Looking Back at the Devastation of Hurricane Katrina

No matter how you slice it, Hurricane Katrina was one for the record books. As the 20th anniversary of the deadly storm approaches, let's take a look back at the numbers of this catastrophic hurricane.

Inside the Devastation of 2005's Hurricane Katrina

Like many of the storms that develop this time of the year in the tropics, Katrina got its start as a tropical wave in the Caribbean. Nobody could have guessed on August 19, 2005, the type of damage that it would go on to incur.

Katrina picked up steam as it moved across the Atlantic, eventually crossing over southern Florida with winds that peaked at 90 mph. The storm then intensified into a Category 5 hurricane as it fed on the warm waters of the Gulf, coming ashore in New Orleans as a Category 3 storm. While the storm had lost some of its initial intensity, the proximity of the landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River and the low-lying bayous translated to one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the U.S.

Hurricane Katrina was blamed for 1,392 fatalities. This number included 520 direct deaths, with 341 of these happening in Louisiana. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) also concluded that there were 565 indirect deaths associated with Katrina, as well as 307 fatalities listed as indeterminate cause.

These numbers made Katrina the deadliest hurricane for the U.S. since 1929. The distinction held until 2017, when nearly 3,000 people died in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico at the hands of Hurricane Maria.

Katrina was also catastrophic from a monetary standpoint. The storm was responsible for about $320 billion worth of total damage and economic loss, adjusted for today's inflation.

In addition, the University of Washington estimates that the cost of the improved levee system around the city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was roughly $15 billion. After the levees failed during Katrina, over 150 miles of levees around the region were upgraded by 2015.