Five things your class should know on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

Aug. 29 marks the 10-year anniversary of one of the most costly and devastating disasters in American history, Hurricane Katrina. The storm caused approximately 1,800 deaths and over $108 billion in property damage. Here are five things your class should know about the deadly hurricane on its 10th anniversary. The class can also watch this NewsHour report to learn how the city of New Orleans continues to rebuild.

1. Hurricane Katrina hit Florida before it hit New Orleans.

Although most accounts of the storm focus on the damage that occurred in Mississippi and Louisiana, the hurricane made landfall in Florida. The hurricane crossed over the southern tip from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico on Aug. 25. Classified as only a Category 1 hurricane at that point, Katrina still knocked out power to more than a million people and caused at least 3 deaths.

2. Katrina was the strongest hurricane ever recorded on the Gulf Coast at the time.

Shortly after crossing into the Gulf of Mexico, Katrina reached Category 5 status as the unusually warm water current fed the storm and increased its strength. At its peak, Hurricane Katrina sustained winds of 175 miles per hour making it the strongest hurricane in history before being surpassed by Hurricane Rita less than a month later. Before Katrina made landfall in Louisiana on Aug. 29, it actually weakened to a Category 3 hurricane.

3. Hurricane Katrina flooded nearly 80 percent of New Orleans, largely because of the large storm surge it caused, not because of the rain that fell from the clouds onto the land.

Hurricanes cause the sea level to rise. Katrina’s storm surge completely overwhelmed all systems built to control coastal flooding. The city of New Orleans had a series of levees and flood gates built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The system failed so completely that almost 80 percent of the city was flooded, destroying thousands of homes and businesses.

4. The national, state and local response to the storm failed to take into account the full scope of the disaster.

On Aug. 28, over a million people in and around New Orleans were told to evacuate their homes, but those without cars or other means of transport were told they would be transported north of the city by bus. When that plan fell through, the city decided to house everyone in the city’s football stadium to wait out the storm. Later, they were joined by thousands more after aging levees built to protect the city from flooding broke and the buses meant to provide transport out of the city were inundated by water. As a result, the situation in the Superdome became extremely desperate as 15,000 people waited up to five days to be evacuated.

5. Since Katrina, $14.5 billion has been spent to upgrade infrastructure to protect New Orleans from future storms.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the new system would be able to keep the city relatively dry in the case of an even worse storm surge than Katrina and the property inside the levees would remain dry or experience minor flooding. Others feel that the new defenses built are not enough to protect the city from another Katrina-like situation. This Daily News Story explains the new flood defense system and has prompts for further class discussion.