C3.4.2 Vulnerabilities to extreme weather events in megadeltas in the context of multiple stresses: the case of Hurricane Katrina (Chapter 7, Box 7.4)

It is possible to say with a high level of confidence that sustainable development in some densely populated megadeltas of the world will be challenged by climate change, not only in developing countries but in developed countries also. The experience of the U.S. Gulf Coast with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is a dramatic example of the impact of a tropical cyclone – of an intensity expected to become more common with climate change – on the demographic, social and economic processes and stresses of a major city located in a megadelta.

In 2005, the city of New Orleans had a population of about half a million, located on the delta of the Mississippi River along the U.S. Gulf Coast. The city is subject not only to seasonal storms (Emanuel, 2005) but also to land subsidence at an average rate of 6 mm/yr, rising to 10-15 mm/year or more (Dixon et al., 2006). Embanking the main river channel has led to a reduction in sedimentation, leading to the loss of coastal wetlands that tend to reduce storm surge flood heights, while urban development throughout the 20th century has significantly increased land use and settlement in areas vulnerable to flooding. A number of studies of the protective levee system had indicated growing vulnerabilities to flooding, but actions were not taken to improve protection.

In late August 2005, Hurricane Katrina – which had been a Category 5 storm but weakened to Category 3 before landfall – moved onto the Louisiana and Mississippi coast with a storm surge, supplemented by waves, reaching up to 8.5 m above sea level along the southerly-facing shallow Mississippi coast (see also C3.4.1). In New Orleans, the surge reached around 5 m, overtopping and breaching sections of the city’s 4.5 m defences, flooding 70 to 80% of New Orleans, with 55% of the city’s properties inundated by more than 1.2 m of water and maximum flood depths up to 6 m. In Louisiana 1,101 people died, nearly all related to flooding, concentrated among the poor and elderly.

Across the whole region, there were 1.75 million private insurance claims, costing in excess of US$40 billion (Hartwig, 2006), while total economic costs are projected to be significantly in excess of US$100 billion. Katrina also exhausted the federally-backed National Flood Insurance Program (Hunter, 2006), which had to borrow US$20.8 billion from the Government to fund the Katrina residential flood claims. In New Orleans alone, while flooding of residential structures caused US$8 to 10 billion in losses, US$3 to 6 billion was uninsured. Of the flooded homes, 34,000 to 35,000 carried no flood insurance, including many that were not in a designated flood risk zone (Hartwig, 2006).

Beyond the locations directly affected by the storm, areas that hosted tens of thousands of evacuees had to provide shelter and schooling, while storm damage to the oil refineries and production facilities in the Gulf region raised highway vehicle fuel prices nationwide. Reconstruction costs have driven up the costs of building construction across the southern USA, and federal government funding for many programmes was reduced because of commitments to provide financial support for hurricane damage recovery. Six months after Katrina, it was estimated that the population of New Orleans was 155,000, with this number projected to rise to 272,000 by September 2008; 56% of its pre-Katrina level (McCarthy et al., 2006).