Hurricane Katrina

Landfall | Summary
Posting Date: August 26, 2005, 7:00:00 AM

Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a weak Category 1 storm at around 7:00 p.m. EDT yesterday evening between Hollywood and Miami Beach, Florida. Wind speeds at landfall were estimated at about 80 mph with higher gusts. Katrina was a fairly compact storm, with a radius of maximum winds estimated between 10 and 15 miles. It was also very slow moving when it came onshore—just 6 mph—which meant that insured properties were battered over an extended period of time. Katrina did not lose much of its intensity as it crossed the Florida peninsula, in part because the storm took a southwesterly turn after landfall, bringing it over the everglades from which it drew energy. Katrina dropped to just under hurricane status only very briefly, but by 5:00 a.m., Friday, August 26, the storm was once again a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of 75 mph and central pressure of 987 mb. Hurricane Katrina’s slow forward speed across the densely populated Miami-Dade county, will have an effect on losses. When structures are subjected to hurricane force winds over an extended period of time, components can weaken and eventually fail. Katrina was both sufficiently intense and sufficiently slow to cause significant damage to mobile homes, roof coverings and awnings. AIR does not, however, expect to see significant structural damage from this storm. There are reports of considerable damage to mobile home parks in Davie where the roof of an apartment building also collapsed. Several small planes were damaged at Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport near Miami and an overpass under construction west of Miami collapsed. An isolated tornado caused damage in the Florida Keys. Dozens of trees are reported down across the region due to the combination of winds and saturated soils from rainfall of between 10 and 15 inches. More than 1.2 million people were left without power during the storm. As of 5:00 a.m. EDT, the center of Hurricane Katrina was located about 50 miles north-northwest of Key West, Florida, tracking toward the west at 5 mph. This movement is expected to continue over the next 24 hours and a more northerly turn is expected thereafter. Katrina should also continue to strengthen over the warm waters of the Gulf. The National Hurricane Center is currently forecasting that Hurricane Katrina will make a second landfall somewhere along the Gulf on Monday, possibly as a Category 2 or even Category 3 hurricane. The AIR tropical cyclone team has run scenarios using the latest information about the storm’s meteorological parameters and track across south Florida. Eleven of these are posted on the Scenarios page of this website. Note that the results provided in this posting are for landfall in south Florida only. On the Event Sets page there are both “All” and “Select” event sets for CATRADER and CLASIC/2. The “All” event set contains the full set of scenarios simulated for this event and is therefore the most appropriate method for estimating your potential losses. A set of 11 specific scenarios, which are selected from the full event set and represent the range of potential losses across the full industry loss distribution, are available under the “Select” event set. Also included on the Scenarios page is the probability of loss exceedance curve for the industry using the “All” event set. AIR continues to monitor Hurricane Katrina closely and will provide further updates as the storm progresses.

Landfall | Downloads
Posting Date: August 26, 2005, 7:00:00 AM