Did You Know About Debris?
Release Date: August 17, 2006
Release Number: 1604-001FactSheet
The amount of Hurricane Katrina debris removed so far equals 44,580,290 cubic yards (a cubic yard is three feet long by three feet wide by three feet high). This amount of debris:
- Equals 301,218 railroad boxcars. In a train, they would stretch from Biloxi to San Francisco.
- Would pave 2,814 miles of a four-lane Interstate Highway.
- Equals 256,209 commercial busses. Lined up, they would stretch for 1,941 miles, the distance from Savannah to Las Vegas.
- Piled on a 100-yard football field, would reach 25,078 feet into the air. Mt. Everest is 29,036 feet high. That means the debris from Hurricane Katrina would reach to 86% of Mt. Everest’s height. The debris would be taller than Mt. McKinley (Denali), the tallest mountain in North America (20,320 feet) by almost a mile!
- Would mean that each of Mississippi’s total area of 46,907 square miles would contain 1,000 cubic yards of debris (954.2 cubic yards to be exact) if the debris were spread across each square mile!
Where did all the debris go?
- Vegetative debris is buried, burned or recycled. Some of the recycling uses include: material for landscaping, fuel for power plants or wood chips for pulp and paper mills.
- Debris known as “white goods” (which includes household appliances and the like) is mostly recycled.
- Construction and demolition debris and shingles is deposited into Class I landfills. Some concrete debris is recycled.
- Hazardous debris is transferred by the Environmental Protection Agency to authorized disposal companies.
- Vehicles are returned to their owners or disposed of through normal channels (scrap yards).
FEMA manages federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates mitigation activities, works with state and local emergency managers, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program. FEMA became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on March 1, 2003.
Last Modified: Friday, 18-Aug-2006 15:43:03