Resiliency to Disasters
The levels of physical and mental harm to persons and physical damage to property occurring during and after natural and manmade disasters are influenced by community design. Community resilience, the ability to bounce back after a disaster, is influenced
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oduction August 29, 2005: A monstrous storm, Hurricane Katrina, barreled toward New Orleans on Sunday with 160-mph wind and a threat of a 28-foot storm surge, forcing a mandatory evacuation of the below-sea-level city and prayers for those who remained to face a doomsday scenario. . . . “It’s capable of causing catastrophic damage,” [National Hurricane Center Director Max] Mayfield said. “Even well-built structures will have tremendous damage. Of course, what we’re really worried about is the loss of lives. New Orleans may never be the same.” . . . As many as 100,000 inner-city residents didn’t have the means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the closing of the airport, so the city arranged buses to take people to 10 lastresort shelters, including the Superdome. Despite the dire predictions, a group of residents in a poor neighborhood of central New Orleans sat on a porch with no car, no way out. . . . “We’re not evacuating,” said Julie Paul, 57. “None of us have any place to go. We’re counting on the Superdome. That’s our lifesaver.” The 70,000-seat A.L. Dannenberg et al. (eds.), Making Healthy Places: Designing and Building for Health, Well-being, and Sustainability, DOI 10.5822/978-1-61091-036-1_16, © Island Press 2011
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RESILIENCY TO DISASTERS
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Superdome, the home of football’s Saints, opened at daybreak Sunday, giving first priority to frail, elderly people on walkers, some with oxygen tanks. They were told to bring enough food, water and medicine to last up to five days. . . . But the evacuation was slow going. Highways in Louisiana and Mississippi were jammed all day as people headed away from Katrina’s expected landfall. All lanes were limited to northbound traffic on Interstates 55 and 59, and westbound on I-10. At the peak, 18,000 vehicles an hour were streaming out of southeastern Louisiana [report by the Associated Press 2005].
During Hurricane Katrina the greatest human and property impacts in New Orleans occurred in the newer and poorest parts of the city (Figure 16.1). Many of the older homes had been built on higher land, had elevated floor plates, and had window shutter and roofing designs that made them more resilient to extreme weather events. Response to and recovery from this disaster have been slow and troubled, leading to new attention on how places and communities can become more resilient to disaster. Risks from natural hazards are ubiquitous throughout the United States and in most areas of the world. American communities face threats from hazards including hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, tornadoes, severe drought, and heat waves. The mix of hazards a community might encounter depends on its location, and these hazards will be made more serious by changing climate conditions.
Figure 16.1 When the levees failed during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, impacts were highest in the poorest parts of New Orleans (photo: Jocelyn Augustino, FEMA).
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DIAGNOSING AND HEALING OUR BUILT ENVIRONMENTS
Researchers at the National Climatic Data Center of t
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