Everything about National Weather Service Bulletin For New Orleans Region totally explained
The
National Weather Service bulletin for the New Orleans region of 10:11 a.m., August 28, 2005 was a vividly worded release issued by the local
Weather Forecast Office in
Slidell, Louisiana, warning of the devastation that the
Gulf Coast of the United States could experience as a result of
Hurricane Katrina. Partly due to this bulletin, people in southeastern Louisiana and southern
Mississippi, those most affected by the storm's impact, followed evacuation orders more closely, resulting in a reduced casualty toll.
Background
On the evening of
August 25,
2005, Hurricane Katrina made
landfall as a
Category 1 hurricane near the
Miami-Dade–
Broward county line in southern
Florida and weakened into a tropical storm as a result. The next morning, after passing over the state, Tropical Storm Katrina moved into the
Gulf of Mexico, reintensified back to hurricane strength, and due to the warm waters of the
Loop Current, began undergoing
rapid intensification.
At 11:00 p.m.
EDT August 26, approximately 56 hours before Katrina's landfall near Buras, Louisiana, the
National Hurricane Center had predicted that the
Greater New Orleans area could face a direct hit by the storm. As New Orleans is located on the
Mississippi River Delta and much of the city is below
sea level, a strong hurricane could have a devastating effect on the city. Previous warnings, such as the one made by the
Houston Chronicle in 2001, told of a disaster that "would strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20 feet of water" following a severe hurricane making landfall on the city. The
National Hurricane Center's director,
Max Mayfield, indicated that the Mississippi/Louisiana area has "the greatest potential for nightmare scenarios," and that this has been known for at least the three decades he's worked at the NHC. Other publications, such as
Popular Mechanics,,
Scientific American, and
The Times-Picayune gave doomsday scenarios in which a sinking city would drown and its residents would be left homeless.
In 1965,
Hurricane Betsy made landfall just south of New Orleans, causing widespread flooding in the city. As a result, a system of
levees was authorized by
Congress to handle future storm events. However, the protection given by this system was limited to hurricanes up to Category 3 intensity on the
Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.
Three days before Katrina's second and third landfalls, the National Hurricane Center began predicting that the storm would make landfall as a
major hurricane. which was upgraded to a
hurricane warning by 10:00 p.m. CDT that same evening. At this point, Katrina was a Category 3 hurricane with 115
mph (185
km/h) winds and about 335
miles (540
km) to the south-southeast of the Mississippi River's
mouth. At that time, the Weather Forecasting Office in
Slidell, Louisiana issued an "urgent weather message" describing the destruction Katrina would likely cause in the region:
An equally-explicit bulletin was repeated at 4:13 p.m. CDT.
Impact
In the months following the storm,
Congress appointed a
bipartisan committee to investigate the response to Hurricane Katrina and the preparations prior to its landfall. The committee concluded that the forecasts given by the National Weather Service were timely, were not responsible for failures in other agencies, and were likely responsible for saving thousands of lives.
Further Information
Get more info on 'National Weather Service Bulletin For New Orleans Region'.
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