Hurricane Katrina

The National Hurricane Center issued a statement on August 23 (Day 1)saying that a tropical depression had formed over the southeastern Bahamas.

The numbering of this system was debated, as Tropical Depression Twelve formed partially out of the remnants of T.D. 10. The naming and numbering rules at the NHC require a system to keep the same identity if it dies then regenerates, which would have normally caused this storm to remain numbered Ten. However, the NHC gave this storm a new number because a second disturbance merged with the remains of Tropical Depression Ten on August 20, and there is no way to tell whether the remnants of T.D. Ten should be credited with this storm.

The system was upgraded to Tropical Storm Katrina on the morning of August 24 (Day 2). Katrina became the fourth hurricane of the 2005 season on August 25 and made landfall later that day around 6:30 p.m. between Hallandale Beach and North Miami Beach, Florida. In South Florida, Katrina dumped up to 18 inches of rain, caused 14 deaths and over 1.45 million customers were left without power for up to 8 days.

Katrina spent only a few hours over southern Florida, and soon regained hurricane strength after emerging into the Gulf of Mexico. Combined with its slow movement and the extremely warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Katrina rapidly intensified. It became a major hurricane on August 27 (Day 5) and attained Category 5 status on the morning of August 28 (Day 6) with 175 mph (280 km/h) sustained winds and a minimum pressure of 902 mbar. This made Katrina the fourth most intense hurricane on record in the Atlantic basin, surpassing Hurricane Camille of the 1969 season, which was the most powerful hurricane ever to hit the United States. Katrina spent all of August 28 at Category 5 status despite some weakening, but by the early morning of August 29 (Day 7) had declined to a very powerful Category 4 storm.

Katrina proved difficult to forecast, as the models earlier showed widely-varying landfall locations and intensities as soon as it re-entered the Gulf of Mexico, though the hurricane path prediction narrowed to the area around New Orleans. A slight deviation in the hurricane's path to the east early on August 29 (Day 7) avoided a direct hit on the city of New Orleans, sparing it the worst damage from the storm.

Katrina made its second landfall as a strong Category 4 hurricane near Buras, Louisiana with 140 mph (235 km/h) winds, and a third, final landfall as a Category 3 hurricane near Pearlington, Mississippi with 125 mph (200 km/h) winds after crossing Breton Sound. Massive damage occurred in southern Alabama and along the Mississippi coast, and tornadoes were reported in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and the Florida Panhandle.

Despite the fact that New Orleans escaped the worst damage from the storm, two levees along Lake Pontchartrain ultimately were breached by storm surge. One of the breaches was over 100 yards (100 m) long. About 80% of the city was flooded, some by as much as 25 ft (7 m) of water, and the damage estimates will easily top Hurricane Andrew as the costliest hurricane in American history.

So far, seven fatalities have been reported in southern Florida. Two of the deaths were from falling trees, one man crashed into a tree, one person died when their boat capsized, one when waves battered their boat, and one man was found floating in the water around Florida City. A family of five out over the southwestern coast of Florida was suspected dead, but found later alive and rescued by the Coast Guard. [13] So far, 854 people have been confirmed dead, with about 650 of them in Louisiana and most of the rest in Mississippi. Additional casualties have been confirmed in Alabama, Georgia, and Kentucky. Once damage totals come in, Katrina will be the costliest hurricane in U.S. history, with damage totals expected to reach as high as $200 billion.

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