– CBS News – August 29-30, 2005 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
When Hurricane Katrina made landfall, all the fears were confirmed and all the warnings were true. Those who stayed behind, and survived, were reporting unfathomable scenes of devastation. And even after the worst of it had passed, the true level of damage and loss was yet to be discovered.
On August 29, 2005, Katrina’s storm surge caused 53 breaches to various flood protection structures in and around the greater New Orleans area, submerging 80% of the city. A June 2007 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers indicated that two-thirds of the flooding was caused by the multiple failures of the city’s floodwalls. The storm surge also devastated the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama, making Katrina one of the most costly natural disasters in the history of the United States[41] and the deadliest hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. The total damage from Katrina is estimated at $125 billion (2005 U.S. dollars).
The death toll from Katrina is uncertain, with reports differing by hundreds. According to the National Hurricane Center, 1,836 fatalities can be attributed to the storm: one in Kentucky, two each in Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio, 14 in Florida, 238 in Mississippi, and 1,577 in Louisiana. However, 135 people remain categorized as missing in Louisiana, and many of the deaths are indirect, but it is almost impossible to determine the exact cause of some of the fatalities. A 2008 report by the Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness journal indicates that 966 deaths can be directly attributed to the storm in Louisiana, including out of state evacuees, and another 20 indirectly (such as firearm-related deaths and gas poisoning). Due to uncertain causes of death with 454 evacuees, an upper-bound of 1,440 is noted in the paper. A follow-up study by the Louisiana Department of Health & Hospitals determined that the storm was directly responsible for 1,170 fatalities in Louisiana.
And twenty years ago to the day, on August 29th 2005, we were watching and listening and shaking our heads.
A five minute reminder of a lifetime’s worth of destruction.
