bnaturaldisastermitigatedtechnologyeducation

One of the costliest and deadliest Atlantic hurricanes that occurred in U.S history is Hurricane Katrina. This hurricane was the sixth strongest overall. In August 23, 2005, Hurricane Katrina was started at the Bahamas and then crossed southern [|Florida], strengthening rapidly in the [|Gulf of Mexico]. The storm weakened before making its second landfall as a [|Category 3] storm on the morning of Monday, August 29 in southeast Louisiana. It caused severe destruction along the Gulf of Mexico coast from central Florida to Texas. It reported that at least 1,836 deads in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Ohio, and the number of missing is 705. Louisiana had the most severe damage, which is 1577 deads. Reports estimated that the loss that Katrina brought was $81.2 billion, and the total economic losses could be greater than $100 billion. The hurricane made three million people without electricity. Approximately more than a thousand of direct fatalities and 275,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people have been put out of place by the storm and the floods that followed. Many evacuees are staying in hotels or homes of friends and family, but thousands also have sought shelter in centers set up by the government agencies, Red Cross agencies and other organizations. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) also helped to prepare and predict Katrina before the hurricane began. [|FEMA] used logistical supply deployments and team with trucks. Volunteers from 50 states assisted local residents emerging from New Orleans and surrounding parishes before Katrina made landfall. In Florida, shelters were opened and schools closed. Numbers of evacuation orders were also issued. The Coast Guard rescued more than 33,500. The [|Department of Defense] also activated volunteer members of the [|Civil Air Patrol]. FEMA also provided housing assistance, rental assistance, and [|trailers] to more than 700,000 applicants. //A crowd of Hurricane Katrina survivors await entry to the Superdome//
 * Hurricane Katrina **
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About two and a half weeks later, the floods that covered 80 percent of New Orleans had subsided. Permanent and portable pumps were used to pump the water back to Lake Pontchartrain. According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 380 cubic meters (380,000 liters or 23,190,000 cubic inches) of water were being pumped out of New Orleans every second (see picture below).

//Pumping Water Out of// //New Orleans //

Poor design technology can not save people lives but superior design can reduce damage and life lost from natural disasters:
 * Roles of Advanced Technology**
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 * // New Orleans //// Levee System // ||

Due to the failure of the [|federal flood protection] system in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina caused the most severe loss of life and property damage in New Orleans and Louisiana. The failures of the federally built levees in New Orleans were due to system design flaws. The [|US Army Corps of Engineers] is responsible for the conception, design and construction of the region's flood-control system. They have failed to pay enough attention to public safety. The levees and floodwalls breached because of a combination of unfortunate choices and decisions, made over many years, at almost all levels of responsibility. There were two direct causes of the levee breaches. First, several levees with concrete floodwalls collapsed because of the way they were designed. Second, many levees and floodwalls were overtopped by water pouring over them eroding their foundations. Therefore, technology would have been helped to prevent, or at least mitigate the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, if the flood-control system has worked properly. On Tuesday, August 30, 2005, NASA's used Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer to retrieve cloud-top heights and cloud-tracked wind velocities for Hurricane Katrina (see picture below). At that time, the center of the storm was situated over the Tennessee valley. The storm was weakening and no longer classified as a hurricane. The purpose of these measurements can help atmospheric scientists compare results of computer-generated hurricane simulations with observed conditions so they can better represent and understand physical processes taking place in hurricanes. //Cloud Spirals and Outflow in Tropical Storm Katrina//
 * However, ** National Hurricane Center forecasts had correctly predicted that Katrina would aftect the area before landfall in Florida. H [|urricane watches and warnings] were issued 31.5 hours and 19.5 hours before landfall, only slightly less than the target thresholds of 36 and 24 hours. In response to the National Hurricane Center forecast, nearly 80 percent were evacuated before Hurricane Katrina threat. Florida Governor [|Jeb Bush] declared a [|state of emergency] on August 24 in advance of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in Florida. Shelters were opened and schools closed in several counties in the southern part of the state. A number of evacuation orders were also issued, mostly voluntary, although a mandatory evacuation was ordered for vulnerable housing in [|Martin County] . This has helped to mitigate the losses of lives Hurricane Katrina would have caused**.**

Another technology is the NASA's Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Light Detection and Ranging (EAARL) system. The aircraft took high-resolution observations to assess the amount of damage the hurricane caused to communities and the environment. On August 29, 2005, NASA’s QuikSCAT satellite observed Katrina's Category 4 hurricane force winds just before the storm made landfall. The image showed wind speed, wind direction, and areas of heavy rain. Measurements of the wind strength of Hurricane Katrina show winds similar to those shown by these QuikSCAT observations. The scatterometer showed microwave energy pulses that depended on wind speed and direction, helping scientists to monitor wind around the world. On Sunday, August 28, 2005, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission ( TRMM ) used the satellite's Precipitation Radar, Visible Infrared Scanner, Tropical Microwave Imager, and the GOES spacecraft to take image of Hurricane Katrina. TRMM looks underneath of the storm's clouds to reveal the rain structure. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. It is designed to monitor and study tropical rainfall. Beside those technologies mentioned above, ** Synoptic weather forecast is just one of the applications of science and technology to predict the weather forecasts by collecting quantitative date. **

In my opinion, the storm rapidly intensified after entering the Gulf of Mexico, growing from a category 3 hurricanes to a Category 5 hurricane due to the hurricane movement over the warm waters of the circle current. The warm water increased wind speeds of the hurricane. Therefore, global warming might have had a strong affect on hurricane Katrina activity. Architectural design and technology can ** mitigate global warming to reduce the hurricane activity in the future. **The alert of global warming and the need for sustainability have been in question since the energy crisis in the recent years. In opinion, global warming is a serious issue; if the temperature continues to go up, terrible natural disasters would take place: The ice from the North and South Pole might melt and result in a rise of the ocean levels, extreme weather conditions (such as longer droughts and stronger hurricanes), loss of habitat for wildlife and usable land for human existence. It is safe to assume that industry and inefficient energy used by humans are directly related to this global warming movement. Sustainability is a term invented to fight the effects of inefficient energy used by humans and the rise in global temperatures that can cause natural disasters. In order to encounter global warming, Architects intelligently designed buildings that use less energy to save the environment that we all live in. Architects and designers have come up with many strategies to help the building become more energy efficient. Therefore, the weathering forecast tenology today is a useful tool to perdict hurrican activity and alarm for evaculation. The streets still need to be improved for evacuation when hurricane alerts, With the signal on the streets could guide people to safety ground, and the wider street allow people to evacuate faster. The levees still need to be reevaluated and fixing hurricane and flood protection systems throughout the United States and also demanding engineering quality. Subject directly or indirectly relate to hurricane: world architectural can be improving to reduce global warming to reduce hurricane speed. May be, The Architectural sustainable design is the right things to do in the future to help reduce warm water in the ocean. It improves urban building performance, reduces air population that generate global warming. Through this research, the sustainable design has a tremendous of energy saving through building orientation. The sustainable design might not have to cost more. It is just a matter of developing an increased awareness of sustainable design issues and visualization. Sustainable design features are likely to produce a better quality indoor environment that improves productivity and employee protection, and indoor air quality that reduces the risk of future liability. Further more, the quality of life lived in sustainable urbanism is healthier, happier, and more independent and not least of all longer.
 * Personal Opinion**

Technology does make a huge difference, with the assistance of advanced technology, (such as Synoptic weather forecasts**,** Polarimetric Doppler Radar, Multi-angle Imaging Spectro Radiometer, scatterometer, and those technologies mentioned above** ), it’s useful to forecast the hurricane to mitigate its damage to the lowest level possible. University of **** Florida **** researchers has just recently built a training center to educate the public. They showed **the latest materials and techniques in hurricane-resistant housing. Their purpose is to encourage their use in architecture. The shingles are built to be able to stay attached in a 110-mph wind and garage doors are reinforced to endure a category 5 hurricane. Hopefully, scientist can invent more useful advanced technologies that can help prevent horrible destruction that natural disasters might bring to us. 1. [|Dyson, Michael Eric] (2006). Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster. New York: Perseus Books Group. 2. http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/research/projects/ 3. http://www.weather.gov/om/assessments/pdfs/Katrina.pdf 4. http://www.hhs.gov/disasters/emergency/naturaldisasters/hurricanes/katrina/index.html 5. http://eng.auburn.edu/admin/marketing/seminars/2007/l-roth.html
 * Conclusion**
 * Citation **

6. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2005/h2005_katrina.html 