Hurricane Katrina
After Gus St. Pierre's testimony to the Senate in March of 2004, the White House sent the Army Corps of Engineers to see if they could perform badly-needed maintenance on levees that hadn't been touched since they were first built. It was discovered that many levees were slowly sinking under the surface. The USACE piled sandbags like Legos on top of some of the existing levees, including those along the Industrial Canal. Those quick fixes would slow down the flooding, but only delayed Katrina's wrath.
Ahead of the Hurricane, all oil companies evacuated their refineries along the coastline.
On August 29, 2005, the eye of Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the small town of Buras, Louisiana. Soon, water from Lake Pontchartrain overflowed and flooded the streets of New Orleans. Entire neighborhoods, including the Ninth Ward, were soon submerged in as many as 20 feet of water.
The Superdome, which was being used as a shelter of last resort, would lose electricity, running water and plumbing. The outer membrane of the Superdome's roof began to tear off the building, allowing rainwater to leak into the seating bowl and onto the field.
On August 30, with communications infrastructure in New Orleans completely decimated, the White House stepped in, dispatching FEMA and all military branches to work together on relief efforts.
Many of the MRE's were provided to the nearly 35,000 sheltered at the Superdome due to the stadium's refrigerators being inoperable. By September 2, FEMA and the National Guard had evacuated the remaining refugees from the Superdome to shelters in California, Arizona, Florida, Texas and Nevada.
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