2005 Highlights
HURRICANE KATRINA WREAKS HAVOC
Katrina first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane just north
of Miami, Florida in late August, resulting in a dozen deaths in
South Florida and spawning several tornadoes which happened not to
strike any dwellings. In the Gulf of Mexico it strengthened into a
formidable Category 5 hurricane with maximum winds of 175 mph and
minimum central pressure of 902 mbar. It weakened considerably as it
was approaching land, making its second landfall on the morning of
August 29 along the Central Gulf Coast near Buras-Triumph, Louisiana
with 125 mph winds and a central pressure of 920 mbar, a strong
Category 3 storm (having just weakened from Category 4 as it was
making landfall).
The sheer physical size of Katrina caused devastation far from
the eye of the hurricane; it was possibly the largest hurricane of
its strength ever recorded, but estimating the size of storms from
before the 1960s (the pre-satellite era) is difficult or impossible.
On August 29, its storm surge breached the levee system that
protected New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi
River. Most of the city was subsequently flooded mainly by water
from the lake. Heavy damage was also inflicted onto the coasts of
Mississippi and Alabama, making Katrina the most destructive and
costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States and
the deadliest since the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane.
The official combined (direct and indirect) death toll now stands
at 1,383, the fourth or fifth highest in U.S. history (behind the
Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928, the
1893 Chenier Caminanda Hurricane, and possibly the 1893 Sea Islands
Hurricane). As of January 18, 2006, more than 3,200 people remain
unaccounted for, so the death toll may still grow. As of November
22, 2005, 1,300 of those missing were either in heavily-damaged
areas or were disabled and "feared dead"; if all 1,300 of these were
to be confirmed dead, Katrina would surpass the Okeechobee Hurricane
and become the second-deadliest in US history and deadliest in over
a century.
Over 1.2 million people were under an evacuation order before
landfall. In Louisiana, the hurricane's eye made landfall at 6:10am
CDT on Monday, August 29. After 11:00 am CDT, several sections of
the levee system in New Orleans collapsed. By early September,
people were being forcibly evacuated, mostly by bus to neighboring
states. More than 1.5 million people were displaced — a humanitarian
crisis on a scale unseen in the U.S. since the Great Depression. The
damage is estimated to be about $75 billion by the NHC (with other
estimates ranging from $40 to $120 billion), almost double the
previously most expensive Hurricane Andrew, making Katrina the most
expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.
Federal disaster declarations blanketed 90,000 square miles
(233,000 km²) of the United States, an area almost as large as the
United Kingdom. The hurricane left an estimated three million people
without electricity, taking some places several weeks for power to
be restored (but faster than the four months originally predicted).
On September 3, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
described the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as "probably the worst
catastrophe, or set of catastrophes" in the country's history,
referring to the hurricane itself plus the flooding of New Orleans.
TSUNAMI BATTERS SOUTHEAST ASIA
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which had a magnitude of 9.15,
triggered a series of lethal tsunamis on December 26, 2004 that
killed approximately 275,000 people (more than 168,000 in Indonesia
alone), making it the deadliest tsunami in recorded history. The
tsunami killed people over an area ranging from the immediate
vicinity of the quake in Indonesia, Thailand and the north-western
coast of Malaysia to thousands of kilometres away in Bangladesh,
India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and even as far as Somalia, Kenya
and Tanzania in eastern Africa. The disaster prompted a huge
worldwide effort to help victims of the tragedy, with billions of
dollars being raised for disaster relief.
Unlike in the Pacific Ocean, there is no organized alert service
covering the Indian Ocean. This is in part due to the absence of
major tsunami events between 1883 (the Krakatoa eruption, which
killed 36,000 people) and 2004. In light of the 2004 Indian Ocean
tsunami, UNESCO and other world bodies have called for a global
tsunami monitoring system.
DEATH AND RETIREMENT CREATE SUPREME COURT CHANGES
William Hubbs Rehnquist (October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was
an American lawyer, jurist and political figure, who served as an
Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from
1972 until 1986, and as the 16th Chief Justice of the United States
from 1986 until his death in 2005. A stalwart proponent of
federalism, his legacy includes the first modern limits on
Congress's power under the Commerce Clause of the United States
Constitution.
Rehnquist served as a law clerk for Justice Robert H. Jackson and
as Assistant Attorney General during the administration of President
Richard Nixon. In 1971, Nixon nominated Rehnquist to the U.S.
Supreme Court as an Associate Justice; Rehnquist took his seat in
1972. In 1986, Ronald Reagan elevated him to the position of Chief
Justice. He went on to preside over the court as Chief Justice for
19 years until his death in 2005, making him the
fourth-longest-serving Chief Justice after Melville Fuller, Roger
Taney and John Marshall, and the longest-serving Chief Justice who
had previously served as an Associate Justice.
Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) has been an Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1981. She
was the first woman to serve on the Court.
Due to her case-by-case approach to jurisprudence and her
relatively moderate political views, she was the crucial swing vote
of the Court for many of her final years on the bench. In 2004,
Forbes Magazine called her the fourth most powerful woman in the
United States and the sixth most powerful in the world.
On July 1, 2005, O'Connor announced her retirement from the Supreme
Court, effective upon the confirmation of her successor. On October
31, 2005, President George W. Bush nominated Judge Samuel Alito to
replace O'Connor.
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