At the end of August 2021, the southern coast of Louisiana in the USA was hit by Hurricane Ida, one of the most severe hurricanes ever recorded. Ida began to develop close to Cuba (see back page, Figure 1) and the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea enabled it develop from a tropical storm into a Category 4 hurricane, which hit land at Port Fourchon, just south of New Orleans, with winds reaching 240 km/h. Remarkably this is only about 80 km from where Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the same date in 2005.
The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina made it the deadliest and most expensive hurricane ever to hit the USA. Over 1,800 people died and the city of New Orleans was severely damaged, mainly by floodwater.
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