Hurricane Katrina: Surprising Facts That You Didn't Know

Hurricane Katrina was a category five Atlantic storm that was destructive and had caused thousands of fatalities.

The hurricane occurred in the Gulf of Mexico Coast of the United States, especially in New Orleans and surrounding states in 2005. It started on August 23 and lasted until August 31, 2005.

Hurricane Katrina formed from the merger of a tropical wave and the mid-level remnants of Tropical Depression Ten near the lesser Antilles. The storm surge intensified into a tropical storm and headed towards Florida.

After hovering over Florida, the storm emerged from the Gulf of Mexico and began to increase rapidly. During that time, Hurricane Katrina was the 12th tropical cyclone and the third major hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It is also the costliest hurricane on record that year and ties with Hurricane Harvey of 2017.

Deaths Caused By Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina was a tropical cyclone that hit areas of the Gulf Coast and caused great destruction. The storm surge affected almost 15 million people and impacted about 9,000 acres (36.4 sq. km) of land from Central Florida to Eastern Texas.

Even though there is no certain amount of data that testifies the number of people who were injured and the total number of deaths, the estimated number is between 1245 and 1833.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, after the natural disaster that almost 1833 fatalities were directly or indirectly connected to the storm, where 1577 people died in Louisiana, 238 people died in Mississippi, 14 in Florida, two in Georgia, and two in Alabama.

The storm surge of the hurricane was 20 ft (6 m) high due to which the destruction was quite big. Almost 750 people are still reported to be missing because of the hurricane.

It also affected people in various ways be it from rising gas prices, evacuating homes, or the decline in the economy. Hurricane Katrina is one of the costliest hurricanes ever as it caused a lot of damage. It caused about $81 billion in property damages and the economic impact in Louisiana and Mississippi was almost $150 billion.

Due to this donations from other countries had to be accepted. Kuwait donated the most amount followed by Qatar, India, Pakistan, China, and Bangladesh.

The hurricane was a huge blow to the reality of the people as they lost their loved ones, livelihood, and more in just a few days. Children were the most affected as it took a toll on their mental health. Many had to lose their family members and move to a completely new environment.

This storm taught the USA a great lesson as the lack of coordination and preparedness between the government, organizations, and non-profit groups created unwanted barriers. The pharmaceutical companies also lacked and this caused a panic among the people.

The time that was spent on checkpoints and numerous calls between the people and the government officials could have been better utilized to focus on more important issues of rehabilitation.

Important Facts About Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina was almost 2.4 times stronger than normal hurricanes. A category one hurricane is almost 73.9-94.4 mph (119-152 kph), while category two wind is almost 95.1-110 mph (153-177 kph).

A category three hurricane wind can be 110-126.8 mph (177-204 kph) which is quite fast and can cause severe injuries and also death. A category four hurricane is almost 129.2-156 mph (208-251 kph) and Hurricane Katrina crossed all these categories and ended up being a category five hurricane which has a wind strength of about 156.6 mph (252 kph).

The most affected areas in the USA were New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Georgia, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Kentucky, Florida, and West Virginia. There were also minor damages in the areas of the Bahamas, Canada, and Cuba.

New Orleans had to face the most damage as almost 75% of it was flooded. The disaster response wasn't that good and many people in New Orleans were helpless for a very long time until the National Guard personal arrived to control the situation.

Hurricane Katrina was one of the largest hurricanes to hit Central America and after a week of destruction, the federal government had to start rescuing and providing aid to the people.

The United Nations Coast Guard had started to pre-position resources around the affected areas and on August 27 the personnel was moved to New Orleans after the evacuation was done.

There were several staged aircraft rescues around Florida to Texas. The nation was under an emergency declared by George Bush, but he only declared the state of emergency in some states which enraged some of the members of the House of Representatives.

A mandatory evacuation was launched in order to evacuate all the coastal areas and avoid a situation like the one that happened in 2004, where Hurricane Ivan destroyed almost everything.

After the disaster, almost 70 countries helped out in order to recover the damages that the hurricanes caused. The World Vision also helped out by providing medical supplies.

World Vision wanted to focus on areas that had the least insurance coverage or poverty-prone areas such as Mississippi and Louisiana. After the hurricane ended there were still hundreds of people who were missing and some organizations and companies tried to help out.

Organizations such as the Weather Channel, Red Cross, and Craiglist put up websites with information for the families that were affected.

Yahoo was also a helpful site at that time as it linked about 100 computers in the area and tried to create a meta-research for the evacuee's registration website. The loss of network created the biggest issue as no one could properly communicate with each other and people even had to live without any power for days.

After things started to recover there were several issues that began to arise surrounding the engineering policies as well as the legislation for the poor.

The USA government faced backlash in order to revamp their policies that affect the poor in order to make it more convenient so that bankrupt or almost bankrupt individuals or families could recover after the storm. Hurricane Katrina also highlighted the difference among the housing complexes depending upon racial backgrounds.

The storm is not thought to be an equal one as more houses of Black owners were flooded due to poor housing practices.

When was Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans?

Hurricane Katrina was a tropical depression and Katrina's surge was spotted in the Southeastern Bahamas on August 23, 2005. In a week the storm surge became stronger and brought destruction to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. On August 25, the storm reached hurricane status and caused the initial landfall, near Miami as a category one storm.

As the wind gusts moved northwest through the waters of the Gulf Coast on August 26, Hurricane Katrina moved to a category two hurricane. In about 12 hours the hurricane status changed from category three hurricane to category four hurricane and then category five on August 28.

The sustained winds became stronger and the center of the hurricane that was located in the Gulf, extended to the Mississippi River.

The residents of the New Orleans area had to be evacuated as it wasn't safe to reside there anymore.

On August 29, the category two Hurricane Katrina hit the southeast Louisiana town making landfall with sustained winds. Thousands of people got trapped in New Orleans and the hurricane made landfall again near the New Orleans border.

On August 30 the hurricane was labeled as a tropical depression as it continued extending towards the eastern Greater Lakes. At least 80% of New Orleans had to face flash flooding due to the heavy rainfall and the recovery program went on for weeks after the direct hit of the hurricane.

Hurricane Katrina's Path

The hurricane started to form over the southeastern Bahamas and moved to the Central Bahamas after reaching the Hurricane Katrina category one. The peak gust of the storm started to move west and became more destructive as it made landfall along the southeastern Florida coast.

After that, it moved to the west across South Florida and hit the Mobile Bay, and continued to intensify.

By this time it had reached category five status but the Hurricane Katrina weakened to category three status when it reached the northern Gulf Coast and made landfall there. It then hit Louisiana and then the Mississippi coast.

The residents of New Orleans had to be moved to the Superdome in order to protect them from the death toll. The Hurricane Katrina damage affected Louisiana the most while the damages extended to the Florida peninsula and Alabama.

The storm made its final turn to the north and moved towards southeastern Louisiana. The pressure at this point was quite lower than the Labor day hurricane in 1935 that hit Florida keys.

The storm kept on moving and hit Hancock County. After the storms moved inland, it almost stopped leaving behind a ton of damage. The levee failures in Florida and Lake Pontchartrain caused severe flooding.