Framing Climate Change Implications for Infrastructures and Urban Systems - Climate Change and Infrastructure, Urban Systems, and Vulnerabilities - page 18

Katrina becomes Cat. 1 hurricane
after crossing Gulf Stream;
Landfall passage over south
Florida causes significant flooding
Katrina becomes Cat. 5
hurricane with sustained wind
speeds of 150 knots
Katrina makes Gulf Coast landfall
as Cat. 4 hurrican with winds of
140 mph; Two major flood-control
levees in New Orleans are breached
New Orleans & downtown
Mobile are flooded

Figure 3 Infrastructure
vulnerabilities to a rapid succes-
sion of extreme events

Hurricane Rita predicted
to make landfall on the
Gulf Coast

Rain bands ahead of
Hurricane Rita cause
renewed flooding in
New Orleans

Hurricane Wilma becomes
strongest Cat. 5 storm on
record

Region declared Public
Health Emergency.
evacuations begin
National Guard deployed
to New Orleans, gasoline
prices spike nationally

Hurricane Wilma makes
landfall in south Florida
as a Cat. 3 storm

Hurricane Rita
makes landfall as a
Cat. 3 storm

other sewage spills across the region. These spills continued for days after the initial
storm passage illustrating that cascading impacts as restoration progressed were still
working their way through the interdependent infrastructures.
As described above, Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast on
August 29, 2005, resulting in extensive flooding in the City of New Orleans, Louisiana,
due to storm surge from adjacent Lake Pontchartrain and several levee failures (Colten,
et al., 2008). These floodwaters had been partially pumped back into Lake Pontchartrain
when the city experienced additional flooding and levee failures from Hurricane Rita
on September 24, 2005. Floodwaters completely receded by October 11, 2005. Much of
the flooding occurred in urbanized and industrial areas, fueling concerns that a public
health crisis could result from exposures to chemically and microbiologically contami-
nated floodwaters.
Preliminary investigations in mid-September 2005 documented high levels of mi-
crobial and toxicant contamination in the New Orleans floodwaters. Floodwaters in
New Orleans from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were observed to contain high levels of
fecal indicator bacteria and microbial pathogens, generating concern about long-term
impacts of these floodwaters on the sediment and water quality of the New Orleans area
and Lake Pontchartrain. Indicator microbe concentrations in offshore waters from Lake
Pontchartrain returned to pre-hurricane concentrations within 2 months of the flooding.

2) SECTORAL PERSPECTIVES
A different perspective is provided by looking at interdependencies from the standpoint
of particular kinds of infrastructure: in this case transportation and water.

Transportation (also see the NCA Technical Input Report on Climate Impacts on the
U.S. Transportation Sector)
In 2008, two seminal works on the impacts of climate change on transportation infra-
structure and services were issued within one day of each other. The first, the Potential