Volume XWIII, Issue 3
Educating Women To Excel
September 8, 2005
ON THE
INSIDE:
Campus
News
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World
N ews
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Campus
Features
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Meredith
Sports
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Meredith
Opinions
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Advertisements
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THURSDAY
Mostly Sunny
High 88/'Low M
FRJDAY
Sunny
High 91/Low 64
SATURDAY
High 91/ Low
Sunn^
SUNDAY
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High 87/ Low 64
MONDAY
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Sunn^
TUESDAY
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WEDNESDAY
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High 89/ Low 67
Hurricane Katrina:
The Worst Natural Disaster the U.S. has Ever Faced
RACHEL McELWAIN
Staff Writer
When hurricane Katrina
made landfall in Florida as
a category one storm last
week, no one could have pre
dicted the disaster to come.
After spending the weekend
strengthening in the wann
waters of the Gulf of Mexico,
Hurricane Katrina reached
category five status on the
Saffir-Simpson Hurricane
Scale by Sunday evening, as
it moved steadily towards the
coast of Louisiana. Making
landfall on Monday around
6 a.m., Katrina slammed into
the Gulf Coast as a category
four hurricane with sustained
winds of 145 mph and 20-
foot storm surges. The storm
devastated the Mississippi
cities of Biloxi and Gulfport,
causing the highest death
toll in Harrison County’s
history. Katrina’s initial ef
fect on New Orleans, while
catastrophic, was not nearly
as devastating as the damage
could have been had the city
suffered a direct hit. Never
theless, by 11:00 a.m. Mon
day, the raging waters of
Lake Ponchatrain, a lake that
neighbors the city, breached
two of the city’s most impor
tant levees, submerging 80%
of the city with water 20 feet
deep in some areas. Integral
parts of the city’s hurricane
protection system, the le
vees were only designed to
withstand the effects of a
category three storm.
Although New Orleans did
issue an evacuation order,
thousands of residents did
not have the means to leave
the city. Those who did not
seek refuge in shelters were
left waiting in their homes
for help, in many cases un
aided. Over 20,000 people
sought refuge at the Super
dome and upwards of25,000
at the city’s Convention
Center. Yet the two struc
tures suffered great damage,
and conditions quickly dete
riorated for those hoping to
escape the storm. Food and
water have been scarce, and
Photo Courtesy of www.CNN.com
Hurricane victim searches for food and shelter through the
flooded city of New Orleans.
Photo Courtesy of www.CNN.com
Building collapses onto stranded vehicles during Huiricane Katrina In downtown
New Oileans.
with no electricity or water
pressure, combined with the
late summer heat, condi
tions for refugees have been
unbearable.
Thousands of troops have
slowly been making their
way into the flooded city,
helping to speed up the
evacuation process while
also protecting the citizens
from the bands of looters
that appeared in the city al
most immediately follow
ing Katrina’s departure. By
Saturday evening, all of the
refugees at the Superdome
and Convention Center had
been evacuated by bus and
air, and the last 200 patients
at Charity Hospital were
taken by the truckload to
seek medical care outside
of the city. As the main ref
uge centers in New Orleans
emptied, the focus shifted
towards rescuing those still
stranded across the city and
claiming the bodies of the
dead. Houston's Astrodome
is now the home of some
15,000 New Orleans evacu
ees, and two other shelters
were set up nearby to house
up to 26,000 people. Shel
ters have been set up all
over the surrounding area
in efforts to find housing for
the refugees, most of whom
have lost everything. FEMA
has chartered three Carnival
cruise ships to be docked in
Galveston, Texas, to house
as many as 7,000 refugees
over a six-month period.
President Bush visited
storm struck areas of Ala
bama, Mississippi, and Lou
isiana on Friday and began
efforts to increase the se
curity of New Orleans and
speed up the evacuation of
the city so that the rebuild
ing process can begin. The
US Army Corps of Engi
neers has estimated that it
will take over a month to
pump water out of the flood
ed city, and could take up
to 3 months to completely
dry. All told, the death toll
from Hurricane Katrina will
undoubtedly reach into the
thousands, with an exact fig
ure taking weeks to calculate
as the search and recovery
mission continues.