You may want to look back at the historical hurricanes. Katrina was strong but not as bad as some in the past. It hit a place where many folks live below sea level and were not intelligent enough to get out. You hear lousianna this and lousianna that but Alabama and Mississippi were hit every bit as hard... maybe harder. You just saw them come together and rebuild. None of that you owe me this or you owe me that as came from lousianna.
Name one Hurricane that had the perfect mixture of absolute water put forth in a storm surge and damn near Cat 5 winds. You're the only one, besides Nathan putting Louisiana in the forefront of the discussion for your own selfish reasons. But I assure you that your post is chock-full of inaccuracies in regards to Katrina.
Define "Strong". Katrina was a Category 3 Hurricane (hang on Bodhi), with a Category 4+ Storm Surge when it made the second landfall in the Gulf. In fact, your buddy Nathan brings up a word he cannot even spell correctly. Levees. Did some of them fail? Yep. But the majority of them held, for only the graces of God and are now being re-engineered. Levees rated to Category 3, were tasked with even more water than they weren't designed to. Several of them broke, but the damage would have been even more catastrophic had more failed.
The major one being the Industrial Canal that had been breached prior and was ignored after Betsy in 64 or 65, when the floodwaters spilled into Lower 9th Ward (Bodhi and other NO residents can probably go into more detail, but as I have read over the years, this is the simplest way to put it). At the same time that the Industrial Canal was failing, Ponchartrain spilled into the London and 17th canals. Even worse yet, the two canals IIRC, by design, are supposed to put the water from the streets and pump it back into the lake. However, the storm, reversed the entire works and the pumps that were supposed to pump water, pumped the water, but caused the mis-engineered levees to fail. The Floodwalls held, but let's blame the looters!
Strong. Hmm. I'm 39 and cannot think of a Natural Disaster (in the United States) that can come close to Katrina. Maybe the Tornadoes from the 1999 season, only because you have an even "smaller target" and less warning, or the 89 Quake. Katrina careened from a 4 to a 5 like a dodge em' car in a pub, sometimes changing hourly, until landfall. But this was one of the few times, where a "storm surge did NOT fall into line with a wind rating". But let's blame the looters!
I bet the looters are the reason Katrina is Number 1!
No. 1. Katrina (2005) — $45.115 Billion*
No. 2. Andrew (1992) — $22.231 Billion*
No. 3. Ike (2008) — $12.648 Billion*
No. 4. Wilma (2005) — $11.306 Billion*
No. 5. Charley (2004) — $8.479 Billion*
No. 6. Ivan (2005) — $8.065 Billion*
No. 7. Hugo (1989) — $6.624 Billion*
No. 8. Rita (2005) — $6.177 Billion*
No. 9. Frances (2004) — $5.212 Billion*
No. 10. Jeanne (2004) — $4.146 Billion*
*Based on estimated insured losses for property coverage and adjusted to 2009 dollars.
It's a shame that 1% of NO's population causes a city to be judged, by people just as ignorant as they were. This takes me back to the sickening posts by some of the members of this very BBS while Katrina was both headed towards land and after. Don't forget about Rita making landfall not even a Month later.
