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Coping with Katrina and her Cousins

Hurricane Katrina claims a water-based victim. Copyright: Scott Carter, from stock.xchng.

When, at the end of August 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf of Mexico, the resultant storm surge caused floods in much of the Mississippi Delta, including the city of New Orleans, 80% of which went under water. Katrina led to the deaths of 1800 people and led to an estimated 500 000 people becoming homeless.

Two years on and with only a quarter of the federal aid having been spent by the authorities, it is thought that at least 300 000 New Orleans residents are yet to return to their city, having sought refuge in the neighbouring states of Texas and Arizona.

Katrina affected countless thousands of people. In its aftermath it continues to cause misery, loss of life and almost constant danger for many. In New Orleans, as elsewhere, the hurricane's power hit the weakest the hardest. Many of the city's poorest districts, such as the Lower Ninth, remain virtually deserted.

So what of the future? Katrina is viewed as 'the big one', the hurricane that all feared would happen. But Katrina is just one link in a chain of natural disasters caused by hurricanes: Wilma, Dennis, Ivan, Charley, Frances, Jeanne, Isabel and Floyd - cousins of Katrina - each has hit the Gulf of Mexico since 1999.

Faced with the increased frequency of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, the US authorities are now working on a plan to return coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico to natural wetlands. These features provide a natural barrier against the flooding caused by hurricane-related storm surges. The wetlands have shrunk in size in recent years due, in part, to the construction of flood protection levees, ironically which were built to protect coastal communities. The levees have diverted silt from the Mississippi River, preventing its build-up into salt marshes and other forms of wetland.

Under the plan, $40 billion would be spent on the Mississippi coastline. There would be a voluntary buyout of tens of thousands of homes in the region. Strong resistance can be expected, but you feel that once some home owners and businesses agree to sell up, communities will dwindle and eventually become unsustainable. At that point it is thought that the trickle of willing volunteers could become a torrent.

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