20 years later, Katrina still among Atlantic’s most deadly, costly

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Hurricane Katrina caused $226B in today’s dollars

More than 1 million displaced and over 1,800 deaths

Katrina remains among the five deadliest U.S. hurricanes

Later storms like Harvey, Maria, Ian, and Sandy rivaled its damage

Twenty years ago this Friday, Hurricane Katrina – once a Category 5 beast – made landfall as a Category 3 first in southeastern Louisiana and then again on the Mississippi Gulf Coast .

The National Hurricane Center, an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, calls Katrina “one of the most devastating natural disasters in United States history.” More than 1 million were displaced, the death toll has fluctuated between 1,833 and 1,392, and the damage estimate was $125 billion.

In today’s dollars, it would be $226 billion.