Natural Disasters

Hurricanes

How Hurricans Form

Hurricanes form during the summer and autumn when the Sun heats the ocean water.
Warm air rises creating thunderstorms.
Upper level winds and surface winds form together and form a circle pattern of clouds.
The clouds gain speed over the ocean as they move.

Facts

When a tropical storm gains speed of over 62k km/h it's given a name.
Once a storm reaches speeds of 120 km/h its categorised as a hurricane.
Weather in the eye of a hurricane is usually calm.
The wind flow of hurricanes in the southern hemisphere is clockwise while the wind
flow of hurricanes in the northern hemisphere is counterclockwise.

Saffir-Simpson Scale

The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale is a

1 to 5 rating based on a hurricane's sustained wind speed.

Hurricane Katrina 2005

Hurricane Katrina was the eleventh named storm and fifth hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane
season. It was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the
history of the United States.
Katrina initially formed about 200 miles (322 km) southeast of the Bahamas on Aug. 23, 2005, as a
tropical depression.
It struck the Gulf Coast of U..S.A first then moved to New Orleans.
By nightfall, almost 80 percent of the New Orleans population had evacuated. 10,000 had shelter in
the Superdome, while tens of thousands of others chose to wait out the storm at home.

The Aftermath

The Coast Guards rescued around 34,000 people in New Orleans alone, and many
ordinary citizens commandeered boats, offered food and shelter, and did whatever
else they could to help their neighbors.
Katrina destroyed huge parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, but the
desperation was most concentrated in New Orleans.
Before the storm, the citys population was mostly black, nearly 30 percent of its
people lived in poverty. Katrina made these conditions worse, and left many of New
Orleanss poorest citizens even more vulnerable than they had been before the storm.
Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 2,000 people and affected around 90,000 square miles
(233,098.93 square km) of the United States.

New Orleans Flooding

Superbowl Stadium
New Orleans

Pictures of Hurricane
Katrina when it passed
over Key West, FL