Storm Chasing
HURRICANE KATRINA

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

.HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

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.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE!

I heard this on National Public Radio Lousiana somewhere between Shreveport and Lafayette Lousiana. I was more than halfway to the Gulf Coast but after hearing that message i wondered if maybe the idea of riding out a category 5 hurricane within a few miles of the coast was perhaps a bad idea. If i had heard this message in Arkansas i would never have made it. Not because of me but because when my wife heard that message i could see the "what the heck are you getting me into" look. A little later my mother-in-law called after hearing that same message on tv. She trusted me to keep her daughter safe but who wouldnt be worried after hearing that. Not that i needed further confirmation to do it, but that message sealed the deal for me on not going anywhere near New Orleans. My intital thoughts on our destination was Gulfport, MS.

Except for the radio i might not have even known a hurricane was on its way. Everything seemed normal. The interstate wasn’t too crowded. The gas station and stores were not jam packed. All of that changed seemingly immediately upon entering Lafayette, Louisiana. Lafayette is where I-49 and I-10 interchange and while I-49 wasnt very crowded I-10 was another story. All of the gas stations were out of everything except premium gas, and i felt lucky to even get that. Once on I-10 Eastbound there was no longer any need to listen to the radio to know a hurricane was approaching.

Along the stretch of I-10 East from LaFayette to Baton Rouge I don’t think we saw more than 10 vehicles going the same direction we were. The West bound stretch of I-10 was completely packed the entire way. It was encouraging to see so many heeding the warnings but also worrisome to see that there was so much traffic that everyone who wanted to leave might not be able to get out in time.

Within 20-30 miles of Baton Rouge we experienced the extreme outer rain bands of Hurricane Katrina. It was right at sunset.

We hardly got more than a sprinkle but it did seem to confirm for me somewhat what we were doing. I also began to think about a precise location where we needed to ride the storm out. I listened to the latest weather forecasts and I decided to continue East on I-10 to Slidell, LA.

I wasn’t for sure if we would indeed stay at Slidell but I was sure that from Slidell East I was going to stop and stay at the first suitable safe location I could find.  We took the 1^st exit for Slidell which was a shopping center area that included a mall on one side and a Wal-Mart supercenter on the other.  We decided the mall offered a good deal of protection with the added benefit of being able to safely move around to multiple viewing locations.

We parked in the middle of the parking lot and were about to take a nap when some “mall cops” decided to grace us with their presence.  The asked what were we doing and finally we were instructed rudely to leave the premises.

We decided to go over to the Wal-Mart supercenter and see what protection we could find there. In the back of the store there were these huge nearly train car like metal containers that were lined up along the back outside wall.  They had space enough between a few of them to park a vehicle so we decided the plan would be to sit out in the parking lot until it became rough and then take refuge in the back between the containers.

The winds were pretty weak at this point – only 10 - 20mph – but they slowly increased throughout the night. For the next several hours we tried to get some sleep but we both found that difficult. By 3 – 4 am the winds were getting much stronger and sleep was no longer possible. Winds were gusting to probably about 50mph and the electricity finally went off.

By the time things started to lighten up the storm really got going.Trees began falling, debris was flying in all directions, and water was everywhere with white caps where there used to be parking lots.

The winds continued to rev up and by around 8am the wind was at its greatest fury. Winds were around 90 - 100 mph sustained with gusts to probably 110 - 120 mph.  For a solid hour and a half the winds were like this.

CLICK HERE FOR MY HURRICANE KATRINA VIDEO


Hurricane Katrina makes landfall radar loop

Around 9am things lightened up considerably but only for a few moments.  We were on the edge of the west eye wall for 2 hours but it never made it completely in. The pressure bottomed out on my weather station at around 934 mb. The winds only subsided briefly. Afterwards, the winds were not as strong as the winds were coming directly out of the north and directly off of the land.

Still the winds were gusting to about 80 mph when we left the back of the Wal-Mart. 

The front side was much different from the backside. While we had been pretty protected in the back, the front of the store had gotten a solid punch.

Power lines were down everywhere and we were wondering if we might be trapped for a while. 

Luckily we found a way out and soon we were on I-10 heading west.  We had to drive over a few power lines and around numerous trees.  Sometimes you could barely see the road through the pine needles.

 We continued on I-10 west to Hammond where we began our track north on I-55.  The winds were still pretty strong and trees nearly fell on us several times.  At this point we began to worry about running out of gas.  We hoped that by the time we got to Brookhaven, MS we would be able to get gas.  Unfortunately, Brookhaven was out of power as well.

While we were making our way North so was Katrina.  Finally, in Jackson, MS we were able to get 3 gallons of gas before the power went off there as well.  At Jackson we were able to start heading west I-20 and the weather began to improve dramatically.  Still, winds were gusting to 50+ MPH and just before Vicksburg, MS we had to wait 2 hours on the interstate for road crews to remove several large trees that had fallen.

We got more gas in Vicksburg and then we went across the Mississippi river bridge.  At Tullulah, LA the winds finally began to subside and at Monroe the sky began to clear.

When we finally made it home the only thing we had heard was what National Public Radio Louisiana had been broadcasting – which was that New Orleans had dodged the bullet.  People were calling in saying how it wasn’t as bad as they thought it would be.  It would not be until the next day when we started hearing about the problems in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast and it would not be until later that week before the true magnitude of the problem started to sink in. 

My Katrina story doesn’t quite end there. The residents of New Orleans were evacuated to all parts of the country and a good deal of them passed through Fort Smith, Arkansas.