Mother Nature Enraged: The Poor Pay the Price

"Does nature really attack the poor?" 

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A city subject to natural hazards should be organized in such a way as to ensure the population's safety. Certain measures should be taken to limit damage resulting from natural disasters.  This is not the case in some parts of the world.

Québec Education Program, Secondary School Education, Cycle One, p. 277

Source : Wikipédia

Big cities that are subject to natural hazards usually have intervention plans designed to limit damage and loss of life during disasters. This is the case, for example, for both Quito and San Francisco.

Mississippi and Louisiana are coastal states that border the Gulf of Mexico, an area in which hurricanes are frequent. Moreover, the city of New Orleans was built on reclaimed swampland several metres below sea level. In addition to the Mississippi River, several lakes and canals drain the city and are contained by dikes, which have been built over the years. Rainwater does not drain out of the city on its own; it must be pumped out to sea.

Source : Wikipédia

Yet at the time when Hurricane Katrina was heading towards Louisiana at the end of August 2005, the city of New Orleans did not have an emergency evacuation plan. In addition, the maintenance of several dams and dikes had been neglected for a number of years.

The debate about the various factors behind this negligence is not over. It is clear, however, that the poorest segments of the population were the hardest hit.  

Before Hurricane Katrina, 1.4 million people lived in New Orleans.
Louisiana is one of the poorest states in the U.S.

 
Source : Wikipédia

A few links, for more information and images:

Hurricane Digital Memory Bank
This site uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the stories and digital record of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
http://hurricanearchive.org/

Wikipedia references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hurricane_Katrina: photo gallery

MSN_NBC feature pages on "Katrina the long road back"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13146989/: 

Google Maps: satellite photos of New Orleans.

Hurricane Katrina Imager using Google Earch http://earth.google.com/katrina.html

Also for “Aerial and Satellite Images of Disaster Locations” that include Katrina
http://www.globexplorer.com/disasterimages/index.shtml
http://www.kathryncramer.com/photos/uncategorized/319526.JPG: photo of the breach in the dike

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