Katrina By The Numbers

We're coming up on the anniversary of Katrina and it's truly amazing how much work still needs to be done. But when the scope of the storm's damage is surveyed, it becomes less surprising that the recovery will take years.

While we were in Covington, LA in June with KatrinaGrace, I picked up Tulane University's Professor of History Douglas Brinkley's The Great Deluge where he chronicles events surrounding Hurricane Katrina from Saturday 27 August (Katrina hit LA and MS on the Monday 29 August) to Saturday 3 September 2005. As I've been reading, I've been jotting down some of the numbers (some of these numbers are from other sources as noted, primarily the wikipeida article on Katrina):

• 90,000 - the number of square miles declared a federal disaster - this is almost the size of Great Britain
• 1836 - estimated deaths
• 705 - number of still people missing as of 19 May, 2006
• 460,000 - the population of New Orleans before the storm
• 230,000 - estimated population of New Orleans in June 2006 [from Reuters via Wikipedia]
• 125 miles per hour - top sustained winds when Katrina hit the Louisiana coast
  
• 150 miles - the number of miles inland Katrina traveled before she lost hurricane strength
• 2,430 - number of children separated from their parents
• 112,000 - the number of New Orleans residents who didn't own cars
• 1,500,000 - the number of folks who requested FEMA assistance after the storm
  
• 27.9% - percentage of New Orleans' population below the poverty line before the storm
  
• 11.7% - percentage of New Orleans' population 65 or older before the storm
  
• 181 square miles - size of New Orleans
• 50,000,000 cubic yards - estimated amount of Gulf Coast debris (equivalent to 400 football fields stacked 50 feet high)
• 350,000 - number of automobiles destroyed in New Orleans by Katrina
• 35,000 - number of boats destroyed in New Orleans by Katrina
• 230,000 - number of Katrina evacuees who went to Texas
• over $150 billion - possible total economic impact

NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at Goddard Space Flight Center