Hurricane Katrina and its Effects on Public

Libraries:

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina, one of the extremely destructive and deadly tropical cyclone which influenced landfall along the Gulf coast, becoming to be notorious for the impacts and decimation it brought to Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, south and central Florida, Bahamas. Notwithstanding to Katrina's phenomenal impacts, the state and the federal government inefficient preparations or readiness for the cyclone and absence of satisfactory measures to its repercussions made one of the most noticeably bad and most costly catastrophic events in the history of United states. The cost of Hurricane Katrina has impacted human lives and property. People and organizations in the Gulf Coast locale are as yet recuperating from Katrina's dreadful effect even today.

The storms effect on the libraries of these states is similarly horrifying. The Public Libraries provide various sources of information and resources that were made accessible to communities. Libraries store various resources in form of Books, Magazines or electronic information made available at locations where people can have access. The Hurricane Katrina storm destroyed hundreds of public library buildings, their book collections and their equipment's.

New Orleans Public Library:

The New Orleans Public Library started in 1843, which has developed from a solitary French Quarter house with a couple of volumes into an expansive framework serving all of Orleans Parish with various locations throughout the City. The Library has a long history serving people in general by giving access to an extensive variety of instructive, educational, and recreational materials, projects, and exercises for all ages. Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, and all library locations were shut until the point that harm could be evaluated and repairs were made.

The New Orleans Public Library framework sustained harm assessed between $26 to $30 million dollars. Also, it is evaluated that a total of 320,000 equipment's and items in the library framework's accumulations were lost or damaged. 6 Library branches were declared completely destroyed: Martin Luther King, Jr.; Norman Mayer Gentilly; Rosa Keller; East New Orleans; Robert E. Smith; and Nora Navra. Notwithstanding the harm to buildings and accumulations, numerous New Orleans Public Library System's staff positions must be cut as an outcome of the calamity. In reality 90% of library staff were laid off. Some of the library locations were affected by minor damages which were reopened quickly after the damages were repaired and some operated with minimal equipment's.

The disaster recovery plans for libraries mostly relay on issues concerning water spills, control power failures or any fire episodes. The recuperation plans for such incidents were completely compelling and are very effective. However, a wide range of disaster, particularly one the extent of Hurricane Katrina storm, is a completely different, and in such occasions, the potential damage to the libraries will be very high and the recovery plans and business continuity plans will be ineffective but in a long run these plans will recover from the disasters. The BCP and DR designs are powerful for the some libraries that had an insignificant effect of hurricane Katrina and recuperated rapidly and were reopened at the earliest. American Library Association, State governments drove a national push to give help and assistance by raising funds, resources and programs to recoup the libraries which had impacts from the Hurricane Katrina.

The Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery designs will be effective in a long run, and the immediate response of these plans will be low but will recuperate the business continuity from such high magnitude catastrophic events as Hurricane Katrina.

Cite this page