How a City Slowly Drowned

This case summarizes events preceding the Hurricane Katrina, which was one of the worst natural catastrophes in the modern history of the USA. It raises questions about the lack of reasonable prevention and preparation actions due to flimsy structure and management of the responsible organizations and persons, invalidity and inconsistence of their actions and incapability of making the decisions in a timely manner. As a result of the unstructured and incoherent activities, we could observe several ineffective and costly attempts to mitigate floods and hurricanes. In the beginning the local officials, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and “White Houses past and present always seem penny-wise and pound-foolish” because of the chain of the wrong decisions, which is indicated by Republican Sen. David Vitter’s words “Instead of spending millions now, we are going to spend billions later” (Grunwald and Glasser).
One of the key actors in this case who made the most important decisions was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The agency had a budget formulated by the earmarks. The Corps in Louisiana were getting more money for the protection from hurricanes than any other state, yet, the actions were not taken care of until the very last moment. In the late 19th century the Corps, were holding to “levees-only” policy. So it is not surprising, that the U.S. Army Corps have implemented the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet project in 1965, which increased the storm wave when Katrina hit New Orleans (Grunwald and Glasser). This is an evidence of poorly thought-out decision made by this agency. The Corps haven’t been interested in hurricanes until Betsy hit the city. No wonder that evaluation of the threats was again commissioned to the Corps instead of another research institute or agency. It becomes obvious that the Corps had failed their mission, but still had the authority for the implementation.
Other key actors of the case are politicians, particularly the local officials and the