New Orleans marks One year after Hurricane Katrina
Ernesto heads for Florida, USA
ATCA Briefings
ATCA: The Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance
is a philanthropic expert initiative founded in 2001 to understand and
to address complex global challenges. ATCA conducts collective Socratic
dialogue on global opportunities and threats arising from climate chaos,
radical poverty, organised crime, extremism, informatics, nanotechnology,
robotics, genetics, artificial intelligence and financial systems. Present
membership of ATCA is by invitation only and has over 5,000 distinguished
members: including several from the House of Lords, House of Commons,
EU Parliament, US Congress & Senate, G10's Senior Government officials
and over 1,500 CEOs from financial institutions, scientific corporates
and voluntary organisations as well as over 750 Professors from academic
centres of excellence worldwide.
The views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily
representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. Please do not forward
or use the material circulated without permission and full attribution.
London, UK - 29 August 2006, 12:50 GMT - New Orleans
marks One year after Hurricane Katrina -- Ernesto heads for Florida, USA
[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not
necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts
collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]
On the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which battered the US Gulf
Coast and swamped New Orleans last year, our thoughts and prayers are with
the victims and their families. Officials and residents are mindful of nature's
force a year to the day since Hurricane Katrina flooded most of New Orleans,
killing 1,500 people and causing over USD 80 billion in damage.
Meanwhile, tropical Storm Ernesto has begun intensifying on Tuesday as it
has left Cuba and heads over open water towards south Florida where forecasters
say there is a chance it can come ashore at hurricane strength. A state of
emergency is in effect in Florida as Ernesto approaches. Residents are stocking
up on supplies and tourists have been ordered out of the Florida Keys while
courts and schools remain closed.
A year after one of the worst natural disasters in US history, the shattered
city of New Orleans has turned its attention to mourning and also celebrations
of life. In broken neighbourhoods, churches and the City Hall, residents are
gathering on Tuesday for vigils marking the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
They plan to remember the dead, ringing bells to mark the moment one of the
city's flood walls breached and water engulfed the northern edges of the city.
The US National Hurricane Center said Ernesto is expected to come ashore along
the middle to upper Florida Keys and heavily populated south Florida in 18
to 24 hours. Ernesto was briefly the year's first hurricane on Sunday when
its top winds reached 75 mph (121 kph) before it weakened over the mountains
of Haiti.
In New Orleans, Wreathes will be laid on the site of each successive levee
break, dotting the city with bouquets in a commemoration of the flood. In
one of the Crescent City's age-old traditions, a jazz funeral is to wind through
downtown streets, beginning with a sombre dirge and ending with a song of
joy.
At the city's convention centre, where for days tired refugees waited last
year in vain for food, medical assistance and buses, President Bush is to
join an ecumenical prayer service. Others plan to mark the occasion privately
at home with their own prayers, including personal calls for protection.
Katrina touched Florida before making landfall at 6:10am Local Time on August
29th, 2005, in Buras, a tiny fishing town 65 miles south of New Orleans on
one of the fingers of land jutting out into the Gulf of Mexico. Entire blocks
of houses, bars and shops have vanished as they were whipped into the Gulf
by a wall of water 21 feet high. In New Orleans, the sun came out after the
violent winds subsided, but the worst came after that: The industrial canal
began to leak, and when two sections of the wall fell, a muddy torrent was
released that yanked homes off their foundations. Throughout the city, other
parts of the levee system began to fail. With each breach came a cascade of
water, until 80 percent of the city was submerged.
Throughout New Orleans, white trailers still line driveways in neighbourhoods
where debris is stacked up in piles and unchecked weeds have overtaken abandoned
houses. Only half the population has returned. Emergency medical care is doled
out in an abandoned department store, while six of New Orleans' nine hospitals
remain closed. Only 54 of 128 public schools are expected to open this fall.
The one-year mark is a reminder of how much still needs to be done.
[ENDS]
We look forward to your further thoughts, observations and views. Thank you.
Best wishes
For and on behalf of DK Matai, Chairman, Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance
(ATCA)
ATCA: The Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance
is a philanthropic expert initiative founded in 2001 to understand and to
address complex global challenges. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue
on global opportunities and threats arising from climate chaos, radical poverty,
organised crime, extremism, informatics, nanotechnology, robotics, genetics,
artificial intelligence and financial systems. Present membership of ATCA
is by invitation only and has over 5,000 distinguished members: including
several from the House of Lords, House of Commons, EU Parliament, US Congress
& Senate, G10's Senior Government officials and over 1,500 CEOs from financial
institutions, scientific corporates and voluntary organisations as well as
over 750 Professors from academic centres of excellence worldwide.
The views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative
of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. Please do not forward or use the material
circulated without permission and full attribution.
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