 that people realized the so-called

Katrina traveled into the Gulf of Mexico on August 26 and started to expand. When the storm reached the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane however, deteriorated before making it to Louisiana to a Category 3 on August 29 with winds at 145mph. Due to the 20 to 30 foot storm surge and levee failure, it resulted with the infrastructure critically damaged from Florida to Texas. State and local agencies use the Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model to know whom and when to evacuate to include what routes people should take. There was argument on who failed the devastated areas, since the assistance needed could not get to the certain areas due to massive flooding and bridges destroyed. Even though there was no one agency to blame through the lack of coordination and communication from local agencies up through the Federal Government, the lessons learned where noticed within hours and days after the storm arrived, the local population felt as being neglected or forgotten.