Short Essay On Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina

Striking the US on the morning of the 29th day of August, Katrina, one of the deadliest hurricanes to hit the nation, stands as the most destructive. It had a death toll of about 1833, with millions of others remaining homeless. The loss that the nation suffered as a consequence, as per the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), went beyond $108 billion (Zimmerman, 2015). First hitting the US’s Gulf Coast, the hurricane fast spread inland making a landfall with the strength of a Category-3 rating. The hurricane ranked sixth in terms of strength. As well, it was a large storm with waves stretching to between 25 and 30 nautical miles, with an extreme swath of hurricane winds extending to more than 75 nautical miles to the east from the point of origin (Zimmerman, 2015).

Actions of Officials

What turned out to be Hurricane Katrina was a tropical depression that was formed by the 23rd day of August 2005 over the Bahamas, and fortunately, the meteorological department was able to give a timely warning. A day before the hurricane made landfall, Ray Nagin, the New Orleans mayor, issued a mandatory order of evacuation. Amidst the challenges most acted heroically, and the Coast Guard for instance rescued up to 34,000 people (Pao, 2015). Even ordinary citizens

Direct Relief also responded to the disaster through delivering medical aid worth more than $47 million and $4.6 million in cash to help rebuild the affected areas of Mississippi, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana (Benveniste, 2016). For the case of Red Cross it was purely social responsibility though the government engagement was a sign of integrity. Other organizations such as Wal-Mart also got actively engaged by trying to boost their corporate social responsibility standards, thereby, simple business ethics (Scott,