On the Eve of Katrina

All eyes have been focused on Irene over the last few days, which hit North Carolina and New Jersey as a category 1 hurricane followed by landfall as a tropical storm in New York City early Sunday. As I've watched the coverage of reporters standing in the wind showing flooded parking lots and water in basements, I'm reminded of the scenario unfolding on this day 6 years ago. Katrina was an extremely large category 5 hurricane, the 3rd most intense ever observed anywhere in the Atlantic Basin and it was heading straight for the Gulf Coast within a matter of hours. I was a meteorologist at WVUE in New Orleans at the time, in continuous coverage as the storm closed in. Our weather and news teams were doing everything we could to communicate the severity of the situation and encourage people to get out of the evacuation zones as time was quickly running out. Below is the statement released by the National Weather Service that Sunday afternoon. Although the statement put a lot of emphasis on wind damage, the record storm surge and subsequent levee failures led to essentially the same result.

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
413 PM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE
MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA...
...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL
TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW
RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE
APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF
FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW
TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS
HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND
LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL
DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL
FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND
TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE
HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS
WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED