Hurricane Ike compared with Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Ike
Hurricane Ike was the third major hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane season. It was formed as a tropical disturbance off the coast of Africa on 1st September 2008, then tracking south along the Cape Verde islands as it developed, and dissipated on September 16th, although it only became a tropical storm on the 13th west of the Cape Verde islands. It hit its peak intensity on the 5th, when it was a category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph and a pressure of 935 mbar. On the Integrated Kinetic Energy scale, a measure of storm surge destructive potential, which ranges from 1 to 6, Ike at its peak earned a 5.2, and in comparison, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 at its peak was 5.1. As such, Ike could have potentially had a record breaking storm surge and caused worse damage than what was seen with Katrina. However, from here the storm slowed and it made landfall as a category 2 hurricane.
Effects
Areas affected include the Turks and Caicos Islands, Bahamas, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, the United States, including Florida Keys, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley, and Canada including the Canadian Shield, Ontario and Quebec.
People
Buildings
Services
Industry and Economy
07 confirmed deaths
202 people missing
00,000 homes damaged in Cuba
90% of buildings in Haiti damaged
80% of homes in Turks and Caicos Islands destroyed
Water and electricity supplies cut off
Schools, airports and shops closed
Galveston Hospital destroyed
Phone lines ...
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Effects
Areas affected include the Turks and Caicos Islands, Bahamas, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, the United States, including Florida Keys, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley, and Canada including the Canadian Shield, Ontario and Quebec.
People
Buildings
Services
Industry and Economy
07 confirmed deaths
202 people missing
00,000 homes damaged in Cuba
90% of buildings in Haiti damaged
80% of homes in Turks and Caicos Islands destroyed
Water and electricity supplies cut off
Schools, airports and shops closed
Galveston Hospital destroyed
Phone lines down
Cost $31.5 billion
Turks and Caicos Islands' tourist industry crushed
Texas oil refineries closed down
Cuban sugar-cane crop devastated
Preparations
These were some of the measures taken in preparation for Hurricane Ike
* The government declared a state of emergency for Florida and Texas
* There was a mandatory evacuation order for the residents of Galveston Island
* Supplies and emergency response crews were positioned in Florida and along the Gulf Coast
* Food, water, ice, generators, fuel, blankets and cots and plastic sheeting distributed throughout Texas and Louisiana
* Disaster Recovery Centers opened in Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Hardin, Harris, Houston, Jefferson, Jasper, Montgomery, Newton, Polk, San Jacinto, Tyler, Waller and Walker counties in Texas and in Lake Charles, St. Francisville and Assumption, East Baton Rouge, Jefferson, Oberlin and Orleans parish, Louisiana; and Porter and Laporte counties in Indiana.
* Hospital patients evacuated
* Military forces, helicopters and aircrafts on standby
* Department of Agriculture evacuated livestock
* 1500 buses prepared in Texas in case of emergency evacuation
* Department of Information Resources insured that their data was on backup tapes which were taken to a safe location
So were the preparations effective?
Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest and costliest tropical storms, and in its aftermath there was uproar when it was discovered how little the government had done in preparation for the storm. The government then made many promises about the measures that they would take in the incidence of another storm, and in order to judge the effectiveness of the actions taken when the next comparable storm, Ike, was heading for America, we can compare the damage done by Hurricane Ike to the damage done by Hurricane Katrina three years earlier:
* Hurricane Katrina in 2005 cost $81.2 billion, whereas Ike cost $31.5 billion
* In Hurricane Katrina 1,836 people were confirmed dead and 705 missing, compared to 107 confirmed and 202 missing in Ike
* In preparation for Katrina very few people had evacuated and it was for this reason that so many were killed. For Ike most of the residents in the places which were potentially going to be hit worst were evacuated quickly and efficiently, thus keeping the number of casualties to a minimum
* Three years on from Katrina, thousands of displaced residents from Mississippi and Louisiana are still living in trailers. Almost immediately after Ike, government organisations and charities helped victims to rebuild their homes
