In Kentucky, rainfall from Katrina compounded flooding from a storm that had moved through during the previous weekend. Dozens of businesses were closed and several families evacuated due to rising floodwaters. As a result of the flooding, Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher declared three counties disaster areas and a statewide state of emergency. Additionally, wind gusts up to 72 mph (116 km/h) resulted in some damage.
Downed trees and power lines were reported in several counties in western Kentucky, especially Calloway and Christian counties. Overall, more than 10,000 utility customers in western Kentucky experienced power outages. The remnants of Katrina spawned a tornado in Virginia, damaging at least 13 homes in Marshall. Over 3 in of rain fell in portions of West Virginia, causing localized flooding in several counties.
At least 103 homes and 7 buildings suffered some degree of water damage. The remnants of Katrina produced locally heavy precipitation in northeast Ohio, ranging from about 2 to 4 in . Numerous streams and rivers overflowed their banks, forcing the closure of several roads, including Interstate 90 in Cleveland. Two deaths occurred due to a flood-related automobile accident in Huron County. Additionally, hundreds of homes and businesses suffered flood damage.
After making a brief initial landfall in Louisiana, Katrina had made its final landfall near the state line, and the eyewall passed over the cities of Bay St. Louis and Waveland as a Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 120 mph (190 km/h). Hurricane Katrina brought strong winds to Mississippi, which caused significant tree damage throughout the state. The highest unofficial reported wind gust recorded from Katrina was one of 135 mph (217 km/h) in Poplarville, in Pearl River County. Hurricane Katrina first made landfall between Hallandale Beach and Aventura, Florida on August 25. The storm dropped heavy rainfall in portions of the Miami metropolitan area, with a peak total of 16.43 in in Perrine. As a result, local flooding occurred in Miami-Dade County, damaging approximately 100 homes.
Farther south in the Florida Keys, a tornado was spawned in Marathon on August 26. The tornado damaged a hangar at the airport there and caused an estimated $5 million in damage. The rains caused flooding, and the combination of rains and winds downed trees and power lines, leaving 1.45 million people without power. Damage in South Florida was estimated at $523 million, mostly as a result of crop damage. Katrina spawned five tornadoes in Pennsylvania, though none resulted in significant damage.
Gusty winds also left approximately 4,500 people in Buffalo without electricity. The remnants of Katrina brought 3 to 6 in of rain to portions of Massachusetts, causing flash flooding in Bristol and Plymouth counties. Several roads were closed due to floodwater inundation in Acushnet, Dartmouth, New Bedford, and Wareham, including Route 18 in New Bedford. Very minimal impact was reported in Rhode Island, with winds downing a tree and two electrical poles in the city of Warwick. In Vermont, 2.5 in of rain in Chittenden County caused cars to hydroplane on Interstate 89, resulting in many automobile accidents.
The storm brought 3 to 5 in of precipitation to isolated areas of Maine and up to 9 in near Patten. Several roads were inundated or washed out by overflowing brooks and streams, including sections of U.S. Several structures and one parked vehicle were also affected by the waters. Wind gusts up to 60 mph (97 km/h) also impacted parts of Maine, felling trees and causing power outages in Bar Harbor, Blue Hill, Dover-Foxcroft, Sedgwick Ridge, and Sorrento. All three coastal counties of the state were severely affected by the storm.
Surge covered almost the entire lower half of Hancock County, destroying the coastal communities of Clermont Harbor and Waveland, much of Bay St. Louis, and flowed up the Jourdan River, flooding Diamondhead and Kiln. 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 flooding cutting the county in half.
Remarkably, over 90% of Pascagoula, the easternmost coastal city in Mississippi, and about 75 miles east of Katrina's landfall near the Louisiana-Mississippi border was flooded from storm surge at the height of the storm. Storm Radar gives you the latest information from NOAA and The Weather Channel, right on your iPhone or iPad. The high-resolution weather radar helps you visualize the storms coming your way. Six hours of cutting-edge animated future radar will help you know what's coming. You can even get a detailed analysis of impending severe weather, watching storm tracks and getting all the important information about the incoming cells. You'll know the storm's estimated arrival time, how strong it is, as well as whether it's bringing strong winds, lightning, hail, and tornadoes.
The tornado ended up being 2.6 miles wide at its peak and there were radar indicated winds which peaked at almost 300 MILES PER Hour. Officially the tornado was given a hotly debated rating of EF3 since after all, the EF scale is a measure of damage and not wind speed. Either way it was intense, dangerous and a day that none of us will ever forget. The storm surge caused substantial beach erosion, in some cases completely devastating coastal areas. In Dauphin Island , approximately 90 mi to the east of the point where the hurricane made landfall, the sand that comprised the island was transported across the island into the Mississippi Sound, pushing the island towards land. The storm surge and waves from Katrina also severely damaged the Chandeleur Islands, which had been affected by Hurricane Ivan the previous year.
The US Geological Survey has estimated 217 sq mi of land was transformed to water by the hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Before the storm, subsidence and erosion caused loss of land in the Louisiana wetlands and bayous. This, along with the canals built in the area, let Katrina keep more of its intensity when it struck. The lands that were lost were breeding grounds for marine mammals, brown pelicans, turtles, and fish, and migratory species such as redhead ducks. Overall, about 20% of the local marshes were permanently overrun by water as a result of the storm.
Eastern Arkansas received light rain from the passage of Katrina. Gusty winds downed some trees and power lines, though damage was minimal. Katrina also caused a number of power outages in many areas, with over 100,000 customers affected in Tennessee, primarily in the Memphis and Nashville areas. By August 26, the possibility of an unprecedented cataclysm was already being considered.
This scenario was considered a potential catastrophe because some parts of New Orleans and the metro area are below sea level. After attaining Category 5 hurricane status on the morning of August 28, Katrina reached its peak strength at 1800 UTC, with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph (280 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 902mbar (26.6inHg). The hurricane subsequently weakened due to another eyewall replacement cycle, and Katrina made its second landfall at 1110 UTC on August 29, as a Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 125 mph (205 km/h), near Buras-Triumph, Louisiana. At landfall, hurricane-force winds extended outward 120 miles from the center and the storm's central pressure was 920 mbar . After moving over southeastern Louisiana and Breton Sound, it made its third and final landfall near the Louisiana–Mississippi border with 120 mph (190 km/h) sustained winds, still at Category 3 hurricane intensity.
Katrina maintained strength well into Mississippi, finally losing hurricane strength more than 150 miles inland near Meridian, Mississippi. It was downgraded to a tropical depression near Clarksville, Tennessee; its remnants were absorbed by a cold front in the eastern Great Lakes region on August 31. The resulting extratropical storm moved rapidly to the northeast and affected eastern Canada. Storm Radar is the real deal, and provides tons of useful information. What's really awesome about this app, though, is that you can have it show as much or as little weather as you want. Customizable data layers let you focus on earthquakes, severe weather alerts, local storm reports, temperature, precipitation, and more.
Skip Talbot is a software and graphics developer who started roaming the Great Plains and Midwest in search of supercells and tornadoes in 2003. He's logged over 100,000 storm chasing miles and has documented over 90 tornadoes. Skip has applied his skills to his passion for storm chasing, developing radar visualizations with video and data overlays to study different events like the 2013 El Reno tornado. He also helps run a non-profit charity for storm victims called Storm Assist.
An oil rig under construction along the Mobile River broke its moorings and floated 1.5 miles (2.4 km) northwards before striking the Cochrane Bridge just outside Mobile. No significant damage resulted to the bridge and it was soon reopened. The damage on Dauphin Island was severe, with the surge destroying many houses and cutting a new canal through the western portion of the island. As in Mississippi, the storm surge caused significant beach erosion along the Alabama coastline. More than 600,000 people lost power in Alabama as a result of Hurricane Katrina and two people died in a traffic accident in the state. Residents in some areas, such as Selma, were without power for several days.
The storm also brought heavy rains with 8–10 inches (200–250 mm) falling in southwestern Mississippi and rain in excess of 4 inches falling throughout the majority of the state. Katrina caused eleven tornadoes in Mississippi on August 29, some of which damaged trees and power lines. Flooding, caused largely as a result of fatal engineering flaws in the flood protection system around the city of New Orleans, precipitated most of the loss of lives. Eventually, 80% of the city, as well as large tracts of neighboring parishes, were inundated for weeks. The flooding also destroyed most of New Orleans's transportation and communication facilities, leaving tens of thousands of people who had not evacuated the city prior to landfall stranded with little access to food, shelter, or other basic necessities.
The scale of the disaster in New Orleans provoked massive national and international response efforts; federal, local, and private rescue operations evacuated displaced persons out of the city over the following weeks. Multiple investigations in the aftermath of the storm concluded that the U.S. Stay safe with live local storm alerts and severe weather warnings. Now you can track the most severe - and potentially damaging - weather in real time with Storm.
This powerful, high-definition NOAA radar and tornado tracker is designed to help you stay safe, stay up-to-date and weather the storm. As an Emmy award-winning severe weather expert, Brad Sowder recently spent several years forecasting morning weather in Oklahoma City and was a featured storm chaser during severe weather. He is one of the only meteorologists that has chased tornadoes from a helicopter.
Before Oklahoma, Brad forecasted for a number of years in Colorado. Reed Timmer has chased more than 1000 tornadoes and hurricanes, becoming one of the world's leading experts on severe weather forecasting, research, and safety. He completed a PhD in Meteorology at The University of Oklahoma in 2015 after starring on Discovery Channel's hit TV series, Storm Chasers. Presently, Reed provides live coverage from severe weather across the world as the lead storm chaser for Accuweather since April 2015.
For Timmer, the ultimate goal is to better understand the complex dynamics behind tornadoes and other extreme storms so safer and stronger structures can be designed. Find the most current and reliable 14 day weather forecasts, storm alerts, reports and information for West Salem, OH, US with The Weather Network. The storm also brought a dramatic rise in the role of websites—especially blogging and community journalism.
One example was the effort of NOLA.com, the web affiliate of New Orleans's Times-Picayune. A group of reporters were awarded the Breaking News Pulitzer Prize and shared the Public Service Pulitzer with the Biloxi-based Sun Herald. The newspaper's coverage was carried for days only on NOLA's blogs, as the newspaper lost its presses and evacuated its building as water rose around it on August 30. The site became an international focal point for news by local media, and also became a vital link for rescue operations and later for reuniting scattered residents, as it accepted and posted thousands of individual pleas for rescue on its blogs and forums.
NOLA was monitored constantly by an array of rescue teams—from individuals to the Coast Guard—which used information in rescue efforts. Much of this information was relayed from trapped victims via the SMS functions of their cell phones, to friends and relatives outside the area, who then relayed the information back to NOLA.com. The aggregation of community journalism, user photos, and the use of the internet site as a collaborative response to the storm attracted international attention and was called a watershed moment in journalism. In the wake of these online-only efforts, the Pulitzer Committee for the first time opened all its categories to online entries. Many representatives of the news media reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina became directly involved in the unfolding events, instead of simply reporting.
Because of the loss of most means of communication, such as land-based and cellular telephone systems, field reporters in many cases became conduits for information between victims and authorities. The authorities, who monitored local and network news broadcasts, as well as internet sites, would then attempt to coordinate rescue efforts based on the reports. One illustration was when Geraldo Rivera of Fox News tearfully pleaded for authorities to either send help or evacuate the thousands of evacuees stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
The role of AM radio was also of importance to the hundreds of thousands of persons with no other ties to news, providing emergency information regarding access to assistance for hurricane victims. Immediately after Katrina, WWL-AM was one of the few area radio stations in the area remaining on the air. This emergency service, simulcasted on shortwave outlet WHRI, was named "The United Radio Broadcasters of New Orleans." Their ongoing nighttime broadcasts continued to be available up to 500 mi away. Announcers continued to broadcast from improvised studio facilities after the storm damaged their main studios. The cellular phone antenna network was severely damaged and completely inoperable for several months. Northern and central Georgia were affected by heavy rains and strong winds from Hurricane Katrina as the storm moved inland, with more than 3 inches of rain falling in several areas.
At least 18 tornadoes formed in Georgia on August 29, 2005, the most on record in that state for one day in August. The most serious of these tornadoes was an F2 tornado which affected Heard County and Carroll County. This tornado caused three injuries and one fatality and damaged several houses.
The other tornadoes caused significant damages to buildings and agricultural facilities. In addition to the fatality caused by the F2 tornado, there was another fatality in a traffic accident. Battered by wind, rain and storm surge, some beachfront neighborhoods were completely leveled. Preliminary estimates by Mississippi officials calculated that 90% of the structures within half a mile of the coastline were completely destroyed, and that storm surges traveled as much as 6 miles inland in portions of the state's coast. One apartment complex with approximately thirty residents seeking shelter inside collapsed. More than half of the 13 casinos in the state, which were floated on barges to comply with Mississippi land-based gambling laws, were washed hundreds of yards inland by waves.
As the eye of Hurricane Katrina swept to the northeast, it subjected the city to hurricane conditions for hours. Katrina's storm surge inundated all parishes surrounding Lake Pontchartrain, including St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, St. John the Baptist, and St. Charles Parishes. The first surge came as Lake Pontchartrain rose and the storm blew water from the Gulf of Mexico into the lake.
The second came as the eye of Katrina passed, westerly winds pushed water into a bottleneck at the Rigolets Pass, forcing it farther inland. The range of surge levels in eastern St. Tammany Parish is estimated at 13–16 feet (4.0–4.9 m), not including wave action. Significant impacts were also reported in the Florida Panhandle. Although Katrina moved ashore in Louisiana and Mississippi, its outer periphery produced a 5.37 ft (1.64 m) storm surge in Pensacola. There were five tornadoes in the northwestern portion of the state, though none of them caused significant damage.
Throughout the Florida Panhandle, the storm resulted in an estimated $100 million in damage. There were two indirect fatalities from Katrina in Walton County as a result of a traffic accident. Overall, the hurricane killed 14 people and caused at least $623 million in damage. In Louisiana, the state's hurricane evacuation plan calls for local governments in areas along and near the coast to evacuate in three phases, starting with the immediate coast 50 hours before the start of tropical-storm-force winds.
