Dorian, a near miss: what could have been a modern-day hurricane Katrina

By: Charlie Reisman

Published September 17th, 2019

As hurricane Dorian was slamming the northwestern Bahamas with 20-25 foot storm surge, 160-180 MPH wind gusts, and torrential downpours, 14 years ago to the week, hurricane Katrina was wreaking havoc on the city of New Orleans. 

As the Environmental journalism class from Gettysburg College walked into the Newseum in Washington DC, many of the newspapers, The Miami Herald, The Wichita Eagle, and the Charlotte Observer, outside captured the devastation of hurricane Dorian. Hurricane Katrina was a major theme as well in the Newseum as there were pictures in the Pulitzer Prize area of rescues from Katrina.  Hurricane Dorian will go down as one of the strongest hurricanes of all time with the second highest wind speed, 185 MPH, of any Atlantic basin hurricane in history. Dorian absolutely destroyed the northwestern Bahamas and then skirted north east up the east coast of the United States. It was a near miss, as the storm did not make a direct landfall with the US mainland. If Dorian had made a direct landfall, we could have seen similar devastation as Katrina.  

However, the Bahamas were not so lucky, as Grand Bahama island and the Abaco islands were “totally devastated. There decimated. Apocalyptic. It’s like a bomb went off” (McCough 2019). Both of these islands were completely destroyed, “it’s not rebuilding, something that was there; we have to start again” (Flechas et al. 2019).   

There are many similar characteristics between these two storms: they were both incredibly strong category 5 hurricanes, massive in diameter, slow moving storms, and they made landfall within 5 days of each other 14 years apart. Similarly, both of these storms intensified very quickly and then weakened before making landfall.  

 Hurricane Katrina is one of the most devastating hurricanes to hit the US of all time ( https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/outreach/history/ ). Katrina was a massive category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 175 MPH.  At its largest, “Katrina was so wide its diameter stretched across the Gulf of Mexico” (Gibbens 2019). Along with being a massive, destructive storm, Katrina was also a very slow-moving hurricane (https://www.weather.gov/mob/katrina)

Hurricane Dorian was a large category 5 hurricane with maximum windspeeds of 185 MPH (weather.gov). Dorian was not just a powerful storm but was massive with a dimeter of over 200 miles (weather.gov). Dorian took days to get across the Bahamas because most of its track was stationary to 3 MPH (weather.gov).  Dorian intensified from a category 1 to a category 5 within a span of 62 hours as well (weather underground). Dorian weakened slightly from a category 5 to still a very powerful, dangerous category 4 with windspeeds of 150 MPH before making landfall on September 1^st, 2019 in the northwestern Bahamas (weather.gov).  

Hurricane Katrina will go down in infamy as the single worst natural disaster in history. Katrina is the costliest hurricane of all time with damages estimated around $108 billion. It is also one of the five most deadly hurricanes causing an estimated 1,833 deaths (most of the deaths in New Orleans due to flooding). Due to the deadly winds and massive storm surge the levees surrounding the city of New Orleans broke which caused roughly 80-85% of the city to be underwater (weather.gov). After the city was underwater, many had to be rescued from rooftops. Smily Pool from The Dallas Morning News captured the scale of destruction from Katrina. The first morning you were “overwhelmed by images of the city covered with so much water that it wasn’t until you got past the initial shock of the water that you start to see the details. There were people everywhere. People waving flags, begging for rescue. It was heart-wrenching”  The destruction was catastrophic, no other natural disaster has even come close to Katrina. The city of New Orleans will always remember that day and that storm that changed the lives of millions and the city itself forever.  

Even though Dorian was not as impactful on the United States as once thought, media and news helped spread the significance of the storm. Weather channel had 24-hour coverage for multiple days leading up to and after the storm to let people know what was going on and where the storm was heading. Millions of people from Florida to the Carolina’s were on high alert all throughout the process of Dorian. There were declared states of emergencies from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Thousands of people adhered to the mandatory evacuations for low lying neighborhoods and outer islands.  

Dorian narrowly missed to becoming the modern-day Katrina. There were many similarities to the two storms but luckily Dorian missed a direct landfall with the US. People need to be prepared because just in the last three years there have been multiple live changing storms such as Harvey, Irma, Michael, and Florence just to name a few that have caused significant damage to millions of people.  Dorian was a good test because sooner or later there will be another catastrophic system like Katrina and the more people prepare now and get use to watching the storm the better prepared they will be for the real storm.  

This story was updated on September 30th, 2019. The primary changes include deleting extra details in paragraphs especially about Katrina and Dorian. Adding links to the sources for the more in depth details. Taking out urls, and crediting my own picture.

Sources:

Charles, J. and Driscoll, A. 2019. September 3. A Slow-Moving Disaster. Miami Herald; section A: 1.

Flechas, J. Blaskey, S., and Price, M. 2019. September 3. Deadly Dorian pummels Bahamas slows to a crawl. The Wichita Eagle; section A: 1.

Gibbens, S. 2019. Hurricane Katrina, explained.

Mccough, M. 2019. September 4. After flattening Bahamas, Dorian heads for US shores. The Herald; section A: 1.

2005. Extremely Powerful Hurricane Katrina Leaves a Historic Mark
on the Northern Gulf Coast.