Posted on 08/30/2005 4:15:14 PM PDT by Cicero
Katrina Costly, but Not As Big As Expected Aug 30 5:38 PM US/Eastern
By MATT CRENSON AP National Writer
news://newsclip.ap.org/GARF10208302126@news.ap.org
In terms of economic damage and lives lost, Katrina may turn out to be one of the worst hurricanes in U.S. history.
But the storm actually turned out to be much less powerful than predicted. Meteorologists say a puff of dry air coming out of the Midwest weakened Katrina just before it reached land, transforming a Category 5 monster into a less-threatening Category 3 storm.
The last-minute gust also pushed Katrina slightly to the east of its Big Easy-bound trajectory, sparing New Orleans a direct hit _ though not horrendous harm.
"It was kind of an amazing sequence of events," said Peter Black, a meteorologist at the Hurricane Research Division of the federal government's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.
On Sunday, meteorologists watched in awe as one of the most powerful hurricanes they had ever seen churned northward over the Gulf of Mexico on a direct bearing for New Orleans. Fed by unusually warm waters in the central gulf, Katrina easily pumped itself up to a Category 5 monster, with top winds approaching 175 mph. That afternoon a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration aircraft flying through the storm pegged its minimum barometric pressure at 902 millibars, making Katrina the fourth most powerful hurricane ever observed.
But by the time it reached land Monday, Katrina was no stronger than any of a dozen or more hurricanes that have hit the United States in the past century. Hurricane Camille had a substantially lower central pressure when it slammed into Mississippi in 1969. Hurricane Charley blasted the Sunshine State with higher winds when it came ashore near Tampa last year.
So if it wasn't so powerful, how did Hurricane Katrina inflict so much destruction?
The storm's sheer size was one factor. As powerful as Hurricane Charley was, that storm's swath of destruction was only about 10 miles wide. Katrina battered everything from just west of New Orleans to Pensacola, Fla., a span of more than 200 miles. At noon Monday, hurricane force winds extended to 125 miles from Katrina's center.
"This storm was quite a bit larger, so the extent of the damaging wind field would have covered a much larger geographic area," said Marc Levitan, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Louisiana State University.
Geography also played a role in the hurricane's destructiveness. The Gulf of Mexico's northern fringe is an extremely shallow shelf extending up to 120 miles offshore. That makes the region's coastline extremely vulnerable to the storm surges that hurricanes create as their winds and low pressure pile up water and push it ashore.
And Katrina was moving fairly slowly, about 12 to 15 mph. That gave the storm surge more time to build up as the hurricane approached the coast and then moved inland.
Those circumstances made Katrina "nearly a worst-case scenario," said Hurricane Research Division meteorologist Stanley Goldberg. Some witnesses reported storm surges of more than 25 feet along the Mississippi coast, among the highest ever recorded. The waters around New Orleans rose as much as 22 feet.
But the catastrophic sequence of events that appeared highly likely on Sunday afternoon _ a Category 5 hurricane washing over the Big Easy's ramparts and filling it like a bowl _ did not come to pass.
Instead, a different scenario unfolded. Several levees failed on Tuesday, unleashing floods that placed the city of 480,000 in peril long after Hurricane Katrina had dissipated.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Maybe later analysis will show something different, but this "puff of dry wind" at the last minute could have made a huge difference.
The cost can't be calculated at this point, but I would hazzard this will be north of $100 billion.
It could easily turn out to be the most expensive hurricane ever. I heard the figure $25 billion today, but $100 billion is possible.
But if it hadn't been for that last minute weakening, it could have killed tens of thousand more people and cost five or ten times as much.
2 or 3 weeks before everything returns to normal??
Have you been watching the news today?? 2 or 3 MONTHS would seem like a more accurate estimate.
well let's remember that they had Andrew at about $12 Billion for a while, but it ended up somewhere around $26 Billion.
My guess would be 50-60 Billion.
I am afraid that this storm will crack 1000 dead though.
Katrina was a Cat 4 when it went by New Orleans however.
No way.
The thing is, Andrew was a relatively dry storm, in that it didn't produce nearly as much rain, and there was little storm surge. Katrina was a very wet storm, and windy as well, so it may not have been a powerful as Andrew, but the damage may still outdo Andrew's.
Are you for real? Homes and condominiums are still being repaired in my home town from Hurricane Ivan a year ago. There are people in LA, MS, and AL who will be homeless for the next 9-12 months at a MINIMUM. 100's of lives were lost - do you think their family's lives will be "back to normal" in 2-3 weeks? In Biloxi alone, every casino sustained major or catastrophic damage. How many thousands of businesses and jobs were lost? You have no concept of the level of destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina.
I know it's hard to believe this isn't a "worst-case" scenario but it would have been worse if it had gone further west either over New Orleans or slightly west of New Orleans. Places like Mobile and Pascagoula might have fared a little better but the New Orleans area would have been far worse -with massive destruction and many more dead.
Throught God's mercy, residents had sufficient time to get out and those who could not had additional time before the city became so flooded that they needed to be rescued. I could easily envision a city that filled up with water so fast that thousands would have drowned within the forst 24 hours. Who knows if the SuperDome roof would have held up under 30+ MPH stronger winds than they already received?
There were also fewer tornadoes than some major hurricanes have spawned.
Hard to believe, but it *could* have been worse.
You are rightfully getting flamed for that foolish remark.
Not to mention the storm slowed a bit offshore, which caused the land to affect it more on the way in...and weakened it.
I heard that the schools will not be opened for 2 months if not longer than that. Where has this person been?
If you remember (I do) some of the worst predictions were possible 50,000 dead.
Bodies removed from water and areas where water receded..Clean water restored, rebuild electric grids, lines repaired, sewers working, streets cleared, housing restored to livability after flooding, damage repaired in hotels, roads repaired and reopened, debris removed so rebuilding may begin, grocery stores cleaned and restocked..gas lines repaired, temporary housing provided, bridge, etc...
Should be a cakewalk/sarcasm
1 month: lots of people returning.
2 months: major cleanup complete.
6 months: city appears mostly "normal" except for economic effects.
1 year: most people start to feel better. Not as much of a topic of conversation anymore.
2 years: life pretty much back to normal, except for some who've suffered ongoing economic effects.
5 years: not too many who haven't gotten over it both economically and emotionally.
30 years: will still be a topic of conversation whenever "hurricane" comes up.
All of this assumes, of course, that NO doesn't get hit in the next few years by a Cat 5 storm that fulfills what Katrina COULD have been if she hadn't gotten weakened and pushed to the side at the last moment by a puff of dry air from the west.
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