Syracuse University SURFACE Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects Projects Spring 5-2016 Preparing for and Responding to Flood Disasters: A Tale of Two Floods Rachel Correll Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone Part of the Geography Commons Recommended Citation Correll, Rachel, "Preparing for and Responding to Flood Disasters: A Tale of Two Floods" (2016). Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects. 971. https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/971 This Honors Capstone Project is brought to you for free and open access by the Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. © (Rachel Correll, May 2016) ii Abstract There have been major floods throughout geologic history and there will continue to be major floods for centuries and milleniums to come. Preparation and response strategies have always been in place, however, with more frequent and sever floods expected to come in the future, these strategies certainly have room for improvement. In this thesis I outline the strangths and weaknesses of these strategies in two case studies, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and The Great Mississippi Flood of 1993 in St. Louis. My research compares disaster preparedness and response in two case studies of recent major flooding in the U.S. My objective is to learn from these cases, searching for ways to improve future methods and strategies to protect from flood disasters. The most outstanding problems lie within the trust in levees, the reluctance to evacuate, and the resources available post-disaster.