A Dark Black Day for the US Gulf Coast Quiz

Answer: August 29, 2005

The storm made its final landfall near the Mississippi, Louisiana border about 10 AM local time on 29 August 2005. The people on the Gulf Coast are glad it came ashore during daylight. The loss of life would have been much higher if the storm had struck during the night; there were many people washed out of their houses clinging to the pieces left.

Answer: 3

The first landfall was near Hallandale Beach and Aventura Florida on the morning of 25 August 2005 as a Category 1 storm. She lost hurricane status crossing Florida, but regained it within a hour after reaching the Gulf of Mexico. Then after four days she came ashore for the second time as a weak Category 4 or strong Category 3 at about 7 am 29 August 2005, near Buras-Triumph, Louisiana.

This is a river town near the Mississippi River mouth. It went offshore again after crossing the river delta, returned to the Gulf of Mexico and made the third and final landfall about four hours later near the Louisiana-Mississippi border as a strong Category 3 hurricane.

Answer: 30 miles and 120-150 miles

The storm extended over roughly 300 miles of coast line with hurricane force winds, the winds reached out about 120 miles on the west side, had a 30 mile wide eye and on the east side the winds extended roughly 150 miles out. That is approximately the distance form Philadelphia Pennsylvania to Boston Massachusetts.

Answer: 170 miles

She lost hurricane strength (winds less than 74 mph) near Meridian, Mississippi, early in the morning of 30 August 2005.

Answer: Clarksville, Tennessee

This city (NW of Nashville TN) is approximately 500 miles inland. Tropical storm winds start at 39 mph.

Answer: all

The storm broke every flood record in the documented history of the Gulf Coast. The storm surge in New Orleans (on the left front quadrant, the weaker side of the storm) was roughly 14 feet. The highest storm surge was over 27 feet in Bay St. Louis and Waveland Mississippi. Mobile Alabama in the bay had 12 to 16 feet of tidal surge dropping to about 6 feet in Pensacola Florida.

This is not including waves up to 30 feet high on top of this.

Answer: $108 billion

Hurricane Katrina at $108 billion is the costliest storm on record so far, having outdone the previous most expansive storm Andrew of 1992 at $26.5 billion fourfold. Also in 2005, Wilma caused damage costing $21 billion. In second place is Sandy of 2008 with $65 billion worth of damage.

Answer: 1,836

The death toll was 1,577 in Louisiana, 238 in Mississippi, 14 in Florida, two in Alabama, Georgia and Ohio each, and one in Kentucky, making a total of 1,836. This does not include the 135 still listed as missing ten years later. This made Katrina the third deadliest storm on record.

The deadliest was the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 with an estimated 8,000-12,000 dead. Second was the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane with 2,500-3,000.

Answer: over 33,500

United States Government Accountability Office report GAO-06-903 estimated 60,000 people trapped in the flooded city of New Orleans; the US Coast Guard saved over 35,500. For this amazing effort the Coast Guard was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation Medal.

Answer: The Guardian

The movie "The Guardian" relocated to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to finish production. The movie is about the training and operations of Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers, starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher. The movie has some direct references to Hurricane Katrina, and during the credits at the end of the movie a lot of damage done by the storm is shown. Most people leave a movie when credits are shown, but with this movie people actually watched it to see footage from the storm.

Answer: Levee breaches

Most (about 80 percent) of New Orleans is below sea level, so when over 100 levees were breached the city flooded. Most of this happened after the eye of the hurricane had passed east of the city and the tidal surge was declining. The Corps of Engineers' report mainly blamed poor design of the levees for the failures.

The highest point in New Orleans is the French Quarter built on the Mississippi River banks and is only about 3 feet above sea level.

Answer: 80

The entire Mississippi coast line was leveled by storm surge and wave action which from end to end is about 80 miles long. At the western end in Bay St. Louis and Waveland Mississippi most building four blocks in were leveled to their foundations. In Biloxi Mississippi, casino barges were washed across US Highway 90, high rise buildings were washed through with the bottom two of three levels left stripped out.

In Pascagoula Mississippi the beach front homes within a block were demolished to pieces and parts. Older building like Beauvoir (the last home of Jefferson Davis, finished in 1852) stood up better than new constructions. Both Highway 90 bridges crossing the Back Bay of Biloxi and the Bay of St. Louis along with railroad bridges were gone.

Answer: developed an eight degree list

The battleship is moored in sand and does not float, but the hurricane washed away the sand, causing the ship to list 8 degrees to starboard. The sand has been replaced and fortified, so hopefully this will not happen again. The battleship has been returned to its previous position.

Answer: No

2005 set a lot of records for an Atlantic hurricane season. There have been 28 named storms in total. There were so many that they ran out of names of 22 assigned each year on a rotating basis for the Atlantic Hurricane Season and had to use the Greek alphabet for the rest. Five storm names have been retired: Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Stan, and Wilma.

There will be no storms named by previously used names.

Answer: No

There are parts of New Orleans that people have not moved back into, the population of city is down roughly 20 percent, also large parts have still not been rebuilt. On the Mississippi Gulf Coast there were large areas of beachfront real estate still available in 2014, because the new building codes require building above the new flood levels.