By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. The National Guard searching for survivors in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, August 2005. We further stratified by race within each age category, where sufficient observations existed, to determine whether there was an age-specific effect of race among victims. 2011. Areas east of the Industrial Canal were the first to flood; by August 30, 80 percent of New Orleans was underwater. Aerial views of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana, with the Superdome in the foreground, (left) on August 30, 2005, a day after Hurricane Katrina struck the city, and (right) again some 10 years later on July 29, 2015. The final case definition for Katrina-related deaths in this analysis included all of the deaths in the DMORT database that were determined to be Katrina related, all Louisiana death certificates with victim of cataclysmic storm listed as the primary or a contributing cause of death, and out-of-state death certificates for Louisiana residents that were classified as related to Hurricane Katrina. and 2009. Methods: We assessed Hurricane Katrina mortality data sources received in 2007, including Louisiana and out-of-state death certificates for deaths occurring from August 27 to October 31, 2005, and the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team's confirmed victims' database. 2010. More than 70 people died in nursing facilities in Orleans, St Bernard, and Jefferson Parishes on August 29, 2005 and in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina, indicating that more targeted emergency and disaster preparedness planning, especially with respect to evacuation capability, is needed for these types of institutions. Hurricane Katrina, tropical cyclone that struck the southeastern United States in late August 2005. People 75 years old and older were significantly more likely to be storm victims (P < .0001). The clearest association with Katrina in our review of out-of-state death certificates was 1 person whose body was found in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast. Rapid identification of vulnerable populations and risk factors during disasters will enable response teams to provide appropriate interventions to these populations and to prepare and implement preventive measures before the next disaster. Among the 971 Hurricane Katrina victims who died in Louisiana, 512 (53%) were men; 498 (51%) were black (non-Hispanic/Latino); 403 (42%) were white (non-Hispanic/Latino), and 18 (2%) were Hispanic/Latino (Table 2). 2011. Results: We identified 971 Katrina-related deaths in Louisiana and 15 deaths among Katrina evacuees in other states. and Jacobs, Rennie Brown, Lisanne The state coroner's office received 446 death certificates from 26 states and the District of Columbia for Louisiana residents who died from August 27 to October 1, 2005 and other death certificates that coroners' offices deemed worthy of consideration for potential association with Hurricane Katrina. Xiong, Xu When Katrina made landfall on August 29 near New Orleans on the U.S. Gulf Coast, it brought widespread destruction and flooding with it. - Hurricane Facts, LiveScience - Hurricane Katrina: Facts, Damage and Aftermath, Hurricane Katrina - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). The primary strength of this study is the use of multiple death databases to systematically verify each death as related to Hurricane Katrina using consistent and specific criteria. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. Areas east of the Industrial Canal were the first to flood; by the afternoon of August 29, some 20 percent of the city was underwater. Render date: 2021-01-06T17:49:31.682Z Of note, only 4 storm victims were Asian, although Asians make up 2% of the Orleans Parish population and 1% of the overall Louisiana population.7 Although Hispanic/Latino and Asian race/ethnic groups appear to have been less affected by storm mortality relative to their proportional population size, victim numbers in these groups are small, limiting statistical interpretation. Fifty-three percent of victims were men; 51% were black; and 42% were white. Objective: Hurricane Katrina struck the US Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, causing unprecedented damage to numerous communities in Louisiana and Mississippi. Overstreet, Stacy Drowning (40%), injury and trauma (25%), and heart conditions (11%) were the major causes of death among Louisiana victims. Noch nicht übersetzt. Harville, Emily W. Displaced residents. Brown, Lisa M. Salloum, Alison This death was one of only six deaths at the Superdome: one person overdosed and four others died of natural causes. Kennedy, Emily Of the 446 Louisiana residents who died out of state, 53% were female; 59% were white; and their mean age was 67.3 years (95% CI 65.3%–69.3%). Chow, Grant V. We limited our comparative analyses to Orleans, St Bernard, and Jefferson Parishes. The authors thank D. Bensyl, W.R. Daley, and D. Koo for useful comments on the manuscript. Excluding the 15 out-of-state deaths, we found that of the 971 people who died in Louisiana as a result of Hurricane Katrina, data on cause of death were available for 800 people. Older black people in Orleans Parish, particularly men, were disproportionately represented relative to their underlying population distribution. Kelley, Crystal L. "hasAccess": "1", The majority of deaths had multiple hierarchical cause-of-death classifications; however, if trauma, injury, or drowning was listed as a contributing cause of death, these victims were categorized as drowning or injury victims in our database. Galea, Sandro The overall proportions of deaths among non-Hispanic blacks and whites in the most affected parishes—Orleans, St Bernard, and Jefferson—were remarkably consistent with their pre-Katrina race/ethnicity distributions from the 2000 US Census (Table 2). The hurricane and its aftermath claimed more than 1,800 lives, … On August 27 Katrina strengthened to a category 3 hurricane, with top winds exceeding 115 miles per hour (185 km per hour) and a circulation that covered virtually the entire Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Katrina Project- Casualties (4a) Period 4 Gatfield. Hurricane Katrina Deaths, Louisiana, 2005 2 Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness VOL. Brown, Lisa M. Fifty-three percent of victims were men; 51% were black; and 42% were white. The role of Hurricane Katrina in the majority of the 446 out-of-state deaths will probably never be clearly delineated because coroners in different states may have used different criteria for classifying victims as storm related. Hurricane Katrina led to widespread flooding in southeastern Louisiana when the levee system that held back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne was completely overwhelmed by 10 inches of rain and Katrina’s storm surge. Future disaster preparedness efforts must focus on evacuating and caring for vulnerable populations, including those in hospitals, long-term care facilities, and personal residences. At least 986 people in Louisiana died as a result of Hurricane Katrina, making it the deadliest hurricane to strike the US Gulf Coast in more than 75 years. We conducted stratified analyses by parish of residence to compare differences between observed proportions of victim demographic characteristics (sex, race/ethnicity, and age) and expected values based on 2000 US Census data, using Pearson chi square and Fisher exact tests. Beim Wiederaufbau gewannen Unternehmensgründer und Touristen. Sustained winds of 70 miles per hour (115 km per hour) lashed the Florida peninsula, and rainfall totals of 5 inches (13 cm) were reported in some areas. The deaths described in this report are not representative of Katrina-related deaths. Results: We identified 971 Katrina-related deaths in Louisiana and 15 deaths among Katrina evacuees in other states. Determining death counts after Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, was a similarly convoluted process.A study published in 2014, almost a … In New Orleans, the levees were designed for Category 3, but Katrina peaked at a Category 5 hurricane, with winds up to 175 mph. Most records were geocoded using the Environmental Systems Research Institute street file reference geospatial layer, which was used to match the address for location of death to the street file address. This report is the first to combine multiple death databases to assess the number of storm-related deaths among Louisiana residents and people who were in Louisiana at the time of the storm and to provide information regarding the causes of death. Hirsch, Glenn A. With no relief in sight and in the absence of any organized effort to restore order, some neighbourhoods experienced substantial amounts of looting, and helicopters were used to rescue many people from rooftops in the flooded Ninth Ward. Our objectives were to verify, document, and characterize Katrina-related mortality in Louisiana and help identify strategies to reduce mortality in future disasters. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. U.S. Army engineers pumped the last of the floodwaters out of the city on October 11, 2005, some 43 days after Katrina made landfall. ☠ 1). "Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared," Page 37. Garcia, Andrea M. Descriptive and inferential statistics were calculated using Stata version 9.1 (StataCorp LP, College Station, TX). The most dramatic difference occurred among people 75 years old and older (Pearson chi square [χ2] 2400; degrees of freedom (df) = 1; P < .0001; Table 3). Kategorie » Primary study. Hayashi, Jennifer } and and and Accessed Jan. 28, 2020. It is likely that both factors contributed to the disproportionate representation of people 75 years old and older among Katrina victims. Other victim races included Asian (n = 4), American Indian (n = 4), and other (n = 1). "languageSwitch": true The majority of hurricane victims lived in Orleans Parish (73%), followed by St Bernard (17%), Jefferson (5%), Plaquemines (1%), and St Tammany Parishes (1%). The majority of these people (n = 82, 64%) were recovered during the second and third weeks after the storm (September 5–19, 2005). Kaufman, Torrey Seventeen out-of-state deaths (4%) occurred among Calcasieu Parish residents, likely Hurricane Rita evacuees. Christmas, Colleen Hiete, Michael Inside eyewall of Hurricane Katrina shortly before the storm struck Louisiana, August 2005. "comments": true, Sixty-five percent of Hurricane Katrina victims in Louisiana died of injury or drowning. In Orleans Parish, the mortality rate among blacks was 1.7 to 4 times higher than among whites for people 18 years old and older, indicating that the effect of age on mortality confounded the effect of race. Despite the above limitations, this report provides the most complete picture of Katrina-related mortality in Louisiana to date. 2009. and It was a very traumatizing storm and it killed many people. We calculated age-, race-, and sex-specific mortality rates for Orleans, St Bernard, and Jefferson Parishes, where 95% of Katrina victims resided and conducted stratified analyses by parish of residence to compare differences between observed proportions of victim demographic characteristics and expected values based on 2000 US Census data, using Pearson chi square and Fisher exact tests. It continued on a course to the northeast, crossing the Mississippi Sound and making a second landfall later that morning near the mouth of the Pearl River. Graphic by Lindsey Cook and Ethan Rosenberg for USN&WR/Source: Hurricane Katrina Deaths, Louisiana While the death toll in the study is 986, … At least 70 people who were classified as hospital inpatients died during the period August 29, 2005 to September 2, 2005, in New Orleans hospitals and an additional 57 victims were recovered from New Orleans hospitals and brought to the DMORT facility from September 5 to 12, 2005. DMORT is a federal response team that provides assistance with mortuary activities during disaster situations. "metricsAbstractViews": false, Deaths or places where victims' bodies were recovered occurred predominantly in residences (36%), hospitals (22%), and nursing facilities (12%). Year » 2008. Adequate mortality reporting in disaster settings, particularly when infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, is vital to ensuring timely collection of mortality data. Copyright © Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2008, Hostname: page-component-546c57c664-r9c2h Another 20,000 people gathered at the Convention Center for assistance, an evacuation site the federal government was unaware of until three days after the storm. Hurricane Katrina struck the US Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005 as a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, causing unprecedented damage to numerous Louisiana and Mississippi communities.Reference Knabb, Rhome and Brown1 During the hours and days after Hurricane Katrina, breaches in the levee infrastructure resulted in flooding throughout approximately 80% of New Orleans. Buekens, Pierre Dosa, David Hyer, Kathy Of these 129 people, 80 (62%) were recovered before September 15, 2005. Three people have died following Hurricane Zeta's landfall in southeast Louisiana Wednesday. Learn about how hurricanes and typhoons are given their names according to rules created by the World Meteorological Organization. Improving mortality reporting timeliness will enable response teams to provide appropriate interventions to these populations and to prepare and implement preventive measures before the next disaster. The majority of the 446 out-of-state deaths were from chronic medical conditions, primarily heart disease, respiratory disease, and cancer. Ultimately, the storm caused more than $160 billion in damage, and the population of New Orleans fell by 29 percent between the fall of 2005 and 2011. Corrections? 2010. Determining whether Hurricane Katrina contributed to out-of-state deaths was particularly difficult in instances in which patients died in hospitals during the days and weeks following Katrina (n = 283), for suicides (n = 5), for accidents (n = 25) and for cases pending further investigation or toxicology reports (n = 15). However, tens of thousands of residents could not or would not leave. FIGURE 2 Location of Hurricane Katrina deaths, southeast Louisiana, 2005 (N = 687), FIGURE 3 Location of Hurricane Katrina deaths, Orleans Parish, 2005. In New Orleans, where much of the greater metropolitan area is below sea level, federal officials initially believed that the city had “dodged the bullet.” While New Orleans had been spared a direct hit by the intense winds of the storm, the true threat was soon apparent. The primary classification of Katrina-related deaths assigned by parish (county) coroners on death certificates was International Classification of Diseases-10 code X37, victim of cataclysmic storm. OKAMURA, Jiro Clum, Gretchen A. Following the historical damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina, the name “Katrina” was retired from the lists of names. Accessed Jan. 28, 2020. Rather, the hurricane was named in accordance with the World Meteorological Organization’s lists of hurricane names, which rotate every six years. Acosta, Bertha I. Mrs. Bertha I. Acosta, age 85, of St. Bernard, died during Hurricane Katrina. First, the disaster response aftermath of Hurricane Katrina may have limited the ability to precisely document all deaths. The majority of out-of-state deaths occurred in Texas (221, 50%), followed by Alabama (47, 11%) and Mississippi (43, 10%). Second, classifying people who were evacuated and later died out of state from Katrina-related causes is inherently difficult, especially as regards older people who had serious preexisting medical conditions. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city the previous day, and an estimated 1.2 million people left ahead of the storm. * Views captured on Cambridge Core between September 2016 - 6th January 2021. Water, food, and other supplies should be available to maximize the likelihood that patients using ventilators and other life-support interventions will survive if a similar emergency situation occurs. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The majority of these deaths occurred in Eastern Orleans Parish, specifically the lower ninth ward; in Lakeview and Gentilly, adjacent to Lake Pontchartrain; and in St Bernard Parish (Figs. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. Prior to Hurricane Katrina the public school system of New Orleans was one of the lowest-performing districts in the state of Louisiana. According to the National Hurricane Center, 1,836 people lost their lives as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Older adults were clearly the most affected population cohort during Hurricane Katrina, particularly people 75 years old and older, who made up 49% of victims in Louisiana, whereas their age cohort represents fewer than 6% of both the greater New Orleans and the overall Louisiana population. This study is subject to a number of limitations. The evacuation of hurricane victims continued, and crews began to rebuild the breached levees. Another possible explanation is that older people are more likely to die of drowning and injury during a hurricane or flood and that comorbidities contribute to their vulnerability to storm-associated mortality. There are many different conclusions on how many people actually died. Berman, Amy "peerReview": true, The major causes of death include: drowning (40%), injury and trauma (25%), and heart conditions (11%). The state coroner was forwarded 446 out-of-state death certificates for Louisiana residents. Victims died primarily in Orleans Parish (70%), St Bernard Parish (14%), Jefferson Parish (4%), and East Baton Rouge Parish (3%). Anderson, Evan D. and and Nelson, H. Wayne Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States.It was the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the third-strongest landfalling U.S. hurricane on record. First, a universally accepted standard definition of a hurricane-related death has not been established. 2009. The mean age of Katrina victims was 69.0 years (95% confidence interval [CI], 67.8–70.2), and their age range was 0 to 102 years. West, Jill Drowning and injury-related deaths occurred predominantly near levee infrastructure breaches. We identified 971 Katrina-related deaths in Louisiana and 15 deaths among Katrina evacuees in other states. Merz, Mirjam Data on race/ethnicity were missing for 42 victims (4%), age was missing for 22 victims (2%), and sex was missing for 4 victims (<1%). The power outages and dire conditions reported in certain New Orleans hospitals after the storm underscore the importance of disaster preparedness. Full text views reflects PDF downloads, PDFs sent to Google Drive, Dropbox and Kindle and HTML full text views. His death certificate specified drowning while trying to save a family member who resided in the greater New Orleans area as the cause of death. and The mechanism of injury was unspecified for 226 trauma or injury deaths; specified injury-related causes of death included heat exposure (n = 6), unintentional firearms death (n = 4), homicide (n = 2), suicide (n = 4), gas poisoning (n = 3), and electrocution (n = 1; Table 1). 2011. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite image of Hurricane Katrina, taken on August 28, 2005. 2010. There were many decisions in the series of events leading to the storm that contributed to the high death toll. Achour, Nebil Krongkant, Parichatt By September 1 an estimated 30,000 people were seeking shelter under the damaged roof of the Superdome, and an additional 25,000 had gathered at the Convention Center. Hurricane Katrina Deaths, Louisiana, 2005 - Volume 2 Issue 4. As the recovery began, dozens of countries contributed funds and supplies, and Canada and Mexico deployed troops to the Gulf Coast to assist with the cleanup and rebuilding. and "crossMark": true, for this article. However, stratified analyses evaluating the effect of race within age groups revealed that the dominant effect of age on overall storm mortality masked the differential effect of race in most age groups in Orleans Parish, where race-specific mortality rates were on average 2.5 times higher among blacks compared with whites. Hurricane Katrina surfaced around the Bahamas on August 23, 2005. Furthermore, the findings in this report are subject to at least three limitations. The majority of Hurricane Katrina--related deaths occurred in Louisiana and Mississippi . On August 31 the first wave of evacuees arrived at the Red Cross shelter at the Houston Astrodome, some 350 miles (560 km) away from New Orleans, but tens of thousands remained in the city. The majority of evacuees had lived in Orleans Parish (40%), Jefferson Parish (22%), St Tammany Parish (5%), and St Bernard Parish (4%). Czajkowski, Jeffrey Gerber, Thomas C. The findings in this report will aid public health and emergency preparedness efforts and may help reduce the mortality burden in future natural disasters. OBJECTIVE Hurricane Katrina struck the US Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, causing unprecedented damage to numerous communities in Louisiana and Mississippi.