Here is the warning we received the day before Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. Pretty scary.

WWUS74 KLIX 281550 NPWLIX

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!

Three weeks later, came Rita, and the largest evacuation in US history. Glad I didn't listen to the experts and get stuck on the freeways.

I remember it well though some memories have faded away.

It's hard to imagine the devastation these storms create.

The company I worked for at the time sent us in to New Orleans the following week after the storm hit to set up wireless communication devices for the city government on the rooftops of several buildings.

The city had set up kind of a war room in one of the ballrooms at the Hyatt Regency hotel across the street from city hall. Each organization had their own table, NOPD, SPCA, etc.

It was surreal going through the city. There was virtually no one around and no traffic. There were checkpoints just to get into the city.

There was still trash all around the superdome and broken glass everywhere.

The water lines on the cars left at the super dome was about up to the windows.

One of my uncles lived on Banks street in Mid city. The water line on his house was at least seven feet high.

Our house made it ok, fortunately there was no flooding in our area.

Then hurricane Ida hits on August 29 also.

Fingers crossed this year.

Hurricane Isaac hit on the 29th of August as well.

This was shared to me by an instructor in 2006 while I was at Keesler AFB in Biloxi MS

I got down there for USAF Tech School (AIT/A-School) exactly one year after Katrina and the area was still half wiped out:


CE = Civil Engineers

Everything south of the Railroad tracks was destroyed nearly 28 miles. We are still rebuilding.
Thanks for posting. This is one video I had not seen.

I was on my two weeks of active duty and was helping shut down the CG base in Cape Hatteras. My active duty Gunner’s Mate was there also,and he hailed from Biloxi MS. During the storm he lost contact with family for a week, until so one called someone and relayed to DJ that his family was still alive. We wound up shutting down the base and we were the last two people there.

Fast forward to 2010 and I got activated for the oil spill…I drove thru his family’s home and saw first hand what had happened. When I arrived in NOLA you could still see whole neighborhoods wiped out,and things hadn’t been repaired or torn down.

We drove thru NOLA last month and I could see that things were cleaned up..at least from the interstate.

The CG displayed what kind of rescue service it really is in the days afterward. Lifting and feeding people to safety.

One thing I learned was that smart locals had an axe in the attic for chopping their way out when the water got too high.

I remember Para's response to the slow deployment of relief and breakdown of law and order in N.O.

Helicopter gunships

I was here in LaPlace for Katrina, Isaac, and Ida (among others) and Ida is the one that got us primarily because it was a direct hit for us. We're still rebuilding, but at least we are living in the house while we do things like paint, trim carpentry and kitchen installation. I've fired two general contractors and have resolved to just finish the house on my own. If I had continued working with contractors I'd still be living in an RV and dealing with appallingly shoddy work. This way I can control what happens when and I care enough to do it right.

My heart goes out to people who have yet to even begin rebuilding. Most of the folks that I know who are in that predicament are dealing with insurance companies going bankrupt. While I did have to fight to go over the head of the first adjuster which delayed us significantly, I have to admit that State Farm has since stepped up and done what is right. More importantly, they didn't just throw their hands up and abdicate their responsibly like some of these small "discount" companies have done.

Anyway... August 29th will forever have a certain "pucker factor" for us.

One thing I remember being discussed and rumored about was that there were police snipers on rooftops shooting looters.

I never put much stock in that rumor but I can state what happened when we left the city that day we installed the communication equipment for the city.

There were four of us in the SUV, another local tech and two managers. The other tech asked the managers if we could stop at the Federal Reserve Bank so he could check on all the computers and peripherals we maintained.

After he was in the building for about five minutes we heard a very loud gunshot. I suspect it was a rifle. It sounded like it wasn't too far from us. There was no movement visible around us on the street. One of the managers said "you know if we make it out of here alive!". He didn't finish the statement, he didn't need to. If we weren't a little bit on edge before the gunshot we were afterwards. We still had to get out of the city. We had a police escort on the way in but not on the way out.

I spent 2 months bouncing between New Orleans and Gulfport after Katrina working to get two way radio systems back up on line.

I’m still convinced many of the dead were people who were problems to others and the storm offered a good way to eliminate those problems.

One example was we were in a boat headed to a tower site in the New Orleans area, there was a gentleman stranded in a house, so the guy running the boat said we needed to pick him up, and did. Once he got in the boat, he pointed to a sheet floating in the water and said, there’s a body in that sheet. Got a bullet hole in the head, not sure how it got there. Sure enough that was the truth.

Saw a few things similar during that time.

I am sure. I certainly understand what things are like without the police
and the night sky with no electricity. Cantore who stayed in Gulfport said it was the first time he saw death up close.
Some who died lacked common sense such as staying in their homes and retreating to their attics where they drowned because they could not break through the roof.

Friend of mine was a PM for Motorolas government radio side, spent two years going in and out of LA from Katrina.

Said he got a helicopter ride with the military to view tower sites, they saw all kinds of people looting, one of the officers he was with told him if you end up driving in NO and someone comes out to stop you, don't, run them over, they are there to steal your car and will kill you. Said he was hoping he'd get a ride in the Huey, though as he hoped.. doors open, low altitude...

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Said he was hoping he'd get a ride in the Huey, though as he hoped.. doors open, low altitude...

..."Fortunate Son" playing over the scene...

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Friend of mine was a PM for Motorolas government radio side, spent two years going in and out of LA from Katrina.

Said he got a helicopter ride with the military to view tower sites, they saw all kinds of people looting, one of the officers he was with told him if you end up driving in NO and someone comes out to stop you, don't, run them over, they are there to steal your car and will kill you. Said he was hoping he'd get a ride in the Huey, though as he hoped.. doors open, low altitude...

I just retired from the Federal side of Motorola.

A friend of mine at the time was a manager for a disaster recovery company. He said with my back ground in emergency services I should come work for the company.
He said I would live there for about six weeks at a time then go home for a few days, then come back.
He said they would pay all my expenses while I was there and they would pay me around $60,000 to $80,000 for six to eight month of work.
He told me I would start out tracking trash removal trucks from the clean up areas to the dump. He said with my back ground it would not take long to become a supervisor/manager.
He said we would work from sun up till sundown as it was way to dangerous to work at night.
I respectfully declined

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

I am sure. I certainly understand what things are like without the police
and the night sky with no electricity.

Do you remember the TV series Jericho? The USA suffers an EMP attack from an unknown enemy and basically goes back to a pred Industrial Age in a split second. No more government, no more police, everyone is on their own to survive.

I recall reading early on about that, the series was in large part inspired by Katrina and the aftermath of that.

Wasn’t there even a situation in Katrina where you had armed people on one side of a bridge trying to defend their town from looters/invaders? That was definitely portrayed in Jericho

quote:

Wasn’t there even a situation in Katrina where you had armed people on one side of a bridge trying to defend their town from looters/invaders? That was definitely portrayed in Jericho

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Never saw Jericho. There was a similar incident in NOLA. It was like the Wild West over there. Lots of racial stuff and ugliness when food and water are not available. People being held hostage of top of buildings. Some of the looting had to do with basic survival.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Wasn’t there even a situation in Katrina where you had armed people on one side of a bridge trying to defend their town from looters/invaders? That was definitely portrayed in Jericho

You may be thinking of the blockading of the Crescent City Connection bridge by the Gretna Police Department, to prevent refugees and looters from New Orleans from crossing into their town.