Florida's Hurricane History
by Jay Barnes
Second Edition

424 pp., 139 photos, 87 maps, 3 tables
$24.95 paperback, $39.95 hardcover
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As with most great hurricane disasters, it is impossible for mere words and photos to convey the complete story of Hurricane Katrina. Although it undoubtedly received more worldwide media coverage than any hurricane in history, the round-the-clock television reports, radio talk-show diatribes, emotional photo essays, and sharp-tongued newspaper editorials that followed the event offered only a passing glimpse of its complexity. Those who survived the storm in Louisiana's hard-hit parishes, the Mississippi coast's obliterated communities, and New Orleans's sunken streets endured an unprecedented catastrophe that could not truly be captured on paper, film, or videotape. Their misery was complete, their cumulative losses far beyond anything witnessed in U.S. history. Their stories played out over weeks and months on Oprah! and Larry King Live to a sympathetic nation. Families were broken, children were missing, and people moved away never to return, expanding the storm's impact from Louisiana and Mississippi to states such as Texas, Florida, Michigan, and Califor- nia. As the floodwaters receded, questions about governmental response and dubious leadership soon took center stage. FEMA's quarterback lost his job, and the U.S. president's approval ratings plummeted. Oil prices skyrocketed, and supplies ran short. New Orleans's public policies and engineering strategies became topics of debate at watercoolers around the country. The gap between rich and poor was exposed. People were angry. Underlying societal ills floated to the surface. Complex questions begged for rapid and thorough answers. What should be built back, how, when, and where? Who will pay for it? Katrina was simply a modern hurricane disaster that trumped all others. It knocked us all down a notch, reminding us of our true vulnerability to the forces of nature. Was it a worst-case scenario for hurricane forecasters and emergency planners? No, because as bad as it was, it could have been worse. Still, it stands as this nation's most costly natural disaster ever and our most deadly hurricane since the Lake Okeechobee hurricane of 1928.

Hurricane Katrina is included here because before it wreaked havoc on the upper Gulf coast, it crossed South Florida as a minimal hurricane. Its impact on the Sunshine State hardly compares with the catastrophe described above. Nevertheless, it will be remembered by Florida residents for what it could have been and later was--a deadly monster storm that captured the full attention of a nation.

Katrina's origins, like those of many tropical cyclones, were brought on by a complex combination of forces. The busy 2005 season was well under way when Tropical Depression 10 encountered strong shearing winds on August 14 that caused it to degenerate some 800 miles east of Barbados. As it dissipated, it left behind a middle tropospheric circulation that then interacted with a passing tropical wave near the Leeward Islands on August 19. This system drifted north of Hispaniola and eventually grew into Tropical Depression 12 in the southeastern Bahamas on the twenty-third. Convection deepened throughout the night as it tracked to the northwest near Nassau. Finally on the twenty-fourth, the National Hurricane Center identified the system as Tropical Storm Katrina, the eleventh named storm of the year.

Katrina strengthened rapidly, and a hurricane watch was issued for Southeast Florida on the afternoon of August 24. By 11:00 p.m., the watches had changed to warnings, and residents from Key West to West Palm Beach tuned in late-night news reports to see exactly where the storm was heading and how strong it was going to be. The Keys were not evacuated, and most residents in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties just hunkered down for what was expected to be a minimal hurricane landfall. At 5:00 p.m. on the twenty-fifth, Katrina became a hurricane while just fifteen miles east-northeast of Fort Lauderdale. It turned toward the west-southwest and continued to strengthen, making landfall between Hallandale Beach and North Miami Beach at around 6:30 p.m. with sustained winds of 80 mph. Although it couldn't be seen on conventional satellite images, a well-defined eye was observed on the Miami National Weather Service Doppler radar as the storm made landfall. Interestingly, the eye became even more well defined and remained intact as the category 1 hurricane churned across the lower peninsula. When Katrina moved over land, it was rather asymmetrical, with the strongest winds and heaviest rainbands south of the center in Miami-Dade County. It tracked west-southwestward over the Everglades and lost hurricane strength, emerging in the Gulf near Cape Sable as a tropical storm just six hours after making landfall.

Fed by very warm waters in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, Katrina quickly regained hurricane strength. Even though the storm was now moving away from Florida, a large and potent rainband swirled back around toward the Keys, delivering tropical storm-force winds throughout the day on August 26. Sustained hurricane-force winds were briefly measured on the Dry Tortugas late that afternoon. While the Keys were still catching Katrina's backside, National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield was holding a press conference in Miami, talking about the future of the storm. The news was not good, as forecasters could see favorable conditions for Katrina's strengthening as it pushed westward into the Gulf. "I just don't see any reason why this will not become a very, very powerful hurricane before it's all over," he told reporters from cnn. ÒEverybody from southeast Louisiana through the Florida Panhandle really needs to pay attention to this one."

Churning across the Gulf over the next two days, Katrina transformed from a small, minimal hurricane to a massive and powerful cyclone. It reached category 3 strength with winds of 115 mph early on the twenty-seventh and grew tremendously throughout the day. According to Hurricane Center reports, it nearly doubled in size that day, expanding its tropical storm-force wind field to 280 miles across. Weather patterns over Texas and the southeastern United States shifted on August 28, allowing the storm to turn toward the northwest and eventually shift northward. Extremely warm sea-surface temperatures in the central Gulf provided plenty of fuel. At this time, Katrina was experiencing eyewall-replacement cycles, and early on the twenty-eighth, its eyewall contracted and became a sharply defined ring. This was followed by a period of rapid intensification--Katrina exploded from a low-end category 3 to a category 5 in less than twelve hours. Its pressure dropped to 26.64 inches, the fourth lowest pressure ever measured in the Western Hemisphere up to that time (just weeks later Rita bumped it to fifth place, and then Wilma later knocked it back to sixth). Katrina's maximum sustained winds peaked at 175 mph, but just as impressive was the size of the wind field: tropical stormÐforce winds extended 230 miles from the center, and hurricane winds extended outward up to 105 miles. The prospect of a hurricane this big and this powerful coming ashore was terrifying. So with forecast models showing an inevitable strike somewhere on the upper Gulf coast, millions of people from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle jumped in their cars for another all-too-familiar exodus to safety.




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