Hurricane Katrina was a rarity in many ways: Of all the hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast, few make landfall as Category 5 storms like it did. The Saffir-Simpson Scale, which ranks storms based on wind speed, was first introduced in the 1970s, and between 1980 and 2021, only 197 tropical cyclones (including hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the Pacific) have surpassed the 156-mile-per-hour threshold of category 5.
But in a warming world, storms are becoming more intense, making these highest-category storms like Katrina more common, with half of those Category 5 tropical cyclones occurring between 2004 and 2021. Some scientists are even arguing that the five-level scale is too limited, and a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says we need a new Category 6 now, too.
The paper suggests that any tropical cyclone with wind speeds over 192 miles per hour be designated a Category 6 storm. To date, five tropical cyclones with such wind speeds have been documented, including Hurricane Haiyan, which defeated parts of the Philippines in 2013.
While there have been no hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic as of yet (all of the would-be Category 6 storms were in the Pacific), it’s likely only a matter before such a storm threatens the United States — and as is always the case with hurricanes, it will be Black people who are disproportionately at risk.
With nearly half of Black Americans living in the Southeast, hurricanes (and the flooding that often comes with them) have an outsized effect on the community. According to research from the McKinsey Group, Black people are more at risk even within this hurricane-prone part of the country: they are nearly two times more likely to be affected by a hurricane than other residents.
If there’s one overarching reason why the Southeast still has such a high concentration of Black people — centuries of chattel slavery, which persisted for the longest in the South — more recent forms of structural racism have made the region more dangerous for Black communities than others when it comes to storms.
Consider again Katrina: four out of the seven zip codes that saw the most damage from the storm were at least 75% Black. That includes neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward, the low-lying neighborhood that was devastated in 2005 — and was also redlined in the 1930s, which led to Black families being concentrated there in the first place.
Not all scientists are convinced, however, that a new hurricane category is necessary or even advisable. While no one is arguing the fact that storms are getting stronger, some are skeptical that having another level to rate storms with would make people living in the paths of those storms take them any more seriously. If some people won’t — or can’t — evacuate when a Category 5 storm is heading their way, will it be any different if the hurricane is designated a Category 6?
But whether the scale is expanded or not, the fact remains: more powerful storms are more and more likely, and they will eventually make landfall in the Southeast too.
