New Orleans is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 according to the 2020 U.S. census, it is the most populous city in Louisiana and the French Louisiana region; third most populous city in the Deep South; and the twelfth-most populous city in the southeastern United States. Serving as a major port, New Orleans is considered an economic and commercial hub for the broader Gulf Coast region of the United States.
The Mississippi River–Gulf Outlet Canal is a 76 mi (122 km) channel constructed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers at the direction of Congress in the mid-20th century that provided a shorter route between the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans' inner harbor Industrial Canal via the Intracoastal Waterway. In 2005, the MRGO channeled Hurricane Katrina's storm surge into the heart of Greater New Orleans, contributing significantly to the subsequent multiple engineering failures experienced by the region's hurricane protection network. In the aftermath the channel was closed. A permanent storm surge barrier was constructed in the MRGO in 2009, and the channel has been closed to maritime shipping.
Clarence Raymond Joseph Nagin Jr. is an American former politician who was the 60th Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana, from 2002 to 2010. A Democrat, Nagin became internationally known in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Hurricane preparedness in New Orleans has been an issue since the city's early settlement because of its location.
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 17th Street Canal is the largest and most important drainage canal in the city of New Orleans. Operating with Pump Station 6, it moves water into Lake Pontchartrain. The canal, along with the Orleans Canal and the London Avenue Canal, form the New Orleans Outfall Canals. The 17th Street Canal forms a significant portion of the boundary between the city of New Orleans and Metairie, Louisiana. The canal has also been known as the Metairie Outlet Canal and the Upperline Canal.
The London Avenue Canal is a drainage canal in New Orleans, Louisiana, used for pumping rain water into Lake Pontchartrain. The canal runs through the 7th Ward of New Orleans from the Gentilly area to the Lakefront. It is one of the three main drainage canals responsible for draining rainwater from the main basin of New Orleans. The London Avenue Canal's flood walls built atop earthen levees breached on both sides during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB), branded as NOLA Public Schools, governs the public school system that serves New Orleans, Louisiana. It includes the entirety of Orleans Parish, coterminous with New Orleans.
On Monday, August 29, 2005, there were over 50 failures of the levees and flood walls protecting New Orleans, Louisiana, and its suburbs following passage of Hurricane Katrina. The failures caused flooding in 80% of New Orleans and all of St. Bernard Parish. In New Orleans alone, 134,000 housing units — 70% of all occupied units — suffered damage from Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding.
Drainage in New Orleans, Louisiana, has been a major concern since the founding of the city in the early 18th century, remaining an important factor in the history of New Orleans today. The central portion of metropolitan New Orleans is fairly unusual in that it is almost completely surrounded by water: Lake Pontchartrain to the north, Lake Borgne to the east, wetlands to the east and west, and the Mississippi River to the south. Half of the land area between these bodies of water is at or below sea level, and no longer has a natural outlet for flowing surface water. As such, virtually all rainfall occurring within this area must be removed through either evapotranspiration or pumping. Thus, flood threats to metropolitan New Orleans include the Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain, canals throughout the city, and natural rainfall. Artificial levees have been built to keep out rising river and lake waters but have had the negative effect of keeping rainfall in, and have failed on numerous occasions.
The Orleans Canal is a drainage canal in New Orleans, Louisiana. The canal, along with the 17th Street Canal and the London Avenue Canal, form the New Orleans Outfall Canals. The current version of the canal is about 2 km long, running along the up-river side of City Park, through the Lakeview and Lakeshore neighborhood, and into Lake Pontchartrain. It is part of the system used to pump rain water out of the streets of the city into the Lake. The Canal has also been known as the Orleans Avenue Canal, the Orleans Outfall Canal, the Orleans Tail Race, and early on, the Girod Canal.
Malik Rahim is an American housing and prison activist based since the late 1990s in the New Orleans area of Louisiana, where he grew up. In 2005 Rahim gained national publicity as a community organizer in New Orleans in 2005 to combat the widespread destruction in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; there he co-founded the Common Ground Collective.
The New Orleans Public Library (NOPL) is the public library of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Succeeding earlier libraries in the city, it opened in 1897. Three branches were added by 1908. Carnegie library branches were added in 1911 and 1915. By 2005 a dozen branches were open. The main library is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson is an American politician who served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1994 to 2002, and multiple tenures on the New Orleans City Council. She has been Honorary consul of Lithuania in New Orleans since December 2014. She is the mother of actress Patricia Clarkson.
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is involved with a wide spectrum of public works projects: environmental protection, water supply, recreation, flood damage and reduction, beach nourishment, homeland security, military construction, and support to other Governmental agencies. Through 19 Flood Control Acts since 1917, Congress has authorized the Corps of Engineers to be involved with flood protection and damage reduction in almost every state of the union.
The Mahalia Jackson Theater of the Performing Arts is a theater located in Louis Armstrong Park in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was named after gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who was born in New Orleans. The theater reopened in January 2009, after being closed since the landfall of Hurricane Katrina.
The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex is a part of the New Orleans Drainage System; it consists of a navigable floodgate, a pumping station, flood walls, sluice gates, foreshore protection, and an earthen levee. The complex was designed to reduce risk for residences and businesses in the project area from a storm surge associated with a tropical event, with an intensity that has a one percent chance of occurring in any given year. This project was operated for the first time on August 29, 2012, in response to Hurricane Isaac.
Hurricane Katrina has been featured in a number of works of fiction. This article is an ongoing effort to list the many artworks, books, comics, movies, popular songs, and television shows that feature Hurricane Katrina as an event in the plot.
L. B. Landry College and Career Preparatory High School is a charter high school on the west bank of Orleans Parish in Algiers, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Jan Gilbert is an American visual artist, curator, and educator based in New Orleans. Since the 1980s, she has been known for her interdisciplinary and multi-media works that incorporate a variety of found objects. In a review of her Threshold exhibition, writer D. Eric Bookhardt wrote: “Gilbert’s exploration of an ordinary, even tawdry reality dissects not merely the images, but the mechanics of perception along with our assumptions about art, objects, and reality.”
