Looking Back at the Devastation of Hurricane Katrina, 20 Years Later

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.

Looking at the Storm's Top Readings

It is not surprising to learn that a storm of this magnitude also delivered quite the punch when it came ashore. The top wind gust recorded on land was 136 mph, clocked in Poplarville, Mississippi. However, hurricane experts believe that there were likely much higher winds that roared in with Katrina that were not recorded due to a lack of measuring stations.

Katrina was even more powerful when it was churning in the open seas of the Gulf. The storm recorded a peak wind gust of 175 mph when it reached the status of a Category 5 storm. Additionally, its central pressure reading of 26.64 inches of mercury made it one of the top five lowest pressures ever recorded in the Atlantic at the time.

The state of Mississippi saw the worst of Katrina's storm surge. A high storm surge of 27 feet roared 6 miles inland across land and 12 miles inland along the area rivers. This surge destroyed at least 90% of the structures located within a half of a mile of the coast near the point of landfall.

A storm of this magnitude was naturally a prolific rain producer. Perrine, Florida, picked up 16.43 inches of rain when the storm made its first landfall southwest of Miami. The heaviest rainfall in Louisiana came in at 14.82 inches in the community of Big Branch.

It is not unusual for tropical weather makers to spawn tornadic activity. In the case of Katrina, the storm was responsible for at least 59 confirmed tornadoes. These twisters popped up in eight states, including one as far away as Pennsylvania.

Inside the Numbers of the Impacted Residents

Local officials initially evacuated displaced residents to the Superdome in New Orleans. This football stadium sheltered 26,000 people. However, the refuge quickly turned into a disaster when it lost part of its roof and flooded. The evacuees were then transported to the Astrodome in Houston.

During the peak of the power outages, over 3 million customers in the U.S. were left in the dark. Louisiana's St. Bernard, St. Tammany, and Plaquemines parishes were hit particularly hard by the combination of the winds and flooding, with up to 80% of the homes in these areas sustaining damage. The Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) granted housing assistance to about 700,000 people as a result of the storm.

The silver lining of Katrina's wrath is that both national and local officials learned a great deal about how to better respond to natural disasters.

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