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Hello everyone. Welcome to a special
edition of CNN 10. Today, August 29th,
marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina
made landfall in New Orleans. It was the
deadliest and costliest hurricane in
recent US history. We want to reflect on
this topic, especially for those of you
who may not have been born yet or who
want to learn more about it. We will
take a look at the wise and the how this
powerful storm unfolded, as well as what
our nation learned, because many of
those lessons can minimize risks and
tragedy during the inevitable natural
disasters of the future. Hurricane
Katrina made landfall in southeastern
Louisiana as a powerful category 3
hurricane just after 6:00 a.m. local
time. The storm then continued on to
Mississippi, leaving a trail of
destruction from Buxy to the Florida
panhandle. An estimated 1 million people
left New Orleans before the storm in the
city's first ever evacuation order, but
many stayed or were unable to leave. The
aftermath was like nothing the country
had ever seen.
>> From New Orleans, many reports are
coming in stating total structural
failure in the New Orleans metro area.
More than 80% of New Orleans was
underwater after the levies that were
designed to protect the city failed.
Those who sheltered in place and
survived the storm were suddenly
stranded, stuck in their atticss or on
their roofs, surrounded by putrid flood
waters, and forced to endure sweltering
temperatures without electricity. We
won't help.
>> We want
>> Both the National Guard and Coast Guard
rescued tens of thousands of stranded
survivors, including at the city's
iconic Superdome. Nearly 25,000 sought
shelter at the stadium, which faced
heavy storm damage leading to
deteriorating conditions. The losses
from Katrina were staggering. More than
1,800 lives were lost, the majority of
those in Louisiana. And for those who
survived, many had little to go home to.
Homes were flooded, swept off their
foundations, or completely destroyed.
Sections of roads and bridges were
washed out. More than 1 million people
in the Gulf region were displaced from
their homes. The population of New
Orleans alone decreased by over 50% in
the year after Katrina. And despite
record setting insurance claims, many
who returned homes still found it too
costly to rebuild. The storm also
highlighted long-standing flaws in
disaster preparedness systems and
brought to the forefront deeprooted
issues of race, class, and inequality
that persist to this day.
>> Katrina uh exposed
serious problems in our response
capability at all levels of government.
And to the extent that the federal
government didn't fully do its job
right, I take responsibility. And it's
in our national interest that we find
out exactly what went on and so that we
can better respond.
>> As the world was still struggling to
comprehend the full scope of Katrina's
destruction, the unimaginable was
unfolding at New Orleans biggest
hospital. Some of the city's most
vulnerable populations, too sick, maybe
too injured to evacuate, were now
stranded inside Charity Hospital. And
then they lost power. That is when this
storm's biggest heroes emerged. doctors,
surgeons, nurses, and administrators who
refused to leave their patients and
worked around the clock to keep them
alive. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta was inside
the hospital as the crisis unfolded.
Doc, thank you so much for being here
with us today.
>> Um, I want to start from the beginning.
What was going through your mind when
you first learned that CNN was going to
deploy you to New Orleans where this
tragedy had just happened and then you
heard about what was happening at
Charity Hospital? I I wanted to go
immediately and and I'll tell you what
had happened that was so interesting as
often happens in natural disasters. The
initial reports were that Charity
Hospital had been completely evacuated
that there were no patients there. But
at the same time, I was getting text
messages and emails from friends of mine
who worked at Charity Hospital on dying
phones because they had no power. And
they were sending me messages saying,
"Hey, we have been forgotten. No one
thinks that we're even here. And this is
a disaster. This is some of what I saw.
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>> Any hospital would have a difficult time
in a disaster like this one, even one
with the name charity.
>> At New Orleans largest public hospital,
the goal of the staff today that nobody
dies. We are their only hope and we are
trying as hard as we can to get them
some help.
>> What's going to happen to some of these
people if we don't get them out of here?
>> Two of them have already died here on
this ramp waiting to get out in this
very spot.
>> There's no electricity, no water, no
food, but more than 200 patients. And
it's been this way for days. So this is
what a charity hospital looks like in
the middle of a natural disaster. We're
in downtown New Orleans. This is
actually an auditorium that we're
standing in now. At one time held up to
40 patients all around this place.
Several patients still remain here as
well.
>> We are at the point where it's
developing nation medicine probably uh
without the power without light.
>> It's it's like a third world country. We
know the risks and we just doing the
best we can.
>> But this is the United States. Tuesday
the governor said this place would be
evacuated.
3 days later, we watch as medical
personnel at Two Lane, right across the
street, were picked up by helicopters
while charity's patients, some on
ventilators being worked by hand pumps,
waited in this parking garage last
night. This hospital had a good night
because nobody died. Fortunate because
the morg, which is in the basement, is
flooded. The dead have to wait in the
stairwell.
at the hospital named charity. It takes
good doctors, quick thinking, and a lot
of faith
>> because victory today is mine.
>> Powerful stuff, doc. Now, that hospital
as we just saw there, it did have
generators, but they they didn't work.
Do you remember the why? What happened
there?
>> You know, if you look at New Orleans as
a city, as you probably know, Koi, it's
sort of a bowl, right? So, when water
flows in, it goes down and it floods.
That's what happens. This still
surprises me to this day that the
generators and the backup generators,
they were all in the basement. So, this
was a problem that probably could have
been anticipated. Uh, but they just
didn't have any sources of power that
were higher up out of the flood zone and
that's that led to a catastrophic
problem. There was no fixing this
because the generators were literally
underwater. Do you think that maybe
there are some other lessons that
hospitals or cities or communities might
have learned and so that those lives
weren't lost in vain? You know, I I've
thought about this a lot because you
hate to be too critical of people who
are trying to do the right thing and
institutions and organizations trying to
do the right thing. I think it's really
important to remember whether it's a
conflict zone or natural disaster,
places of care, in this case hospitals,
they are often times inside those zones
as well. So, how do you harden their
walls? How do you make sure we couldn't
even communicate? I mean, the phones
were down and we know had no power. So,
eventually your your cell phones,
everything stopped working. Um, how do
you protect against that? And obviously
this generator problem. I mean, again,
this was probably something that could
have been prevented, but I think if you
go to hospitals now in areas that are
floodprone, those generators and those
backup power systems, they're up high.
You got you got to protect them.
>> You know, I value your wisdom and
perspective, doc, and you witness um how
physically, mentally, emotionally
distressed so many people were. What
would be your advice out there to to any
people who might be facing some sort of
challenging time in their life?
>> I I would say this that, you know, if
you would ask some of the people who
really rose up and did remarkable things
during Hurricane Katrina, if you asked
them a week before, hey, are you going
to be the guy that's going to rise up?
They would have probably said, "No, not
me. I'm not that guy." Then all of a
sudden, these remarkable heroes, unsung
heroes, uh, stepped up. So, I I would
say, you know, it's it was inspiring.
You know, incredible things come out of
terrible things and you never know just
how much you can rise to the challenge
until you're in a situation like that,
but we see heroic stories all over the
world. And I think this was another
example of that.
>> Through our struggles, we can learn
strength. Absolutely. And our tough
times can make us tougher.
>> Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.
>> The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration or Noah estimates
Hurricane Katrina caused more than 160
billion dollars in damages to the Gulf
Coast. Days ahead of the storm, the
National Hurricane Center issued
warnings to Alabama, Mississippi, and
Louisiana, all directly in its path. The
eye of the storm was forecast to pass
right over New Orleans. Our Allison
Chinchar is here to help explain what
made Hurricane Katrina such a powerful
storm and give us some of the science
behind its catastrophic impact on the
Gulf Coast. Allison, what made New
Orleans and the surrounding region so
vulnerable to a storm like Katrina that
that levy system eventually just failed?
>> It did. And unfortunately for New
Orleans sake, they sit below sea level.
This means when all the water rushes in
from a storm like Katrina, it has to
just go into the city. Now, here's a
look at Katrina. All of that water from
the very strong winds of the storm just
got pushed into the city. Now, let's
pretend this colander is the levy system
that is in New Orleans. Okay.
Essentially, when the levey system works
properly, all of the water that comes in
drains out through the levies or in this
instance, the holes in the colander.
However, when the levy system does not
work, all of that water comes in and the
city acts like a bowl. It basically
fills up with all the water and that's
why we ended up having so many flooding
problems in the city.
>> All right, Allison, Katrina actually
made landfall all the way in South
Florida as a category one hurricane days
before it hit New Orleans. How and why
did it intensify so rapidly?
>> Yeah, so the interesting thing about
Katrina, people often forget that it
actually made landfall over Florida. So,
take a look at the graphic we have
behind us. This is actually going to
show you the actual track and path. You
can see it start to form right through
there. It crosses over South Florida as
a category one hurricane, but then it
goes back out over the open Gulf. This
is when it intensifies, gets all the way
up to a category 5 storm. And the reason
for that is the Gulf at the time was a
boiling pot of water. It was filled with
incredibly warm sea surface
temperatures. And that's fuel for
hurricanes like this. But then also
notice it weakened back down to a
category 3. That's because it was
undergoing something called an eyewall
replacement cycle. In theory, that's
supposed to help make them stronger. It
just didn't get to complete the cycle
long enough before it made landfall.
This was good news in terms of winds. It
made them weaker for the actual system
at landfall. But it allowed for much
more water to be pushed into the city,
leading to a lot of the flooding
problems that that city had.
>> You mentioned New Orleans being like a
bowl. Scientists say that New Orleans is
actually sinking even further. How do
city officials protect a place like New
Orleans?
>> Right. So, after Katrina happened, there
were a lot of advancements put in place.
For example, we try to make advancements
in things like the levies, floodgates,
other precautions like that that we put
upgrades into to try to prevent another
Katrina from happening in the future.
>> Allison, thank you so much for your
expertise, your insight, helping us
understand this tragic incident that
happened two decades ago. I know I
learned a lot. So, thank you.
>> Welcome.
>> We hope you learned something, too, and
hope you might be able to reflect on the
impact this historic storm left on the
United States. We hope this feature
might help us all have more empathy for
people who, God forbid, might ever have
to live through a natural disaster. As
Dr. Gupta said earlier, incredible
things can come from terrible things,
and it's up to us as individuals to rise
up and help where we can. Hope you have
a great weekend, and we'll see you right
back here for a regularly scheduled 10
minutes of news. I'm Koi Wire and we are
CNN 10.
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