Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Collection

Collection 454

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Collection, 2003–2007

5 feet

Early in the morning on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States. When the storm made landfall, it had a Category 3 rating on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale-it brought sustained winds of 100-140 miles per hour-and stretched some 400 miles across. The storm itself did a great deal of damage, but its aftermath was catastrophic. Levee breaches led to massive flooding, and many people charged that the federal government was slow to meet the needs of the people affected by the storm. Hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama were displaced from their homes. Experts estimate that Katrina caused more than $100 billion in damage.

Hurricane Rita was the seventeenth named storm, tenth hurricane, and fifth major hurricane of the 2005 season. In Louisiana, Rita's storm surge inundated low-lying communities along the entire coast, worsening effects caused by Hurricane Katrina less than a month prior, such as topping the hurriedly repaired Katrina-damaged levees at New Orleans. Parishes in Southwest Louisiana and counties in Southeast Texas where Rita made landfall suffered from catastrophic-to-severe flooding and wind damage. Moderate to severe damage was reported across the lower Mississippi Valley. Rainfall from the storm and its associated remnants extended from Louisiana to Michigan. Rainfall peaked at 16.00 inches (406 millimeters) in Central Louisiana. Several tornadoes were also associated with the hurricane and its subsequent remnants. Throughout the path of Rita, damage totaled about $12 billion (2005 USD, $15.6 billion 2017 USD). As many as 120 deaths in four U.S. states were directly related to the hurricane.

This collection consists of newspaper and magazine articles, travel guides, maps, and a Scrapbook titled “A Season to Remember - Katrina and Rita.”

James Peterson of Broussard, Louisiana, and Sam Childers of Dallas, Texas donated the materials in this collection.

Series:

Inventory: