Hurricane Katrina was declared the most deadliest in the history of Gulf coast and the most costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. At the intials stages experts had estimated the cost of a hurricane disaster to exceeded $100 billion. However, this figure did not include the cost of catastrophic damage that would be caused by inland flooding. Extending this further, experts in their estimation, did not account for the losses that would be suffered by the U.S economy from the interruption in production and supply of oil and from the loss of exports of commodities like grains. Minimum insurance cost of the claims were estimated to be around $12.5 billion, excluding the uninsured damages, this figure gives half of the final insured cost figure. Moreover, Gulf Coast provided non-farm jobs to more than one million people, out of these 600,000 work force was from the New Orleans area.
The impact of hurricane katrina is not just limited to mere figures. Its cast a shadow on the governemnt and people alike. Hurricane katrina brought with itself humanitarian crisis on a scale never witnessed before sine the Great Depression.
Many residence of Florida were given any sort of minimal advance warning when the hurricane Katrina strengthened from a tropical storm to a hurricane in a day, and then struck southern Florida the same day. Even then, NHC forecasts had clearly shown that Katrina had strengthened into a hurricane well of a very disastrous nature, and hurricane watches and warnings were still not issued to the people. Most of the warnings were issued to the residents just 36 and 24 hours, respectively, before the impact of hurricane conditions were felt in the area. The watches and warnings are to be released by the government well before time. Moreoevr, most of the computer model was putting New Orleans right in the center and the chances of direct hit were 90%............
