One of our students here at Placer High School, Yadé Huntsberry, understands the devastation and destruction Hurricane Earl caused on the east coast in the past couple of weeks. Just five years back, she and her family were part of Hurricane Katrina and managed to flee the day before it hit.
“My dad was the first one of us to hear about it” said Yadé. “When he told me, I was shocked. I didn’t believe it at first and didn’t think it was real.”
Yadé is one of thousands of people who were in this situation during Katrina. Thousands were forced away from their homes and had to leave their entire lives behind.
“We had to pack some clothes in a backpack and grab some pictures to put in a box, and then we just left. We had to leave everything else behind, including our dog,” Yadé reflected of the experience.
Hurricane Earl, which caused a similar experience to Yadé’s to people on the east coast, pummeled through North Carolina starting on August 29th as only a Category 1 Hurricane. But with top wind speeds reaching 140 mph, and traveling north toward Cape Cod, it was at one point labeled a Category 4. It caused catastrophic damage including death and injury to many people and destruction of most houses, most of which will be uninhabitable for months.
This, however destructive and merciless, doesn’t measure up to the damage of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. When it hit five years ago, it caused around 90,000 square miles to be affected, which is about the size of Great Britain. Some 1,800 people’s lives were taken and countless families were forced to flee from their homes, leaving everything behind. It also caused substantial economic crisis, with over 81 billion dollars of damage occurring. In total, nearly 15 million people overall were affected including those who died, forced to flee, and were affected economically.
In terms of other hurricanes and tropical storms, Tropical Storm Igor is currently active in the Atlantic Ocean heading west toward the United States. The future names for 2010 hurricanes are Julia, Karl, Lisa, Matthew, Nicole, Otto, Paula, Richard, Shary, Thomas, Virginie, and Walter.
Between Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Earl, several thousands of people were affected over the years.
“I never thought anything like that would ever happen to me,” concluded Yadé. “It really changed my life.”