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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