rtation or the wherewithal to leave their homes (Grunwald & Glasser, 2005; Dewan, 2005).
And even after the winds subsided and the storm passed, the crisis continued to build momentum due to flood. The practice for managing flooding of the city by heavy rains was for large pumps to pump water back into the lake, from where it could go out to sea. However, there was a power failure, which left the pumps nonoperational. Worst of all, levees specially constructed to keep the lake waters out of the city broke. Result: massive flooding, with waters rising to and over roofs in various neighborhoods. Those who were stranded because unable to evacuate--typically the disabled, the very poor, the elderly--or who had chosen to "ride out the storm" either drowned or climbed higher in their houses and onto their roofs as the waters rose around them. The ferocity of the landfall meant that search-and-rescue and relief efforts were suspended until the weather calmed. Meanwhile, some 50,000 persons converged on a sports stadium and a convention center, where there were limited sanitary facilities and shelter, as well as an absence of food and water (Grunwald & Glasser, 2005; Dewan, 2005).
The events of Katrina provide a disheartening picture of disaster management. On Friday, August 26, 2005, the mayor of New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, and the governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, issued public statements calling for federal assistance, with Blanco declaring Louisiana in a state of emergency. On August 27, Nagin, with Katrina at Category 3 intensity, called for voluntary evacuation of lowest-lying areas of New Orleans. On Sunday, August 28, with the storm at Category 5 intensity and making landfall at a minimum of 175 mph with gusts up to 216 mph, Nagin announced mandatory evacuation, citing the Louisiana Superdome as shelter of "last resort." The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), part of the Department of Homeland Secur...