TOPICS

Field Survey on the Recovery Process
after the Hurricane Katrina DisasterPort and Harbor Department
SHIBASAKI Ryuichi (Dr.Eng.), Senior Researcher(Keywords) Great East Japan Earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, disaster recovery
1. Outline
In April 2011, we carried out a field survey on therecovery process following the Hurricane Katrina
disaster in the USA (August 2005). Our aim in doing
so was to derive new lessons in terms of recoveringfrom a heavy inundation disaster, to assist therecovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake ofMarch 11th last year.
The specific details enumerated in the survey were:(1) the system of budgets and content of measures
for recovery both by the federal government(through FEMA, USACE and other bodies) and by
the state government, as well as the actual state ofrecovery; (2) the process whereby recovery policies
and plans were drawn up at the various levels offederal, state and local government (county, city,community) and the system of support; (3) thesituation of population recovery in New Orleans, thecity at the center of the disaster area; and (4)implications for Japan based on the above.
A more detailed analysis can be found in theNILIM Technical Note referenced below. This paper
will introduce just two particularly interesting results
to emerge from this survey.
2. The rationale on functional strengthening(long-term recovery)
Efforts to restore infrastructure and individual
housing (which accounted for a significant
proportion of the Katrina disaster) were mainly
handled by the system of support (PA, IA) fromFEMA, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency. In contrast, the Community Development
Block Grant (CDBG) funded by the Department of
Housing and Urban Development is playing a central
role in aspects of long-term “functionalstrengthening” going beyond restoration (although
there is also the FEMA-HMGP program funded byFEMA). A characteristic of CDBG is that it provides
blanket grants with no specific purpose of use
specified by the central government. The Louisiana
State government decides the content of CDBG
spending, on condition that recovery plans drawn up
at local level are consistent with the policy andvision set out by the Louisiana Recovery Authority(LRA) at state level.
Even the recovery of levees by the United States
Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) was not simply
a case of restoration, but involved the introduction ofa more robust structure. Basically, levees weredesigned to withstand floods at an intensity
occurring once every century, but would not becompletely destroyed even by 1-in-500 year floods.
3. Present situation of population recovery in
New Orleans
Five months after the disaster, the city of New
Orleans announced a recovery plan that wouldinvolve integrating residential districts under theguidance of the then mayor. Owing to strong
opposition from local residents, however, the plan
was withdrawn, and a new plan for recovery of all
districts with resident participation was drawn up 22
months after the disaster.

Figure Situation of population recovery in various
districts of New Orleans (as of July 2010). Coloring
indicates the population ratio compared to
pre-disaster levels in each district; dark green areas
are non-residential land.

But now, more than five years later, population
recovery in some districts is still very slow, as shownin the image below; the population of New Orleansas a whole is still only 75% of what it was before thedisaster. In view of this, a new flexible Master Plan
with incentives aimed at integrated habitation – notcoercive but based on various measures – was drawn
up in 2010.
4. Conclusion
Today, more than six years after the Hurricane
Katrina disaster, functional strengthening andrecovery of population are still in progress. This
merely serves to underline the fact that recoveringfrom a disaster is a long process, one that requires
support based on long-term commitment.
[Reference]
Ryuichi Shibasaki, Recovery Process fromHurricane Katrina Disaster – Implication for
Recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake,
NILIM Technical Note No. 650- 2 -