Katrina: Louisiana and Breton National Wildlife Essay

Submitted By nkkhanh
Words: 550
Pages: 3
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Katrina hurricane first hit America, specifically New Orleans, in 2005. However, its impacts have continued many years after. The effects of the hurricane were far-reaching in many areas of environment, economy and human being. First, Katrina hurricane has caused significant damages to the environment. Its surge devastated coastal areas by causing the substantial beach erosion. According to the US Geological Survey, approximately 217 square miles of land was transformed to water. Those areas used to be the breeding grounds for marine mammals, brown pelicans, turtles, fish and redhead ducks. Breton National Wildlife Refuge also lost about half of its areas affecting the habitats of sea turtle, sandhill cranes or Alabama Beach mice. In general, about 20 percent of the local marshes were permanently flooded by water. Moreover, according Skytruth, Katrina hurricane caused oil spills from over 44 facilities throughout southern Louisiana which resulted in over seven million gallons of oil being leaked. Some of them entered to the ecosystem in Meraux and Gulf of Mexico, causing the massive numbers of fish dying.
On the other hand, hurricane Katrina was the costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. The storm deeply effected to the U.S. economy in general and the New Orleans economy in particular. In fact, thousands of local residents were left unemployment. According to ABC news, it is estimated that over 70,000 jobs had lost until July 2007. Besides, Katrina damaged almost 30 oil platforms and caused the closure of nine refineries. It also affected to the forestry industry by flooding and destroying over 1.3 million acres of forest lands. And, approximately 600,000 people in New Orleans who worked in non-farm industry were affected by the hurricane. Accounting all those above together with the damages of the potential interruption of oil supply, destruction of highway infrastructure and decreasing in export, Katrina hurricane might cost over 150 billion US dollar.
As a result, Katrina redistributed over one million people from the central Gulf coast, which became the largest diaspora in the history of the United States. Houston, Texas had an increase of
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