Tuesday marks the anniversary of the devastating hurricanes Katrina and Ida. At the same time, Hurricane Idalia is approaching Florida, while Hurricane Franklin continues churning in open Atlantic.
The anniversaries fall just one day before Idalia is predicted to make landfall on the Big Bend of Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday morning. The storm is expected to escalate into an extremely hazardous Category 3 hurricane, with destructive winds, flooding rains, and storm surges that pose a risk to life along most of the state’s west coast.
Hurricane Katrina was a Category 3 storm with winds near 125 mph when it slammed into the New Orleans area on Aug. 29, 2005.
Those winds pushed a catastrophic storm surge of between 10 and 30 feet in the region ashore. All that water overtopped or breached levees meant to protect New Orleans, which led to calamitous flooding and a humanitarian crisis.
Deaths from the storm were revised this year to 1,392 fatalities, both direct and indirect. A majority of those deaths – 341 – happened in Louisiana, and most of those people were over the age of 60.
According to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Hurricane Katrina caused $125 billion in damage in 2005. Adjusted for inflation, the estimated cost of damage caused by the hurricane is $186.3 billion in 2022. That cements its position as the costliest U.S. hurricane on record. Hurricane Harvey in 2017 comes in second at $148.8 billion.
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Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm, hit the northern Gulf Coast and Grand Isle, Louisiana, on Aug. 29, 2021, causing devastating damage.
The storm walloped coastal Louisiana with winds near 150 mph and a 14-foot storm surge. Island towns and fishing villages were left in shambles.
At least 55 deaths were caused by Ida directly, according to the National Hurricane Center’s post-storm analysis. The deaths of 32 people were indirectly related to the storm.
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According to the NHC report, the storm caused a total of $75 billion in damages. This puts Hurricane Ida in fifth place on the list of costliest landfalling hurricanes on record.
The name Ida was retired from the hurricane naming lists, as was Katrina, meaning there will never be another tropical storm or hurricane with those names.