Recurring Devastation

The Parallels Between Katrina and Ida

Kassidy Charles

*At the bottom of this article are links to learn more about the hurricane’s aftermath and how to help individually or with organizations to provide relief and aid.*

On August 29^th, the 16^th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina to the very day, Hurricane Ida landed in Louisiana beginning its trail that would become one of the deadliest and costliest hurricane in US History.  

            The two hurricanes were very similar in size and area that they landed. Both hit Louisiana and severely damaged the power grid and water systems in their regions. In fact, the distance between the landfalls of both hurricanes is a mere 50 miles. 

Hurricane Katrina was a Category 3 storm with winds blowing at 127 mph. Katrina landed near Buras Louisiana and weakened when approaching landfall. Hurricane Katrina brought with it 8-12 inches of rain and storm surge flooding 25-28 ft above normal. Hurricane force winds stretchered up to 110 miles from its center.

Hurricane Ida was a Category 4 storm with winds blowing at about 150 mph. After growing stronger after passing through the Gulf of Mexico Hurricane Ida landed around Port Fouchon. Right now, according to Power Outage US, over a million customers don’t have electricity which will take weeks to repair and get back online. Hurricane Ida had force winds stretched 45 miles from Ida’s center.

Though Hurricane Ida was smaller than Hurricane Katrina, Ida had a devastating blow all the same. This time, no one in New Orleans was spared from losing electricity. And though the levees mitigated a lot of the potential flooding, COVID poses new arguably more challenging problems for authorities and the people of New Orleans in the coming days. 

When discussing the previous levee breaks that happened due to the Hurricane, the NHC said that “Overall, about 80% of the city of New Orleans flooded, to varying depths up to about 20 ft, within a day or so after landfall of the eye,” 

Hurricane Ida and Katrina were among the most dangerous storms in the south’s history. Luckily, since Hurricane Katrina there has been the implementation of roughly $14.5 billion worth of flood protection to eliminate the cause of most for the damage that Katrina did in the past. This included flood walls, levees, canals and barriers made by the U.S Army Corps Engineers. CNN reported that The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East said that its levees held and were not overtopped during Hurricane Ida. The levees working just as designed prevented millions of more destruction. 

Both of these storms had devastating effects and as a planet, we are experiencing increasingly strong and viscous storms because of the environments we continue to pollute. Help is needed almost everywhere. Which is why below, there is a LinkTree that will have links to different sources of information and ways to help. 

Our LinkTree to Hurricane Aid and Information: https://linktr.ee/Hurricanidahelp