HISTORIC DESASTRES - UNIT V

 HURRICANE KATRINA (2005)

Hurricane Katrina was one of the most destructive and deadliest hurricanes of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It is the most economically damaging hurricane, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the United States history. Likewise, Hurricane Katrina is the sixth most intense of all Atlantic hurricanes on record. At least two thousand people died due to the hurricane itself or the resulting floods, making it the deadliest hurricane in the United States since the San Felipe II hurricane of 1928.

On August 23, 2005, Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas and crossed south Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding before rapidly strengthening in the Gulf of Mexico. Having reached Category 5 status, the storm weakened before making a second landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on August 29 in southeastern Louisiana. Katrina devastated the Gulf Coasts from Florida to Texas as it intensified. The highest number of deaths was recorded in New Orleans, which was flooded because its levee system failed, many of them collapsing several hours after the hurricane had moved inland. 80% of the city as well as large areas of neighboring parishes were flooded, staying that way for weeks. However, the most important material damage occurred in coastal areas, such as the flooding in a matter of hours of all the coastal cities of Mississippi, the dragging of numerous boats and floating casinos to the mainland, which caused them to collide with buildings, reaching the waves distances of 10 to 19 km inland from the coast.