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Storm history

Hurricane Katrina formed as Tropical Depression Twelve over the southeastern Bahamas on August 23, 2005, as the result of an interaction of a tropical wave and the remains of Tropical Depression Ten. The system was upgraded to Tropical Storm Katrina on the morning of August 24, and became a hurricane only two hours before it made landfall on the morning of August 25 between Hallandale Beach and Aventura, Florida. The storm weakened over land, but it regained hurricane status about one hour after entering the Gulf of Mexico.[1]

The storm rapidly intensified after entering the Gulf, due in part to the storm's movement over the warm sea surface temperatures of the Loop Current.[2] On August 27, the storm reached Category 3 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, becoming the third major hurricane of the season. An eyewall replacement cycle disrupted the intensification, but nearly doubled the size of the storm. Katrina again rapidly intensified, attaining Category 5 status by August 28 and reached its peak at 1:00 p.m. CDT that day with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph (280 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 902 mbar. The pressure made Katrina the fourth most intense Atlantic hurricane on record, though it would be surpassed by Hurricanes Rita and Wilma later in the season; it was also the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico (later also broken by Rita).[1]

Katrina made its second landfall at 6:10 a.m. CDT on August 29 as a Category 3 Hurricane with sustained winds of 125 mph (205 km/h) near Buras-Triumph, Louisiana. At landfall, hurricane-force winds extended outward 120 miles (190 km) from the center and the storm's central pressure was 920 mbar. After moving over southeastern Louisiana and Breton Sound, it made its third landfall near the Louisiana/Mississippi border with 120 mph (195 km/h) sustained winds, still at Category 3 intensity.[1]

Katrina maintained hurricane strength well into Mississippi, but weakened thereafter, finally losing hurricane strength more than 150 mi (240 km) inland, near Jackson, Mississippi. It was downgraded further to a tropical depression near Clarksville, Tennessee. The remnant system was last distinguishable in the eastern Great Lakes region on August 31 when it was absorbed by a frontal boundary. The resulting extratropical storm moved rapidly to the northeast and affected Ontario and Quebec.[1]
 

New Orleans

Vertical cross-section of New Orleans, showing maximum levee height of 23 feet (7 m).

By August 26, the possibility of unprecedented cataclysm was already being considered. Some computer models were putting the city of New Orleans right in the center of their track probabilities; the chances of a direct hit were forecast at 17%, with strike probability rising to 29% by August 28.[10] This scenario was considered a potential catastrophe because 80% of the New Orleans metropolitan area is below sea level along Lake Pontchartrain. Since the storm surge produced by the hurricane's right-front quadrant (containing the strongest winds) was forecast to be 28 feet (8.5 m), emergency management officials in New Orleans feared that the storm surge could go over the tops of levees protecting the city, causing major flooding.[11] This risk of devastation was well known; previous studies by FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers had warned that a direct hurricane strike on New Orleans could lead to massive flooding, which would lead to thousands of drowning deaths, as well as many more suffering from disease and dehydration as the flood waters slowly receded from the city.

At a news conference 10:00 a.m. on August 28, shortly after Katrina was upgraded to a Category 5 storm, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin ordered the first ever mandatory evacuation of the city, calling Katrina, "a storm that most of us have long feared".[13] The government also established several "refuges of last resort" for citizens who could not leave the city, including the massive Louisiana Superdome, which sheltered approximately 26,000 people and provided them with food and water for several days as the storm came ashore.[14]
 

DD 661

Ok, I have had this dream before, so usually its pretty important. This is a drawing of an area in the United States that will completely disappear forever. I do not know how it could disappear, it may become a lake or something. What I do know its that its not going to be there anymore, and allot of people are going to be affected there and to the east??  This is all... 

9.19.2006