Homeland Security: Hurricane Ida (New Jersey)
New Jersey is a state in the northeastern United States. The State has 130 miles as part of the Atlantic coast. In the year 2021, there was a deadly disaster known as Hurricane Ida, which occurred in this State and affected the Grand Cayman, the western part of Cuba, and the Mexican Gulf, and the disaster caused extreme destruction. As a result of the radical damage the disaster caused, it was ranked as the second hurricane that caused great destruction to the State to the extent of forcing the land to fall. Therefore, the aim of writing this paper is to discuss the impacts caused by hurricane Ida, show the people impacted and explain how the disaster was finally mitigated, and show what I have learned from the occurrence of the disaster as it connects to homeland security mitigation.
Hurricane Ida in New Jersey had various impacts on the affected regions. The first impact caused by the disaster was the destruction of infrastructure. The strong wave associated with the hurricane caused much rain that led to heavy flooding; due to this reason, the roads that had not experienced such heavy flooding were washed away (Hanchey et al., 2021). The road destruction led to fewer roads left behind, thus causing a challenge in the transportation of people and goods, especially to the market. Therefore, the hurricane wave in the State made the roads impassable, leading to difficulties in transport.
Another impact of hurricane Ida was the mass destruction of homes. The heavy home destruction resulted from the heavy wind that forced water into the houses because the roofs that the heavy wind had already destroyed. The destruction of homes led to the displacement of people, leaving them with no idea where they could get money to build other homes and recover the property destroyed (Lee, Wang & Sun, 2022). Thus, the wave caused significant problems for people because it negatively impacted them and the property they possessed.
The hurricane wave also caused a decline in New Jersey’s business operations. Because the roads were washed away by the heavy floods caused by the heavy rains, transport became burdensome, and goods were difficult to transport to the marketplace for trade. Services were also hard to reach, so life became hard to live without money (Feng & Pu, 2023). The closure of businesses led to unemployment for the people who used to work in the various businesses leading to difficulties in living.
The second deadly hurricane wave affected New Jersey in the United States, Parts of Mississippi and Alabama. After the occurrence of the wave, various mitigation strategies were put into place. First, the energy department allowed the strategic petroleum reserve to exchange a certain number of barrels of oil between the Louisiana crude oil companies to ensure that the region could quickly access fuel. Therefore, this strategy was a form of mitigation of the problems caused by the hurricane Ida wave.
In the United States, the department of agriculture allowed the request that Lousiana enables the nutrition program beneficiaries to use their benefits to buy ready meals. Again, ambulances were deployed in Louisiana to assist the highly affected areas. The deployment of such ambulances made the life of people easier for instance, when trying to access a medical facility; people could do that easily. Emergency vehicles were also applied in Louisiana to ease communication for those in such areas.
From the happening of hurricane Ida, I have learned that hurricane waves once they happen they cause much damage to the regions near the wave, again I have also found that once the wave occurs, there is a need for the departments concerned to ensure that they act immediately to help the severely affected areas to cope up with life ( Wang, & Zhang,2023). Mitigation strategies are essential in this case to assist the people in coping with life again after the significant loss they incur from the wave. Therefore, this is what I have learned from the occurrence of the hurricane wave on homeland security and found that the concerned groups should be vigilant in supporting the affected areas.
Conclusion
In summary, we have found that New Jersey is a state in the United States which was affected by Hurricane Ida’s wave, which caused a lot of negative impacts on the people and regions around the State. Some of the impacts caused by the wave were the destruction of homes, erosion of roads, and destruction of businesses. These causes led to difficulties in the life of the people in the affected areas since some of the services and goods they could get for their use were difficult to get quickly. The affected regions were Louisiana and Mississippi. After the happening of the wave, there were mitigation strategies taken to help the affected areas. The strategies include; the deployment of ambulances in Louisiana and other affected areas. Therefore, this is how hurricane Ida happened and how it impacted the affected regions.
References
Hanchey, A., Schnall, A., Bayleyegn, T., Jiva, S., Khan, A., Siegel, V., … & Svendsen, E. (2021). Notes from the field: deaths related to Hurricane Ida reported by media—nine states, August 29–September 9, 2021. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 70(39), 1385.
Lee, T., Wang, Y., & Sun, K. (2022). Impact of Hurricane Ida on Nitrogen Oxide Emissions in Southwestern Louisiana Detected from Space. Environmental Science & Technology Letters, 9(10), 808-814.
Feng, C., & Pu, Z. (2023). The impacts of assimilating Aeolus horizontal line-of-sight winds on numerical predictions of Hurricane Ida (2021) and a mesoscale convective system over the Atlantic Ocean. Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions, 1–29.
Wang, Q., & Zhang, Y. (2023). Theorizing Hazard Mitigation Policy Adoption: Using Floodplain Property Buyout Program as an Example. Natural Hazards Review, 24(2), 05022015.
