Lake Pontchartrain is an estuary located in southeastern Louisiana in the United States. It covers an area of 630 square miles (1,600 km2) with an average depth of 12 to 14 feet. Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about 40 miles (64 km) from west to east and 24 miles (39 km) from south to north.
John Holmes Overton Sr., was an attorney and Democratic US Representative and US Senator from Louisiana. His nephew, Thomas Overton Brooks, was also a US representative, from the Shreveport-based 4th district of Louisiana.
William Charles Cole Claiborne was an American politician, best known as the first non-colonial governor of Louisiana. He also has the distinction of possibly being the youngest member of the United States Congress in U.S. history, although reliable sources differ about his age.
Hurricane Katrina was a devastating and deadly Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused 1,836 fatalities and damages estimated between $97.4 billion to $145.5 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. At the time, it was the costliest tropical cyclone on record, later tied by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Katrina was the twelfth tropical cyclone, the fifth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was also the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in the contiguous United States, gauged by barometric pressure.
As the center of Hurricane Katrina passed southeast of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, winds downtown were in the Category 1 range with frequent intense gusts. The storm surge caused approximately 23 breaches in the drainage canal and navigational canal levees and flood walls. As mandated in the Flood Control Act of 1965, responsibility for the design and construction of the city’s levees belongs to the United States Army Corps of Engineers and responsibility for their maintenance belongs to the Orleans Levee Board. The failures of levees and flood walls during Katrina are considered by experts to be the worst engineering disaster in the history of the United States. By August 31, 2005, 80% of New Orleans was flooded, with some parts under 15 feet (4.6 m) of water. The famous French Quarter and Garden District escaped flooding because those areas are above sea level. The major breaches included the 17th Street Canal levee, the Industrial Canal levee, and the London Avenue Canal flood wall. These breaches caused the majority of the flooding, according to a June 2007 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The flood disaster halted oil production and refining which increased oil prices worldwide.
The article covers the Hurricane Katrina effects by region, within the United States and Canada. The effects of Hurricane Katrina, in late August 2005, were catastrophic and widespread. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history, leaving at least 1,836 people dead, and a further 135 missing. The storm was large and had an effect on several different areas of North America.
Hurricane preparedness in New Orleans has been an issue since the city's early settlement because of its location.
This article contains a historical timeline of the events of Hurricane Katrina on August 23–30, 2005 and its aftermath.
From 1890 through 2006, the Orleans Levee Board (OLB) was the body of commissioners that oversaw the Orleans Levee District (OLD) which supervised the levee and floodwall system in Orleans Parish, Louisiana The role of the OLB has changed over time. Prior to Hurricane Betsy in 1965, the OLB developed land and sold it to raise money to build and improve flood protection levees. After Betsy, Congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1965 which directed the Army Corps of Engineers to design and build the hurricane flood protection system enveloping New Orleans. Owing to the 1965 legislation, the OLB's duties were now limited to collecting the 30% cost share for project design and construction, and to maintaining and operating completed flood protection structures.
The Bonnet Carré Spillway is a flood control operation in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Located in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, about 12 miles (19 km) west of New Orleans, it allows floodwaters from the Mississippi River to flow into Lake Pontchartrain and thence into the Gulf of Mexico. The spillway was constructed between 1929 and 1931, following the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, and has been designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
James Albert Noe Sr. was an American businessman and politician from Louisiana, who was briefly the 43rd Governor of Louisiana following the death of Oscar K. Allen in 1936.
Airline Highway is a divided highway in the U.S. state of Louisiana, built in stages between 1925 and 1953 to bypass the older Jefferson Highway. It runs 115.6 miles (186.0 km), carrying U.S. Highway 61 from New Orleans northwest to Baton Rouge and U.S. Highway 190 from Baton Rouge west over the Mississippi River on the Huey P. Long Bridge. US 190 continues west towards Opelousas on an extension built at roughly the same time.
The 1928 Louisiana gubernatorial election was held on April 17, 1928. Like in most Southern states between the Reconstruction era and the civil rights movement, Louisiana's Republican Party was virtually nonexistent in terms of electoral support. This meant that the Democratic primary held on January 17 was essentially the real contest to decide the governor, as winning the Democratic nomination would be tantamount to election as governor.
Henry Luse Fuqua Sr., was an American government official and politician. A Democrat, he is most notable for his service as the 38th Governor of Louisiana from 1924 until his death in 1926.
The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) is a state government organization in the United States, in charge of maintaining public transportation, roadways, bridges, canals, select levees, floodplain management, port facilities, commercial vehicles, and aviation which includes 69 airports, in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The agency has approximately five thousand personnel on staff and an operating budget of $2.3 billion. DOTD operations are run through nine district offices across the state.
André Bienvenue Roman was Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives and the ninth U.S. Governor of Louisiana.
George Michael Decker Hahn, was an attorney, politician, publisher and planter in New Orleans, Louisiana. He served twice in Congress during two widely separated periods, elected first as a Unionist to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1862, as a Republican to the U.S. Senate in 1865, and later as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1884. He was elected as the 19th Governor of Louisiana, serving from 1864 to 1865 during the American Civil War, when the state was occupied by Union troops. He was the first German-born governor in the United States, and is also claimed as the first ethnic Jewish governor. By that time, he was a practicing Episcopalian.
Philip Henri Gilbert was a lawyer and Democratic politician from Napoleonville in Assumption Parish in South Louisiana.
Jefferson B. Snyder, was a lawyer and politician from the Mississippi River delta country of northeastern Louisiana. Snyder became a virtual political boss of Madison, Tensas, and East Carroll parishes; his leadership was rarely challenged, and politicians courted his endorsements.
