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Hurricane Harvey

Decent Essays

This event was a major catastrophe mostly due to its destructive economic damage on the Gulf Coast that exceeded even Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The death toll of approximately 82 people attributable to Harvey is a very small portion compared to Katrina’s, but the cost in damages is unrivaled. Current estimates for Harvey are at $180 billion compared to Katrina’s $108 billion (Amadeo, 2017). This makes Harvey the costliest natural event to ever hit the United States and justifies it as more than just a disaster or a hazard.
The resiliency of the impacted community can be improved by creating more areas for flood waters to be contained. Urban planners can assess the areas of Houston that were hit by Harvey or that are most vulnerable to flood damage and designate these areas as parks for diverting flood waters rather than rebuilding them. City officials can also limit new infrastructure development in high-risk …show more content…

By September 16th, the disturbance was steered northwest by a mid-level ridge into a region that was more favorable for development. The 84 ̊ F sea surface temperature, low wind shear, and sufficient moisture allowed the disturbance to strengthen into a hurricane before reaching the Lesser Antilles. On the night of September 17th, Hurricane Maria was upgraded to Category 3 with surface winds up to 120 mph. Maria achieved Category 5 as it approached Dominica on September 18th (Moloney, 2017).
This event was a major disaster as the total fatalities to the hurricane was at least 26 deaths in a country of more than 74,000 people (Pannell, Taguchi & Louszko, 2017). The few number of deaths was unexpected considering that the economic damage to Dominica was more than $1 billion. Compared to Hurricane Katrina, which caused over $100 billion in damages, the destruction from Hurricane Maria was not significant enough to justify the event as a

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