area are not available Across the southeastern United States, Hurricane Katrina contributed to 1,392 fatalities, making it the
deadliest hurricanes in the United States since the
1928 Okeechobee hurricane. Most of the deaths were in Louisiana or Mississippi, caused by flooding. However, there were hundreds of indirect deaths, such as related to cardiovascular issues or traffic accidents. Katrina caused significant damage where it moved ashore, with monetary damage estimated at $125 billion, making it the costliest United States hurricane on record, later tied by
Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
Florida Overall, Hurricane Katrina killed 14 people in Florida, of which 6 were directly related to the storm. Downed trees killed three people in Broward County. Of the total, fell in 24 hours. During its passage, the eye of the hurricane moved directly over the office of the National Hurricane Center, which reported a wind gust of . Widespread flooding affected crop nurseries and greenhouses, and crop damage totaled $423 million. Similar to the Miami area, Katrina dropped heavy rainfall in the Florida Keys, reaching in Key West. In southwestern Florida, the storm produced a storm surge of in
St. Petersburg. Winds along the Florida panhandle peaked at in Pensacola, with gusts to .
Alabama When Katrina moved ashore, it produced hurricane-force winds across southwestern Alabama.
Dauphin Island recorded sustained winds of , while the docked in
Mobile Bay recorded gusts to . Two indirect deaths were reported after a fatal car accident during the storm. Only 50 have since been rebuilt. The strong winds knocked down trees and power lines. Over 656,000 customers in Alabama lost power, causing it to have, at the time, the second most power outages for a storm in Alabama history behind only
Hurricane Ivan.
Mississippi . Hurricane Katrina made its final landfall near the Louisiana/Mississippi border, with estimated sustained winds of 120 mph (195 km/h). Anemometers failed during the storm, leading to an incomplete wind observation record. The highest official wind gust was 98 mph (157 km/h), recorded at
Keesler Air Force Base in
Biloxi. An unofficial station in
Poplarville recorded wind gusts to 135 mph (217 km/h). The hurricane also produced 11 tornadoes in the state. While moving ashore, Katrina produced a storm surge along the coast that reached inland, with a high water mark of recorded at
Pass Christian. Based on the observation, the NHC estimated that an area around
Bay of St. Louis experienced a storm surge of . In addition to the surge and waves, Katrina also produced heavy rainfall along its track. The combination of powerful waves and storm surge eroded beaches and washed away entire coastal towns. The high waters washed away thousands of buildings in coastal counties, with floodwaters reaching as far inland as
I-10. The tides swept barges and boats onto the I-10 bridge over the
Pascagoula River, damaging the eastbound bridge. The waves also destroyed the
Biloxi Bay Bridge and the
St. Louis Bay Bridge, both carrying part of
U.S. Route 90. Along the coast, the floodwaters destroyed or heavily damaged all 13 casino barges, with slot machines and docks wrecked. Across the state, the high winds knocked down or damaged millions of trees, including hundreds that fell onto cars or homes. The winds destroyed roofs while also damaging windows and signs. There were at least 15 fatalities related to fallen trees. The timber industry sustained about $1.3 billion in damage. Surveying the damage the day after Katrina's passing, Mississippi governor Haley Barbour called the scene indescribable, saying "I can only imagine that this is what
Hiroshima looked like 60 years ago." The mayor of Biloxi, A.J. Holloway, told the
Biloxi Sun Herald, "This is our tsunami." Relief and rebuilding efforts initially focused on restoring power and clearing communities of debris up to in depth. Because of federal intent to rebuild or recover projects of the US Federal Government, the damage assessment to federal buildings in Mississippi covers actual costs: the amount needed to resume operations at market costs. The following federal projects are described in terms of damage, along with the cost to resume operations: Surge covered almost the entire lower half of Hancock County, destroying the coastal communities of
Clermont Harbor and
Waveland, and much of
Bay St. Louis, and flowed up the Jourdan River, flooding
Kiln. In Harrison County, Pass Christian was completely inundated, along with a narrow strip of land to the east along the coast, which includes the cities of
Long Beach and
Gulfport; the flooding was more extensive in communities such as
D'Iberville, which borders the Back Bay of Biloxi. Biloxi, on a peninsula between the Back Bay and the coast, was particularly hard hit, especially the low-lying Point Cadet area. In Jackson County, storm surge flowed up the wide river
estuary, with the combined surge and freshwater floods cutting the county in half. Over 90% of
Pascagoula, the easternmost coastal city in Mississippi, was flooded from surge. Other Jackson County communities such as Porteaux Bay were destroyed, and
St. Martin was hard hit, along with
Ocean Springs,
Moss Point,
Gautier, and
Escatawpa. Two
destroyers that were under construction at
Litton-Ingalls Shipbuilding in
Pascagoula were damaged, as well as the
amphibious assault ship . Hancock County was the scene of the final landfall of the eye of Hurricane Katrina, causing total devastation in Waveland, Bay St. Louis,
Pearlington, and Clermont Harbor, as well as southern
Diamondhead. The bridge between Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian was destroyed. Katrina came ashore during the high tide of 8:01am, raising the storm tide by , to over . The storm dragged away almost every structure within of the beach, leaving driveways and walkways that went to nowhere. Smaller coastal towns were also severely damaged. Much of Long Beach and most of Pass Christian, which bore the brunt of Category 5
Hurricane Camille in 1969, were leveled. Nearby Gulfshore Baptist Assembly, a camp owned and operated by the Mississippi Baptist Convention, was permanently closed, and recommendations were made to build a new facility elsewhere. Residents who survived Hurricane Camille stated that Katrina was "much worse," with a storm surge reportedly reaching further inland than the previous catastrophic storm. Katrina's wind estimates were lighter than Camille's, and the central air pressure was slightly higher, but Camille was also a much smaller storm so the greater impact of the storm surge may be due to the size.
Keesler Air Force Base, also located in Biloxi, reported extensive damage to its facilities. Gulfport authorities reported to news station CNN that up to of water covered downtown streets. The Biloxi-Ocean Springs Bridge was also destroyed, and
US 90 had heavy debris and severe damage to the roadbed. Thirty of the confirmed deaths in Harrison County were at the St. Charles apartment complex, said Kelly Jakubic with the county's Emergency Operations Center. The apartment complex was reported, by local news sources, to have collapsed with dozens of residents inside. FOX News also reported deaths at the Quiet Water Beach apartments. Rebuilding in Harrison County proceeded at different paces in different towns. Biloxi was greatly helped by the resurgence of the casino industry, while smaller towns such as Pass Christian did not have an economic base with which to start the reconstruction effort. By January 2007, almost a year and a half after the Hurricane, Pass Christian had still not yet begun rebuilding its city buildings, and volunteer labor was involved in rebuilding private homes in the town. The
ECHL Mississippi Sea Wolves, which play in Biloxi, was forced to suspend operations for two years because of the aftermath of the hurricane causing damage to the
Mississippi Coast Coliseum. The team resumed play in
2007.
Louisiana When Hurricane Katrina moved ashore on August 29, its strongest winds occurred to the east of the eye in extreme southeastern Louisiana. Along the coast, wind gusts reached 114 mph (183 km/h) in
Grand Isle. In New Orleans, the
Michoud Assembly Facility recorded a wind gust of 123 mph (198 km/h) at an elevation of about . A station along the
Lake Pontchartrain Causeway recorded a wind gust of . Across the state, Katrina left 890,294 people without power. According to officials nearly one million people were temporarily without electricity in Louisiana for several weeks. Numerous roadways were flooded or damaged and many evacuations conducted by boat and helicopter. Approximately 46,000
National Guard were dispatched to the area as part of the disaster relief effort. The
United States Navy also announced that four amphibious ships would be sent from
Norfolk, Virginia within a few days to assist the relief efforts. The US Coast Guard rescued 1,259 survivors off rooftops by Wednesday morning August 31, less than two days after landfall, and more than 1,000 the next day. In less than two weeks 12,535 flood victims were saved by helicopter. In all, the Coast Guard made 33,544 rescues by helicopter and boats. Of those, 19,000 were stranded in flooded neighborhoods in the New Orleans metro area — and 6,500 of them were picked up by helicopter. It was the largest air rescue mission in the agency’s history and one of the rare success stories in the federal response. By July 1, 2006, when new population estimates were calculated by the
U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the state of Louisiana declined by 219,563, or 4.87%. Just as matters were beginning to improve in 2010, the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf in April 2010 caused massive amounts of oil to come ashore in the wetlands and marshes in
Plaquemines Parish and other areas of coastal Louisiana near New Orleans that had been most heavily damaged by Katrina, and the spill will likely reach other states that were also affected by the storm (the hurricane had caused or exacerbated oil spills on a smaller scale when it hit).
New Orleans is at center. While moving through eastern Louisiana, the center of the eye of Katrina passed 23 mi (37 km) east of downtown New Orleans. The entire city observed hurricane-force winds, with higher wind gusts at higher elevations. The storm surge overtopped or breached the levees protecting the city and inundated about 80% of New Orleans, reaching deep in some areas. The floods took 43 days to be entirely drained, partially due to additional floods from
Hurricane Rita. Approximately one million people had fled the city and its surrounding suburbs by the evening of August 28, while about 100,000 people remained in the city, with about 10,000 taking shelter at the
Louisiana Superdome which had been prepared to accommodate only 800. Eventually, 30,000 arrived at the Superdome before they were evacuated. By August 31, eighty percent (80%) of the city of New Orleans was flooded by Hurricane Katrina, with some parts of the city under , of water. Over 50 breaches in region's levee system were cataloged, five of which resulted in massive flooding of New Orleans. The
17th Street Canal levee was just south of the Hammond Highway Bridge. Levees adjacent to London Avenue breached in two locations: one near Robert E. Lee Boulevard and one between Filmore Avenue and Mirabeau Avenue. Two breaches also occurred in the Industrial Canal adjacent to Surekote Road. Levee repair efforts were undertaken, involving reinforcing the levees with sandbags deployed by
U.S. Army Chinook and
Black Hawk helicopters. The 17th Street Canal levee repair was completed by September 5, 2005, and subsequently, the three canals were repaired all the way to Lake Pontchartrain. The Army Corps of Engineers added flood gates to the three canals. Many evacuees were trapped in flooded houses and rooftops waiting to be rescued. The Superdome sustained significant damage and much of the dome's waterproof membrane had essentially been peeled off. On August 30, Louisiana governor
Kathleen Blanco ordered the complete evacuation of the remaining people that sought shelter in the
Superdome. Blanco instructed the Adjutant General of the Louisiana National Guard,
Major General Bennett C. Landreneau to contact Honoré of Northern Command (Honoré arrived on Wednesday, August 31, as the commander of the newly established Joint Task Force Katrina to supervise federal military operations) to arrange for active duty military support of response operations in Louisiana. Additionally, General Landreneau instructed Louisiana National Guard officials at the Superdome to cease planning for the evacuation as Honoré would be "taking charge" of the evacuation project. The evacuees were then transported to the
Astrodome in
Houston, Texas. The only route out of the city was west on the Crescent City Connection as the
I-10 (twin span) bridge traveling east towards
Slidell, Louisiana had collapsed. The
Lake Pontchartrain Causeway was also carrying emergency traffic only.
Rest of Louisiana On August 29, 2005, at 14:45 UTC,
Hurricane Katrina made its final landfall near the mouth of the
Pearl River. The western eye wall passed directly over
St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana as a
Category 3 hurricane. and caused significant damage, with a height of being recorded in
Grand Isle. The hurricane-force winds caused widespread destruction, toppling trees and telephone poles throughout the parish. The Twin Spans of I-10 between Slidell and New Orleans East were virtually destroyed, and much of I-10 in New Orleans East was underwater. The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and the Highway 11 bridge, connecting the north and south shores of Lake Pontchartrain, were open only to emergency traffic. Initial search and rescue operations were conducted south of Highway 190 from Lacombe east to the state line, with over 3,000 people evacuated from flooded homes and about 300 people rescued. During the rescue period, radio communications for first responders were working, but the 9-1-1 system was down for ten days. Utility services were unavailable in the parish. However, hospitals and a special needs shelter had generator power, and the hospitals were operating at full capacity. In the aftermath, 48,792 housing units were damaged by floodwaters and high winds. The recovery efforts, including over 6.6 million cubic yards collected and restoration of essential services, continued for at least through 2009 following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. The breach on the east side of the
17th Street Canal levee did not cause severe flooding within
Jefferson Parish, but some lower-lying areas did receive significant water damage, especially on the East Bank. The Sheriff of
Jefferson Parish reported that he expected his district to remain uninhabitable for at least one week and that residents should not return to the area. Incidents of
looting were reported throughout affected areas of Louisiana, most notably in New Orleans. Louisiana governor
Kathleen Blanco ordered all roadways into the state closed. By one week after the storm, residents were allowed to return to their homes to retrieve essentials, provided that they could present identification proving that they lived in the parish. They were only allowed in to retrieve essential items, and were then required to leave the parish for another month. In
Terrebonne Parish, signs, trees, roofs and utility poles suffered the brunt of Hurricane Katrina's fury when the storm roared across Terrebonne and
Lafourche. Most of Terrebonne Parish and Lafourche Parish were covered with water during the storm surge, yet Houma was spared to the extent that the Coast Guard used their airport for the initial rescue launch site.
Washington Parish received significant damage due to wind damage and local flooding. The Parish is home to many pine forests in which many of the pine trees snapped or were completely uprooted. The eye of Katrina could be seen from the eastern part of the parish, in
Bogalusa as Bogalusa was only fifteen miles away from the center of the eye. Much of Bogalusa was without power for weeks. Many major roads were covered by trees and were not cleared for many days. Schools did not reopen until October. As gasoline was in short supply even for emergency workers, the parish banned gas sales to the public for several days, arousing the ire of many locals.
Other states As part of a broader tornado outbreak, Katrina spawned 18 tornadoes in Georgia, including an F2 twister that killed a man in
Roopville, along with about a million chickens after destroying 17 poultry barns. This marked the first tornado fatality in Georgia in the month of August on record. The tornadoes also resulted in six injuries, with damage estimated at $12.8 million. Rainfall in the state reached , enough to cause street flooding. Gusty winds caused isolated tree and power line damage across northwestern Georgia. About 12,500 people in the state lost power. Moving into Tennessee as a tropical storm, Katrina still had winds strong enough to knock down trees and power lines. About 100,000 people in the state lost power. In
Covington, the winds destroyed a porch and some windows, while in
Bartlett a tree fell onto a house. Heavy rainfall occurred as far north as Kentucky, reaching in
Finney. The rains added to rains that affected the state earlier, producing flooding that killed a girl in
Hopkinsville. Floods in the city affected 180 buildings, forcing residents to evacuate, including several people rescued from their cars. Floodwaters closed at least 40 roads, which closed all schools in
Christian County. Two schools sustained water damage. Hopkinsville also recorded a gust of . The combination of the rains and winds knocked down trees and power lines, leaving about 10,000 people statewide without power. In
Calloway County, 32 roads were blocked by fallen trees. Governor
Ernie Fletcher, declared
Christian,
Todd, and
Trigg counties disaster areas due to flooding, and declared a statewide state of emergency. == Aftermath ==