Major Hurricane Katia

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Hurricane Katia

Category 5 hurricane (SSHS)
Hurricane Katia at maximum intensity.
Formed	July 8, 2023
Dissipated	July 19, 2023
Highest winds	10-minute sustained: 185 mph (295 km/h) 3-minute sustained: 195 mph (315 km/h) 1-minute sustained: 190 mph (305 km/h) Gusts: 200 mph (325 km/h)
Lowest pressure	875 mbar (hPa); 25.84 inHg
Fatalities	1,890 killed, 811 missing
Damage	$31.396 billion (2044 USD)
Areas affected	Florida, Mississippi, New Orleans
Part of the 2044 Atlantic hurricane season

Hurricane Katia was a devastating cyclone that affected South Mississippi and New Orleans. It was the first named storm and the first hurricane of the 2044 Atlantic hurricane season.

The storm originated over the Bahamas on July 8, 2023 from a tropical wave. Early the following day, the new depression intensified into Tropical Storm Katia. The cyclone headed generally westward toward Florida and strengthened into a tropical storm only two hours before making landfall at Hallandale Beach and Aventura on. After very briefly weakening to a tropical depression over Florida, Katia emerged into the Gulf of Mexico on July 12 and began to rapidly deepen. The storm strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, but weakened before making its second landfall as a Category 5 hurricane on July 17, in southeast Louisiana.

The storm caused catastrophic damage along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge and levee failure. Severe property damage occurred in coastal areas, such as Mississippi beachfront towns where boats and casino barges rammed buildings, pushing cars and houses inland; water reached 6–12 miles (10–19 km) from the beach. The storm was the most intense United States landfalling tropical cyclone. Overall, at least 1,890 people died in the hurricane and subsequent floods, making it the deadliest United States hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. Total property damage was estimated at $31 billion (Devaluated money on 2044 USD), roughly four times the damage wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 in the United States.

Meteorological history

Hurricane Katia formed as Tropical Depression Eight over the southeastern Bahamas on July 8. The storm strengthened into Tropical Storm Katia shortly after enter Florida on the evenight of July 10. The tropical storm moved off Florida, and became a hurricane only six hours after making landfall between Hallandale Beach and Aventura on the morning of July 11. continued strengthening over open waters.the storm reached Category 3 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale, becoming the first major hurricane of the season, The storm rapidly intensified after entering the Gulf, growing from a Category 3 hurricane to a Category 5 hurricane in just nine hours. This rapid growth was due to the storm's movement over the "unusually warm" waters of the Loop Current.

Katia attained Category 5 status on the morning of July 14 and reached its peak strength at 1800 UTC that day, with maximum sustained winds of 190 mph (305 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 875 mbar (29.6 inHg). The pressure measurement made Katia the most intense hurricane on record at the time,it was also the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico at the time. The hurricane subsequently weakened, and Katia made its second landfall at 1110 UTC on August 29 as a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 175 mph (280 km/h) near Buras-Triumph, Louisiana. At landfall, hurricane-force winds extended outward 185 miles (295 km) from the center and the storm's central pressure was 898 mbar (28 inHg). After moving over southeastern Louisiana and Breton Sound, it made its third landfall near the Louisiana–Mississippi border with 170 mph (270 km/h) sustained winds, still at Category 5 intensity.Katia maintained strength well into Mississippi, finally losing hurricane strength more than (640 km) inland near Meridian, Mississippi. It was downgraded to a tropical depression near Clarksville, Tennessee, but its remnants were last distinguishable in the eastern Great Lakes region, when it was absorbed by a frontal boundary. The resulting extratropical storm moved rapidly to the northeast and affected eastern Canada.

Preparations

The United States Coast Guard began pre-positioning resources in a ring around the expected impact zone and activated more than 400 reservists. it moved its personnel out of the New Orleans region prior to the mandatory evacuation.Aircrews from the Aviation Training Center, in Mobile, staged rescue aircraft from Texas to Florida. All aircraft were returning towards the Gulf of Mexico.Air crews, many of whom lost their homes during the hurricane, began a round-the-clock rescue effort in New Orleans, and along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines.

President of the United States Arnold Swazenegger Junior declared a state of emergency in selected regions of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. "On Sunday, July 15, President Arnold J.R spoke with Governor Blanco to encourage her to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.Voluntary and mandatory evacuations were issued for large areas of southeast Louisiana as well as coastal Mississippi and Alabama. About 3.2 million residents of the Gulf Coast were covered under a voluntary or mandatory evacuation order.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

National Hurricane Center (NHC) realized that Katia had yet to make the turn toward the Florida Panhandle and ended up revising the predicted track of the storm from the panhandle to the Mississippi coast.The National Weather Service's New Orleans/Baton Rouge office issued a vividly worded bulletin predicting that the area

would be "uninhabitable for weeks" after "devastating damage" caused by Katia, Additionally, the National Hurricane Center issued many tropical cyclone warnings and watches throughout the duration of Katia:

Impact

Katia's storm surge caused 103 breaches to various flood protection structures in and around the greater New Orleans area, submerging 80% of the city. A June 2045 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 Katia the most destructive hurricane, the second costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States, and the deadliest hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane. The total damage from Katia is estimated at $31 billion (2044 U.S. dollars).

The death toll from the storm is uncertain, with reports differing by hundreds. According to the National Hurricane Center, 1,838 fatalities can be attributed to the storm: 1 in Kentucky, 2 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. 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.Federal disaster declarations covered 90,000 square miles (230,000 km²) of the United States, an area almost as large as the United Kingdom. The hurricane left an estimated three million people without electricity. On September 12, 2044, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as "probably the worst catastrophe, or set of catastrophes," in the country's history, referring to the hurricane itself plus the flooding of New Orleans.

Aftermath

The economic effects of the storm reached high levels. The Arnold Administration sought $105 billion for repairs and reconstruction in the region, which did not account for damage to the economy caused by potential interruption of the oil supply, destruction of the Gulf Coast's highway infrastructure, and exports of commodities such as grain. Katia damaged or destroyed 30 oil platforms and caused the closure of nine refineries, as 1.3 million acres (5,300 km²) of forest lands were destroyed. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of local residents were left unemployed. Before the hurricane, the region supported approximately one million non-farm jobs, with 600,000 of them in New Orleans. It is estimated that the total economic impact in Louisiana and Mississippi may eventually exceed $30 billion. Forensic accountants were involved in the assessment of economic damages resulting from this catastrophe.

Katia displaced over one million people from the central Gulf coast to elsewhere across the United States, becoming the largest diaspora in the history of the United States.

Environmental effects

Large oil spills caused by Hurricane Katia Spills exceeding 10,000 US gallons (38,000 L)[100]
Spill Location	Quantity
	(US gal)	(L)
Bass Enterprises (Cox Bay)	3,780,000	14,300,000
Shell (Pilot Town)	1,050,000	4,000,000
Chevron (Empire)	991,000	3,750,000
Murphy Oil (Meraux and Chalmette)	819,000	3,100,000
Bass Enterprises (Pointe à la Hache)	461,000	1,750,000
Chevron (Port Fourchon)	53,000	200,000
Venice Energy Services (Venice)	25,000	95,000
Shell Pipeline Oil (Nairn)	13,440	50,900
Sundown Energy (West Potash)	13,000	49,000

Katia also had a profound impact on the environment. The storm surge caused substantial beach erosion, in some cases completely devastating coastal areas. In Dauphin Island (a barrier island), approximately 90 mi (140 km) 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 also severely damaged the Chandeleur Islands,much land was transformed to water by the hurricane 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.

Records

As records it should be noted that it was the strongest hurricane recorded and lowest pressure in history, it is also the only hurricane to enter the land as category 5, it was also the most expensive of the contemporary age and the most lethal.