Hurricane katrina
So far, Hurricane Katrina was the third most deadly hurricane the United States has ever witnessed, the first being the Galveston Hurricane in 1900, and second being the Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928. The official death toll has reached 1400 lives, with many thousands more still missing. When the toll is finally complete, Katrina may turn out to have been the deadliest hurricane America has ever been through. Beyond the death count, the damage done to property by Katrina is certainly the worst ever caused by a hurricane; practically the entire city of New Orleans was destroyed in its wake.
The fourth major hurricane of the 2005 hurricane season, and the first to reach a category 5 status (using the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale), hurricane Katrina began its life as a tropical low pressure system over the Bahamas on August 23rd. It was upgraded to tropical storm status early on August 24th, and became a hurricane on the 25th. Also on the 25th, it made a landfall on the southwestern Florida coast. It weakened back into a tropical storm before moving back over the gulf and regaining its hurricane strength.
It was then predicted to continued northward and eventually hit the Florida panhandle, but rather it moved westward and eventually landed right over New Orleans. Before it landed, it rapidly strengthened into a category five hurricane, causing continuous winds of 175 miles per hour, and gusts reaching over 215 miles per hour. When it landed on August 29th, it was downgraded to a category four hurricane, but nonetheless caused an enormous amount of damage. Katrina itself passed over New Orleans with the usual flooding and wind damage caused by hurricanes. The majority of the damage and deaths caused were a result of New Orleans’s levee bursting after the storm had passed.
The city, being below sea level, was then flooded by water from the ocean, causing irreparable damage to nearly 80 percent of the cities structures and forcing all of its surviving occupants to relocate. For this reason, hurricane Katrina has earned its title of third most destructive hurricane seen by America, even though it was only the third most powerful storm of the season. Hurricane Katrina waned as it traveled over the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, but not before causing considerable damage to several other settlements in the region, including Jackson, Mississippi. Even after being downgraded to a depression, it caused major rains throughout its travel north all the way up to Quebec, Canada, before finally being absorbed.
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