Katrina Death Toll.

Hurricane Katrina killed 1185 people in Louisiana and Mississippi. The active search for the dead in complete, although some additional bodies may be located as the region is repopulated. It appears that most of the dead were in New Orleans. Hurricane Rita killed about 100 people in Texas.

Some of the other events in American history with comparable death tolls are listed in this previous post. They are:

[T]he Galveston Hurricane in 1900, or the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906, or the Titanic shipwreck in 1912, or the Lake Okeechobee flood in Florida in 1928 or the Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania in 1889, or 9-11-01, but those are the only events in U.S. history that are comparable.

The actual death toll was less than the Galveston Hurricane or 9-11, but comparable to the other events. Moreover, unlike the Titanic or 9-11, the combination of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have displaced millions of Americans. Property damage is harder to compare, because the value of the dollar has changed over time and numbers take longer to compile, but this certainly rivals the disasters mentioned above and the Great Chicago Fire in that regard.