![]() ![]() The biggest difference between these two storms is that New Orleans and its vital levee system has been remade in the intervening years. “I think that we’re going to see the wind damage (with Ida) could be worse than Katrina,” CNN meteorologist Judson Jones said. This weekend, Ida passed to the west of the city, bringing stronger winds to New Orleans but also pushing the lake’s water away from the city. In 2005, Katrina passed east of New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, so its winds pushed water from the lake south into the city, causing more flooding. Hurricanes spin in a counter-clockwise direction, and the eastern side of a hurricane has the strongest winds, so New Orleans experienced each storm differently. Ida then moved into Louisiana west of New Orleans, while Katrina pushed east of the city in 2005. Ida first made landfall at Port Fourchon, about 40 miles west-southwest of Buras, where Katrina first hit. The two storms also differ in the path they took through Louisiana. Ida traveled about 100 miles inland in the first 12 hours after landfall Sunday, while Katrina moved about 240 miles inland in its first 12 hours after landfall. Ida had rapidly strengthened in the 24 hours leading up to landfall but was smaller in size than Katrina, and hurricane-force winds stretched only up to 45 miles from its center. Ida, meanwhile, made landfall around midday Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph near Port Fourchon, the NHC said. ![]() Importantly, Katrina caused major storm surge flooding 25 to 28 feet above normal tide level along parts of the Mississippi coast, and storm surge flooding of 10 to 20 feet above normal tide levels along the southeastern Louisiana coast, according to the National Weather Service. The storm brought hurricane conditions to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and dumped 8 to 12 inches of rain along its track. Katrina was also huge in geographic size, and hurricane force winds stretched up to 110 miles from its center. It had been a Category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico and weakened significantly before making landfall, but that prior strength meant that it created a very high storm surge. Katrina first made landfall early on August 29, 2005, as a Category 3 storm with maximum winds of about 125 mph near Buras, Louisiana, the National Hurricane Center said. Though both major hurricanes hit Louisiana, the two storms differ in clear meteorological ways and in their paths through the state. But the major hurricanes also have clear differences in their paths – and New Orleans and its rebuilt levees are different, too, from that fateful day 16 years ago that left over 1,800 people dead.Ī day after Ida hit the state, here’s an early look at how the two storms compare. The two storms share some key similarities in terms of their date, strength, location and their destructive impact on the region’s power grid and water systems. Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday, exactly 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the state and became the deadliest and costliest hurricane to hit the US in recorded history. ![]()
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