The total costs of Hurricane Katrina amounted to 125 billion U.S. dollars at the time the disaster occurred in 2005. While this is around the same total cost of Hurricane Harvey, when adjusted for inflation the former is more expensive, with the cost being the equivalent of 194 billion U.S. dollars in 2023 (compared to 155 billion U.S. dollars for Hurricane Harvey).

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana on August 9, 2005 and displaced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The death toll reached almost 2,000 people. Katrina was also the most expensive U.S. catastrophe since 1992 in terms of property loss.

Harvey, Maria and Irma Katrina was responsible for the spike in insured losses caused by natural disasters globally in 2005. Harvey, Maria and Irma also made quite the impact in 2017 when they hit central America and then made land on the U.S. Gulf Coast. The frequency and intensity of such natural disasters are increasing.

The category three hurricane Katrina, which began in August 2005, was the costliest tropical cyclone in the United States in at least seven decades, with costs totaling 200 billion U.S. dollars (when adjusted to 2024 dollars). The most recent hurricane to make this list is Hurricane Ian (2022), ranking number three, with costs amounting to 118.5 billion dollars. Climate change is expected to make hurricanes both more frequent and more intense.

In 2023, there was a global protection gap of *** U.S. dollars for natural disasters worldwide. The estimated economic loss of natural disasters worldwide was *** billion U.S. dollars, while the estimated insured loss amounted to *** billion U.S. dollars.Where did the most costly natural disaster occur?Natural disasters are extreme, sudden catastrophes that are caused by natural processes by the earth. Different types of natural disasters include floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. There are many consequences that occur as a result of natural disasters, which include death, economic and infrastructural damage, and public health issues. The 2011 earthquake and tsunami that happened in Japan caused the most economic damage worldwide in the past four decades. Most costly disasters for insurersThe impact of natural disasters on insurance companies varies depends on the prevalence of insurance coverage in the affected region. Generally, losses from natural disasters that occur in wealthy countries such as the United States include a greater percentage of insured losses than disasters that occur in lower income countries. 2017 remains the worst year for insured property losses in the United States due to several major hurricanes in the U.S. and the Caribbean. Domestically, Hurricane Katrina was the most expensive natural disaster of all time.

This special topic poll, conducted August 14-20, 2006, is part of a continuing series of monthly polls that solicit public opinion on various political and social issues. The focus of this data collection was on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Part 1, FEMA Counties, contains data from a sample of 501 adults living in counties in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama that were designated as Hurricane Katrina disaster areas. Part 2, Orleans Parish Including Oversamples, contains data on respondents living in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, including oversamples of 160 respondents contacted via landline telephones, and 120 respondents contacted via cell phones. Respondents were asked to rate the recovery efforts of federal, state, and local governments with respect to Hurricane Katrina, and how much trust and confidence they had in the federal government and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) ability to respond to another disaster. Opinions were collected on whether Hurricane Katrina was the result of global climate change or just a severe weather event. Information was collected about the damage caused to respondents' residence and personal property, as well as the severity of the damage, how much of the losses were insured, and whether recovery had already occurred. Respondents were asked to rate the impact Hurricane Katrina had had on their life, whether they suffered a long-term negative impact on their finances, health, and emotional well-being, and whether any friends or family members were seriously injured or killed as as a result of the hurricane. A series of questions asked respondents to rate the job of groups involved with assisting recovery, such as the the United States Small Business Administration, state relief agencies, and insurance companies. Views were sought concerning whether respondents' trust in the government and fellow man was affected by the hurricane, how much they worried about another hurricane occurring, and how much extra stress was created by the possibility of another hurricane. Additional topics addressed whether race and poverty affected the recovery effort, and whether problems with the relief effort were an indication of racial inequality in the United States. Demographic variables include sex, age, race, education level, household income, political party affiliation, political philosophy, employment status, marital status, and type of residential area (e.g., urban or rural).

The costliest natural catastrophe in the United States since records began has been Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Katrina cost the U.S. almost $ 105 billion. From the top ten costliest natural disasters, nine have been hurricanes.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita made landfall in 2005, subjecting the coastal marsh communities of Louisiana to various degrees of exposure. We collected data after the storms at 30 sites within fresh (12), brackish/intermediate (12), and saline (6) marshes to document the effects of saltwater storm surge and sedimentation on marsh community dynamics. The 30 sites were comprised of 15 pairs. Most pairs contained one site where data collection occurred historically (that is, pre-storms) and one Coastwide Reference Monitoring System site. Data were collected from spring 2006 to fall 2007 on vegetative species composition, percentage of vegetation cover, aboveground and belowground biomass, along with discrete porewater salinity, hourly surface-water salinity, and water level. Where available, historical data acquired before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were used to compare conditions and changes in ecological trajectories before and after the hurricanes. Sites experiencing direct and indirect hurricane influences (referred to in this report as levels of influence) were also identified, and the effects of hurricane influence were tested on vegetation and porewater data. Within fresh marshes, porewater salinity was greater in directly impacted areas, and this heightened salinity was reflected in decreased aboveground and belowground biomass and increased cover of disturbance species in the directly impacted sites. At the brackish/intermediate marsh sites, vegetation variables and porewater salinity were similar in directly and indirectly impacted areas, but porewater salinity was higher than expected throughout the study. Interestingly, directly impacted saline marsh sites had lower porewater salinity than indirectly impacted sites, but aboveground biomass was greater at the directly impacted sites. Because of the variable and site-specific nature of hurricane influences, we present case studies to help define post-disturbance baseline conditions in fresh, brackish/intermediate, and saline marshes. In fresh marshes, the mechanism of hurricane influence varied across the landscape. In the western region, saltwater storm surge inundated freshwater marshes and remained for weeks, effectively causing damage that reset the vegetation community. This is in contrast to the direct physical disturbance of the storm surge in the eastern region, which flipped and relocated marsh mats, thereby stressing the vegetation communities and providing an opportunity for disturbance species to colonize. In the brackish/intermediate marsh, disturbance species took advantage of the opportunity provided by shifting species composition caused by physical and saltwater-induced perturbations, although this shift is likely to be short lived. Saline marsh sites were not negatively impacted to a severe degree by the hurricanes. Species composition of vegetation in saline marshes was not affected, and sediment deposition appeared to increase vegetative productivity. The coastal landscape of Louisiana is experiencing high rates of land loss resulting from natural and anthropogenic causes and is experiencing subsidence rates greater than 10.0 millimeters per year (mm yr-1); therefore, it is important to understand how hurricanes influence sedimentation and soil properties. We document long-term vertical accretion rates and accumulation rates of organic matter, bulk density, carbon and nitrogen. Analyses using caesium-137 to calculate long-term vertical accretion rates suggest that accretion under impounded conditions is less than in nonimpounded conditions in the brackish marsh of the chenier plain. Our data also support previous studies indicating that accumulation rates of organic matter explain much of the variability associated with vertical accretion in brackish/intermediate and saline marshes. In fresh marshes, more of the variability associated with vertical accretion was explained by mineral accumulation than in the other marshes.

The earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan in 2011 was the costliest natural disaster since 1900, with losses reaching 235 billion U.S. dollars. The tsunami hit the nuclear plant at Fukushima, causing a nuclear disaster in the area. Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast of the United States in 2005, and Hurricane Harvey, which hit the North American country in 2017, tied with the second-largest economic losses in the period, each with 125 billion U.S. dollars.

As of 2024, the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, which struck Japan in March 2011, remained the most expensive insured loss event since 1900, as it incurred insured losses amounting to 332 billion U.S. dollars. Insuring against natural disasters Insuring is the practice of transferring risk from one entity to another in exchange for payment. It is important, especially if one lives, owns property, or has a business in an area prone to natural disasters, to take out coverage for a range of storms, catastrophic events, and natural disasters. These could cause damage to real estate.When considering this type of insurance, it is indispensable to ask a lot of the important questions up front. How long will it take for a claim to be settled? For example, not all insurers settle claims with the same speed. Many also provide specific exclusions, be they for floods, earthquakes, or other types of natural events. A detailed inspection of exclusions in a policy is important to find out which coverage is still needed. Obviously, the extent of coverage that one should take out is wholly dependent on the area in which one lives. In the United States, as well as in the rest of the world, there are low-risk areas and there are high-risk areas.Despite this, no one can be sure where a natural disaster will occur and the severity of the destruction it could bring with it when it does. No one can stop natural disasters or the economic impact that they have, but insurance helps to mitigate the loss caused by them.

The hurricanes in the U.S. and Mexico in September and October incurred an economic loss of about 110 billion U.S. dollars, the most of any natural disaster event in 2024. Three of the ten most expensive catastrophes in that year were hurricanes. Weather, climate, water related disaster The disasters that caused mortality in large numbers include droughts, storms, floods, and extreme temperatures. Hurricanes alone generated 35 percent of the total economic losses among the leading disasters over these 50 years. The global cost of natural disaster losses was primarily financial losses. Low-income countries are more affected by natural disasters when compared to the richer countries in the world. American Hurricanes Floods were the most common weather-related disasters recorded, yet storms had the highest human and economic losses. As the most common cause of damage, storms are the only disaster for which the attribution component grows. As of 2023, Hurricane Katrina was by far the most destructive hurricane in the United States. Officials confirmed more than 1,800 deaths, estimated damages of about 200 billion U.S. dollars, the destruction of approximately 350,000 homes, and displaced almost a million individuals.

Over the past several years, flooding, coastal inundation, and scour of bridge piers and abutments have been among the leading causes of bridge failures in the United States. Recent examples of structures affected by flooding, inundation, or scour include the numerous bridges in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast damaged by Hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Rita (2005); the damage to more than 2,400 bridge crossings during the 1993 Upper Mississippi River Basin flooding; the 1994 failure of numerous bridges during Tropical Storm Alberto in central and southwest Georgia; and the 1987 failure of the I-90 bridge over the Schoharie Creek near Amsterdam, NY, which resulted in the loss of 10 lives and millions of dollars in bridge repair and replacement costsConsidering the national costs due to scour-related damage, plus disruption to local economic activities from bridge closures, and the potential for devastating loss of life from floods and inundation, bridge foundations demand improved engineering analysis and design procedures to mitigate the consequences of natural disasters.Researchers in the Hydraulics Research Program at the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA's) J. Sterling Jones Hydraulics Research Laboratory, located at Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC), and partners currently are conducting applied and exploratory advanced research to improve prediction of flooding-related damages and design guidance for mitigating impacts on bridges and other hydraulic structures.Further, FHWA is collaborating with several laboratories and universities to help ensure the program's success. For example, research partners at the Argonne National Laboratory's (ANL's) Transportation Research and Analysis Computing Center (TRACC) in West Chicago, IL, and the Universities of Nebraska and Iowa are championing advanced engineering tools, such as computational fluid dynamics, to simulate extreme flood events and their interaction with bridge structures. Computational fluid dynamics uses numerical methods and algorithms to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows.Past Research ContributionsThe TFHRC J. Sterling Jones Hydraulics Research Laboratory has been involved in a number of studies, including investigation of the Hatchie River Bridge collapse in Tennessee. Spans of the northbound U.S. Route 51 Bridge over the Hatchie River collapsed on April 1, 1989. Five vehicles went into the river, and eight people were killed. To help determine the cause of the collapse, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) asked FHWA to conduct hydraulic model studies of the two-column bent #70 with independent footings of the Hatchie River Bridge. Onsite investigation had established that failure of this bent probably triggered the collapse. The J. Sterling Jones Hydraulics Research Laboratory tested a 1 to 20 scale model of the bent to determine how the maximum local pier scour might have occurred after the channel migrated to bent #70 and to obtain videotaped shots of the local scour process for use as a visual aid in the NTSB public hearing conducted to gather evidence concerning the collapse.In another example of past research, the TFHRC J. Sterling Jones Hydraulics Research Laboratory conducted small-scale scour tests for the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge replacement. The researchers tested 31 different model scenarios in the tilting flume and conducted 71 test runs with durations of 46 hours each. The scour evaluations were part of the process that led to design changes that saved millions of dollars. The savings resulted from reducing the predicted scour depths by an average of 15 to 20 feet (4.5 to 6 meters) for approximately 648 of the piles, using fewer but larger piles, and incorporating vertical piles instead of battered piles, which are more difficult and expensive to install, for the very deep foundations.

In 2021, there were 68 fatalities due to hurricanes reported in the United States. Since the beginning of the century, the highest number of fatalities was recorded in 2005, when four major hurricanes – including Hurricane Katrina – resulted in 1,518 deaths.

The worst hurricanes in U.S. history
Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in August 2005, ranked as the third deadliest hurricane in the U.S. since records began. Affecting mainly the city of New Orleans and its surroundings, the category 3 hurricane caused an estimated 1,500 fatalities. Katrina was also the costliest tropical cyclone to hit the U.S. in the past seven decades, with damages amounting to roughly 186 billion U.S. dollars. Hurricanes Harvey and Maria, both of which made landfall in 2017, ranked second and third, resulting in damage costs of 149 and 107 billion dollars, respectively.

How are hurricanes classified?
According to the Saffir-Simpson scale, hurricanes can be classified into five categories, depending on their maximum sustained wind speed. Most of the hurricanes that have made landfall in the U.S. since 1851 are category 1, the mildest of the five. Hurricanes rated category 3 or above are considered major hurricanes and can cause devastating damage. In 2021, there were 38 hurricanes recorded across the globe, of which 17 were major hurricanes.

In 2023, there was a total of *** natural disasters events recorded worldwide, down from *** recorded a year earlier. The Europe, Middle East and Africa region experienced the highest number of natural disasters that year. Deaths and costs of natural disasters Natural disasters affect almost every part of the world. In February 2023, Turkey and Syria were hit by earthquakes that resulted in the highest number of deaths due to natural disaster events that year. In terms of economic damage, Hurricane Katrina remains one of the most expensive natural disasters in the world, topped only by the earthquake/tsunami which hit Japan in 2011. Climate change and natural disasters Climate change has influenced the prevalence of natural disasters. Global warming can increase the risk of extreme weather, resulting in higher risk of droughts and stronger storms, such as tropical cyclones. For instance, higher levels of water vapor in the atmosphere give storms the power to emerge. Furthermore, the heat in the atmosphere and high ocean surface temperatures lead to increased wind speeds, which characterize tropical storms. Areas that are usually unaffected by the sea are becoming more vulnerable due to rising sea levels as waves and currents become stronger.

In recent years, severe convective storms, or cyclones, caused the highest insured losses in the United States. In 2023, insured losses due to these storms amounted to almost ** billion U.S. dollars, while losses due to drought amounted to approximately *** billion U.S. dollars. Hurricanes in the U.S. The term “tropical cyclone” is a meteorological term which refers to both hurricanes and typhoons. As of 2023, the most expensive natural disaster to have occurred in the U.S. was Hurricane Katrina, which occurred in 2005 and resulted in costs amounting to over *** billion U.S. dollars at the time. Hurricane Ian was the latest hurricane to occur in the United States, and cost around *** billion U.S. dollars. Hurricane Katrina also caused insured property losses worth over ** billion U.S. dollars in 2005. Natural disasters globally Natural disasters are defined as events which are caused by naturally occurring phenomena that result in catastrophe. The global insured losses caused by natural disasters over time has been considerable, with costs amounting to more than *** billion U.S. dollars in 2021 alone. In 2023, the global estimate of insured loss stood at well over *** billion U.S. dollars. At the same time, the estimated economic losses incurred as a result of natural disasters worldwide amounted to almost *** billion U.S. dollars.

As of 2025, the third leading reinsurer globally by gross reinsurance premiums written was Hannover Re, with ***** billion U.S. dollars. Swiss Re ranked second with almost ** billion U.S. dollars. Munich Re held the top spot, with written gross premiums exceeding ** billion U.S. dollars. Reinsurance involves insurers transferring parts of risk portfolios to other parties to spread the risk of having to pay out a large sum in the event of an insurance claim. This encourages insurance companies to assume risk, even when the potential payout will be extremely high, like in the case of a natural disaster. It reduces the risk of insurance companies going bankrupt trying to cover claims. Reinsurance is an important tool for insurance companies, especially in the case of events which cause large-scale property damage and casualties, such as earthquakes, flash flooding etc. In 2016, the total cost to the insurance industry of natural catastrophes worldwide was 145 billion U.S. dollars. The estimated cost of the 2011 earthquake in Japan to Munich Re was *** billion euros. Flooding is becoming more prevalent as global warming increases, so the reinsurance industry will continue be critical in the future. The June 2013 floods in Central Europe caused almost ***** billion U.S. dollars worth of insured damage. Hurricane Katrina resulted in major flooding in the southern states of the United States in August 2005, which cost **** billion U.S. dollars in insured losses.