Hurricane Katrina was by far the deadliest and most destructive storm of therecord setting 2005 hurricane season. I was here at AccuWeather.com the morningbefore the storm made landfall, and some of the things I said were simplyunthinkable. The statement I remember most was that people and structures thatare around today won't be tomorrow. That's a prediction I am not very proud of.Katrina was a very big and powerful hurricane. While over the central Gulf, thestorm had peak sustained winds of 175 miles per hour with gusts to 200 milesper hour, which is comparable to an EF3 tornado. The storm surge and high windscaused total devastation along the central Gulf Coast with damages exceeding$90 billion. A large part of the disaster is attributed to the leveesprotecting New Orleans, which failed to hold the water back. The storm tookover 1,800 lives.
Kocet`s Corner
By AccuWeather
Hurricane Katrina slammed into southeastern Louisiana in the worst possible wayimaginable. As the storm approached from the south, powerful winds pushed amassive amount of water up against the central Gulf Coast. Some of this waterpushed into Lake Pontchartrain, causing the water level to rise substantially.
Passing just to the east of New Orleans, the powerful circulation of the stormcreated a strong north wind, which in turn pushed a massive amount LakePontchartrain's water southward toward the city. This overwhelming volume ofwater caused the levee system to fail, putting a large percentage of the NewOrleans under water.
Story by AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist John Kocet.
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NONFICTION: “Category Five” says those catastrophic events are commonly being eclipsed, because of climate crisis.