News

Horrific as Hurricane Katrina has been, other hurricanes that have hit the U.S. have been stronger, wetter and more lethal.

Still, several officials are calling Hurricane Katrina the worst storm to strike the United States.

"We're talking about devastation in three states: Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi," said Maj. George Hood, the national community relations secretary for the Salvation Army. "It's a massive population. In New Orleans alone, 80 percent of the city is now under water."

Other hurricanes were worse by some measures. An unnamed storm that killed 8,000 people in Galveston, Texas, in 1900 holds the record as the most deadly. Early reports place Katrina's death toll in the hundreds.

Katrina also wasn't the most intense: A hurricane that hit the Florida Keys in 1935 had sustained winds topping 156 mph. Katrina came ashore with sustained winds of 145 mph.

Katrina dumped the most rain -- 33 inches -- in Homestead, southeast Florida, which was less than the 40.7 inches that fell in northwest Jefferson County, Texas, during Hurricane Allison of 2001.

Even the damage from Katrina -- though phenomenal -- may place her behind 1992's Hurricane Andrew which, when adjusted for inflation, cost the insurance industry $21 billion. Estimates from several risk assessment groups put Katrina's costs between $17 billion and $25 billion.

But because Katrina hit a heavily populated part of the Gulf Coast, the need for aid is tremendous, Hood said. Much of the area hit lies below sea level, and high floodwaters are keeping volunteers from reaching hurricane victims.

"It's probably safe for us to assume this will be the largest natural disaster response we've ever encountered," Hood said.

The American Red Cross announced yesterday that it has launched its largest mobilization ever. More than 200 emergency response vehicles have been sent to the scene, and the agency is ready to provide more than 500,000 hot meals each day.

Katrina also hit a location key to the U.S. economy, said University of Pittsburgh economist David DeJong.

"I think what's most interesting is it hit the Gulf, in particular the refineries and the drilling stations, and the timing of that -- given the pressure on the oil supply that we have right now -- that's where this storm was unusual compared to other very large hurricanes," DeJong said.

The hurricane sent the price of crude oil to $70.85 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday -- the first time it has climbed above $70. The price finally settled at $69.81 a barrel yesterday.

Tom Larsen, a senior vice president at the risk modeling company Eqecat, said that while the firm hasn't assessed Katrina's cost to oil industries in the Gulf of Mexico, he believes the total will exceed that of Hurricane Ivan last year.

"We saw estimates of losses for offshore oil platforms in Hurricane Ivan that were $2 billion, and Ivan's path was 75 miles to the east of Katrina's," Larsen said. "Katrina hit an area that had more oil platforms, and Katrina had bigger winds."

It will be months, possibly years, before the insurance industry can fully assess the damage caused by Katrina, said Dick Luedke, a spokesman for State Farm, the leading insurer of homes in all the Gulf Coast states affected by Katrina.

"The single largest storm in terms of claims we've paid was certainly Andrew in 1992," Luedke said. State Farm paid $3.7 billion to homeowners for that hurricane.

Risk assessment groups can't say for sure if Katrina will top Andrew, but she will certainly rival it, said Beverly Porter, a spokeswoman with AIR Worldwide Corp., a risk modeling firm based in Boston. The corporation anticipates insured losses for Katrina from $17 billion to $25 billion, she said.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hurricane research meteorologist Chris Landsea -- who co-wrote a paper in 2004 assessing the deadliest, costliest and most intense U.S. tropical storms since 1851 -- said he wouldn't call Katrina the worst.

"I would say the worst was Galveston, just because of the amount of people that died," Landsea said.

How to help

The following aid agencies are accepting contributions to help those affected by Hurricane Katrina:

American Red Cross

225 Boulevard of the Allies

Pittsburgh, PA 15222

(800) HELP-NOW

www.swpa.redcross.org

Brother's Brother Foundation/Hurricane Katrina

1200 Galveston Ave.

Pittsburgh, PA 15233

www.brothersbrother.org

(412) 321-3160

ADRA International

12501 Old Columbus Pike

Silver Spring, MD 20904

(800) 424-2372

www.adra.org

Catholic Charities

P.O. Box 25168

Alexandria, VA 22314

www.catholiccharitiesusa.org

(800) 919-9338

Episcopal Relief and Development

P.O. Box 12043

Newark, NJ 07101

(800) 334-7626 ext. 5129

www.er-d.org

Mercy Corps

P.O. Box 2669

Portland, OR 97208

(800) 292-3355

www.mercycorps.org

Northwest Medical Teams

P.O. Box 10

Portland, OR 97207-0010

(503) 624-1000

www.nwmedicalteams.org

Operation USA

8320 Melrose Ave., Suite 200

Los Angeles, CA 90069

(800) 678-7255

www.opusa.org

Pittsburgh Presbytery

Individual Remittance Processing

P.O. Box 643700

Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700

Account no. DR000169

(800) 872-3283

www.pcusa.org/pda/

United Jewish Federation Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief

United Jewish Federation

234 McKee Place

Pittsburgh, PA 15213

www.UJFpittsburgh.org

World Relief

7 E. Baltimore St.

Baltimore, MD 21202

(443) 451-1900

www.wr.org

• Most Read
• Most E-mailed
• Latest News