May 17th, 2012
Tagged as one of the deadliest Hurricanes that US has faced in its modern history, the only comparable Hurricane that matches up to its intensity for devastation was the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane that had a property damage of nearly 81 billion dollars in today’s terms. Even the 1992 Hurricane Andrew falls short of the Katrina incident in terms of property damaged because of the ensuring floods that rocked the entire region following the aftermath of the Hurricane.
It took over a month to properly evacuate the area and let the water reside. It was categorized as a F5 hurricane which has the strongest winds and the largest cores. This hurricane lasted over a few days and originated off the coast of the Bahamas finally reaching its highest intensity over the plains of Florida. The storm reentered US soil later on with reduced intensity of a category 3 hurricane as it passed over the state of Louisiana. The reason for Hurricane Katrina’s devastating effect was the failure of the levee system that protected the city of New Orleans from floods.
This occurred much after the Hurricane had passed through the city and left the entire city flooded up to 17 feet high. Although the state and federal governments had taken some preemptive measures following the warning given to them by the weather department, it seems that they underestimated the effects of a category five storm such as this one. Soon afterwards the President declared a state of emergency in the region drawing in massive military presence to aid in the search and rescue operations.