ABSTRACT

The center of Hurricane Katrina crossed the south-eastern tip of coastal Louisiana, near the small town of Buras in Plaquemines Parish, where the mouth of the Mississippi River opens into the Gulf of Mexico. The catastrophe of August 29, 2005, however, was decades in the making. After all, the Gulf Coast and southeast Louisiana had experienced many strong storms before. But the damage from Katrina was exacerbated by a number of factors that made New Orleans and its residents especially vulnerable this time. Michael Brown credited some of this readiness to catastrophe planning efforts under way across the country. He briefly described a catastrophe planning pilot project known as the "Hurricane Pam" exercise, which centered on the New Orleans metropolitan region. In the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Rita grew to Category 5 strength, with possible trajectories including New Orleans and the Louisiana coastline.