Hurricane Katrina #10

I wanted to start off my blog with a very well known natural disaster. As the title says, its Hurricane Katrina. Its said to be one of the deadliest hurricanes to ever hit the United States to date. It was formed about 200 miles from the Bahamas Augest 23, 2005 and was only considered a tropical storm. As it was making its way down to Florida, it stopped over the Gulf of Mexico and gaining a lot of speed. Reaching wind speeds up to 175 mph overseas which is a Category 5 and when it hit land, slowed to 140 mph a Category 3. Hitting alongside the border between Louisiana and Mississippi Augest 29. After reaching around the center of Mississippi it was said to be a Category 1 then after six hours, the horrible storm then was difined as a tropical storm and finally dissipated and was absorbed by a frontal zone.  Causing over 100 billion in U.S. dollars between the winds destroying houses, throwing things and the massive flooding. They say an estimated 1,833 people were killed by the hurricane, mostly by the flooding. The flooding caused by the hurricane when it would destroy the weak levees and drainage cannals was more devistating than the hurricane itself. It caused most of the casualties and the damage which is to me, very surprising. 80% of New Orleans was completely flooded and some of the surounded area. New Orleans is 350 sq miles, 80% of that is 280. 280 sq miles of New Orleans was supmerged in water, to me that's a little scary to think that a storm that started with winds of 40 mph winds could do such a thing. 

Here is a picture of some of the flooding caused 

by Hurricane Katrina.

To me, this is absolutely one of the worst natural disasters that has ever been recorded in history. Its not at all the fact that it has a higher casualtie count, its the amount of damage asnd the potential that this storm could've had. This storm caused the gouverment of the United States over 100 000 000 000 dollars, a 12 digit number, that's huge in my opinion. Seeing the information about this hurricane makes me realise something, it could've been a lot worse then people may think and that scrares me a little. Remember how I had mentioned that Hurricane Katrina had mannaged to become a Cat. 5 hurricane as it stopped over the Gulf of Mexico and that it lowered down before making landfall? Now imagine if it the winds didn't slow down, imagine if it didn't lower to a Cat. 3 and it stayed a Cat. 5 with winds of 175 mph instead of 140 mph. How much deadlier would Hurricane Katrina have become? According to my math, it would've become 1.25X stronger. Thats an extra 25 billion dollars and 438 dead people. That's horrible, but let's be thankful that it did slow down before it hit Louisiana and Mississippi. Im going to be honest, the people of New Orleans and others are very stupid. In the past century between 1915 and 2005, there has been 6 hurricanes that have flooded New Orleans. Now I got to thinking, if that has happened in the past, you'd think that they would have come up with a good mesure to diminish the casualties and the damage. Now i don't doubt that they have, but I think they'd have it down by like the fourth time this has happened. since this is a recurring event, they should be prepared whenever they think a hurricane is about to hit. What's that expression? Ah yes, better safe then sorry. If there is a storm that is amassing somewhere that has the possibility to go up and hit the area, they should prepare to diminish the overall damage. It took the storm around six days to go from the Bahamas to Mississippi and such. I think that;s enough time to prepare for  it don't you think? To conclude, this was definetly one of the worst disasters and most damaging, but i really think it could've been worse but on the other side it could've also been less effecting.   

Here's a time lapse of the path that Hurricane

Katrina took from beginning to end.

Sources:
-http://list25.com/25-worst-natural-disasters-recorded/
-http://www.history.com/topics/hurricane-katrina
-http://www.livescience.com/22522-hurricane-katrina-facts.html
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans