Storm Stories is an American non-fiction television series that airs on The Weather Channel (TWC) and Zone Reality. It is hosted and narrated by meteorologist and storm tracker Jim Cantore. Storm Stories showcases various types of severe weather, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, rain, floods, etc. Each episode features a famous severe storm, and survivors of it sharing their experiences. The program also features footage of the storm if it is available, but typically a re-enactment is used instead. The video of the storm is often shown while the survivors offer their accounts of it. Often, TWC would air a special week dedicated to one specific type of storm.
Hurricane Katrina was a devastating tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $186.3 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. Katrina was the twelfth tropical cyclone, the fifth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was also the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in the contiguous United States, gauged by barometric pressure.
As the center of Hurricane Katrina passed southeast of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, winds downtown were in the Category 1 range with frequent intense gusts. The storm surge caused approximately 23 breaches in the drainage canal and navigational canal levees and flood walls. As mandated in the Flood Control Act of 1965, responsibility for the design and construction of the city’s levees belongs to the United States Army Corps of Engineers and responsibility for their maintenance belongs to the Orleans Levee District. The failures of levees and flood walls during Katrina are considered by experts to be the worst engineering disaster in the history of the United States. By August 31, 2005, 80% of New Orleans was flooded, with some parts under 15 feet (4.6 m) of water. The famous French Quarter and Garden District escaped flooding because those areas are above sea level. The major breaches included the 17th Street Canal levee, the Industrial Canal levee, and the London Avenue Canal flood wall. These breaches caused the majority of the flooding, according to a June 2007 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The flood disaster halted oil production and refining which increased oil prices worldwide.
Hurricane preparedness in New Orleans has been an issue since the city's early settlement because of its location.
Hurricane Katrina had many social effects, due the significant loss and disruption of lives it caused. The number of fatalities, direct and indirect, related to Katrina is 1,833 and over 400,000 people were left homeless. The hurricane left hundreds of thousands of people without access to their homes or jobs, it separated people from relatives, and caused both physical and mental distress on those who suffered through the storm and its aftermath, such as Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
This article contains a historical timeline of the events of Hurricane Katrina on August 23–30, 2005 and its aftermath.
Hurricane Katrina struck the United States on August 29, 2005, causing over a thousand deaths and extreme property damage, particularly in New Orleans. The incident affected numerous areas of governance, including disaster preparedness and environmental policy.
Hurricane Rita was the most intense tropical cyclone on record in the Gulf of Mexico and the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded. Part of the record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which included three of the top ten most intense Atlantic hurricanes in terms of barometric pressure ever recorded, Rita was the seventeenth named storm, tenth hurricane, and fifth major hurricane of the 2005 season. It was also the earliest-forming 17th named storm in the Atlantic until Tropical Storm Rene in 2020. Rita formed near The Bahamas from a tropical wave on September 18, 2005 that originally developed off the coast of West Africa. It moved westward, and after passing through the Florida Straits, Rita entered an environment of abnormally warm waters. Moving west-northwest, it rapidly intensified to reach peak winds of 180 mph (285 km/h), achieving Category 5 status on September 21. However, it weakened to a Category 3 hurricane before making landfall in Johnson's Bayou, Louisiana, between Sabine Pass, Texas and Holly Beach, Louisiana, with winds of 115 mph (185 km/h). Rapidly weakening over land, Rita degenerated into a large low-pressure area over the lower Mississippi Valley by September 26.
Michael Bettes is an American television meteorologist and storm chaser who works for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a co-host of AMHQ: America's Morning Headquarters. He hosts Weather Underground TV. Bettes has been an on-camera meteorologist for TWC since 2003, and is also an occasional fill-in weather anchor on The Today Show.
Perfect Disaster is a one-hour American documentary television mini-series that ran from March 19 until April 9, 2006 on the Discovery Channel. The program depicted the worst-case scenario that major cities could expect in the near future if hit by extreme disaster. A large part of each episode was recounted the lives of citizens from each city, with the remainder of the program showing many real-world scientists discussing the very high probabilities of these disasters. The trademark tagline of the show was "When the conditions are right, it will all go wrong."
The National Weather Service bulletin for the New Orleans region of 10:11 a.m., August 28, 2005, was a particularly dire warning issued by the local Weather Forecast Office in Slidell, Louisiana, warning of the devastation that Hurricane Katrina could wreak upon the Gulf Coast of the United States, and the torrent of pain, misery and suffering that would follow once the storm left the area.
Mega Disasters is an American documentary television series that originally aired from May 23, 2006, to July 2008 on History Channel. Produced by Creative Differences, the program explores potential catastrophic threats to individual cities, countries, and the entire globe.
100 Biggest Weather Moments was a 2007 five-part miniseries on The Weather Channel, that premiered on Sunday, April 15, and aired nightly through Thursday, April 19, the biggest documentary effort in The Weather Channel's 25-year history.
Hurricane Andrew was a compact, but very powerful and destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that struck The Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana in August 1992. It is the most destructive hurricane to ever hit Florida in terms of structures damaged or destroyed, and remained the costliest in financial terms until Hurricane Irma surpassed it 25 years later. Andrew was also the strongest landfalling hurricane in the United States in decades and the costliest hurricane to strike anywhere in the country, until it was surpassed by Katrina in 2005. In addition, Andrew is one of only four tropical cyclones to make landfall in the continental United States as a Category 5, alongside the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, 1969's Camille, and 2018's Michael. While the storm also caused major damage in The Bahamas and Louisiana, the greatest impact was felt in South Florida, where the storm made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane, with 1-minute sustained wind speeds as high as 165 mph (266 km/h) and a gust as high as 174 mph (280 km/h). Passing directly through the cities of Cutler Bay and Homestead in Dade County, the hurricane stripped many homes of all but their concrete foundations and caused catastrophic damage. In total, Andrew destroyed more than 63,500 houses, damaged more than 124,000 others, caused $27.3 billion in damage, and left 65 people dead.
Mark Robinson is a Canadian television meteorologist and storm chaser. He co-hosts the television series Storm Hunters and Unearthed, has appeared on the television series Angry Planet, and has made numerous other media appearances. In 2015, Robinson was named one of Canada's 100 greatest modern-day explorers by Canadian Geographic, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society.
Hurricane Harvey was a devastating tropical cyclone that made landfall on Texas and Louisiana in August 2017, causing catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths. It is tied with 2005's Hurricane Katrina as the costliest tropical cyclone on record, inflicting $125 billion in damage, primarily from catastrophic rainfall-triggered flooding in the Houston metropolitan area and Southeast Texas; this made the storm the costliest natural disaster recorded in Texas at the time. It was the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Wilma in 2005, ending a record 12-year span in which no hurricanes made landfall at the intensity of a major hurricane throughout the country. In a four-day period, many areas received more than 40 inches (1,000 mm) of rain as the system slowly meandered over eastern Texas and adjacent waters, causing unprecedented flooding. With peak accumulations of 60.58 in (1,539 mm), in Nederland, Texas, Harvey was the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the United States. The resulting floods inundated hundreds of thousands of homes, which displaced more than 30,000 people and prompted more than 17,000 rescues.
Hurricane Barry was an asymmetrical Category 1 hurricane that was the wettest tropical cyclone on record in Arkansas and the fourth-wettest in Louisiana. The second tropical or subtropical storm and first hurricane of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season, Barry originated as a mesoscale convective vortex over southwestern Kansas on July 2. The system eventually emerged into the Gulf of Mexico from the Florida Panhandle on July 10, whereupon the National Hurricane Center (NHC) designated it as a potential tropical cyclone. Early on July 11, the system developed into a tropical depression, and strengthened into a tropical storm later that day. Dry air and wind shear caused most of the convection, or thunderstorms, to be displaced south of the center. Nevertheless, Barry gradually intensified. On July 13, Barry attained its peak intensity as Category 1 hurricane with 1-minute sustained winds of 75 mph (120 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 993 millibars (29.3 inHg). At 15:00 UTC, Barry made its first landfall at Marsh Island, and another landfall in Intracoastal City, Louisiana, both times as a Category 1 hurricane. Barry quickly weakened after landfall, falling to tropical depression status on July 15. The storm finally degenerated into a remnant low over northern Arkansas on the same day, subsequently opening up into a trough on July 16. The storm's remnants persisted for another few days, while continuing its eastward motion, before being absorbed into another frontal storm to the south of Nova Scotia on July 19.
Hurricane Ida was a deadly and extremely destructive Category 4 Atlantic hurricane in 2021 that became the second-most damaging and intense hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. state of Louisiana on record, behind Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In terms of maximum sustained winds at landfall, Ida tied 2020's Hurricane Laura and the 1856 Last Island hurricane as the strongest on record to hit the state. The remnants of the storm also caused a tornado outbreak and catastrophic flooding across the Northeastern United States. The ninth named storm, fourth hurricane, and second major hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, Ida originated from a tropical wave in the Caribbean Sea on August 23. On August 26, the wave developed into a tropical depression, which organized further and became Tropical Storm Ida later that day, near Grand Cayman. Amid favorable conditions, Ida intensified into a hurricane on August 27, just before moving over western Cuba. A day later, the hurricane underwent rapid intensification over the Gulf of Mexico, and reached its peak intensity as a strong Category 4 hurricane while approaching the northern Gulf Coast, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (240 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 929 millibars (27.4 inHg). On August 29, the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall, Ida made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, devastating the town of Grand Isle. Ida weakened steadily over land, becoming a tropical depression on August 30, as it turned northeastward. On September 1, Ida transitioned into a post-tropical cyclone as it accelerated through the Northeastern United States, breaking multiple rainfall records in various locations before moving out into the Atlantic on the next day. Afterward, Ida's remnant moved into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and stalled there for a couple of days, before being absorbed into another developing low-pressure area early on September 5.
The Southeastern United States, extending from South Florida to Louisiana and areas inland, was severely affected by Hurricane Katrina, causing many deaths and billions in damages. After developing on August 23, Katrina made landfall near the border of Broward and Miami-Dade counties with 80 mph (130 km/h) winds on August 25. After emerging from the state, Katrina intensified into one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes, becoming a Category 5 on the Saffir–Simpson scale. It moved ashore near the border of Louisiana and Mississippi and weakened as it moved inland, dissipating on August 31.
