Katrina – Natural Disaster?
By George Kourounis (Angry Planet) | September 2, 2010 at 1:38 am
Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video
As an explorer who specializes in documenting the most extreme, the most terrifying and sometimes the most dangerous natural phenomena that Mother Nature can dish out, my passion in life is to document these places and share what I’ve discovered with the world. I’m often asked…George, what event had the most profound impact on you?
This is actually a very difficult question for me. Of course getting married on an erupting volcano or exploring the fascinating Naica Crystal Cave in Mexico were all amazing, once in a lifetime opportunities, but the fact that we’ve just had the fifth anniversary of hurricane Katrina reminds me of what an intense, frightening and life-changing experience it really was for me. Katrina was by far, the most destructive storm I’ve ever chased. Period.
I still recall how the surreal atmosphere of hunkering down in a concrete parking garage after driving all night from Toronto to the Mississippi Gulf Coast was punctuated by the apocalyptic warnings that were being sent out by the National Weather Service…
“HURRICANE KATRINA…A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH… MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS… AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD…AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES.”
At the time, I didn’t know if the structure I was in was going to survive the next 24 hours.
My chase partners and I deliberately chose not to go to New Orleans during Katrina for two reasons. First, we knew that the city was probably going to flood and we had no intention of being trapped there for weeks. Plus, I wanted to experience the worst part of the storm, which was going to strike the coast east of New Orleans. The right side of a hurricane is where the worst winds and storm surge waves are located since the rotational wind speed of the hurricane and the forward motion of the storm combine in that sector.
Imagine what it would’ve been like if New Orleans had taken a direct hit from the STRONG side of the storm?
The destruction would’ve been multiplied numerous times. Even with the weak side of the storm hitting the city, it still ended up causing more than 80 billion dollars in damage, making Katrina the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
Notice how the floating Copa Casino has been pushed northwest out of the water and far inland by the force of the storm surge.
On the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, I looked to my south and about a half a mile away I could see the Gulf of Mexico starting the churn up, the Copa Casino, an offshore gambling mainstay in Gulfport was clearly visible. As the hours passed and the storm ramped up, visibility was reduced to almost zero, each raindrop stung like a needle in the 100+ mph winds. The rising water reached our location as the sea took over the city and the constant cacophony of breaking glass, howling wind and ripping metal filled the air. At times, the wind was so strong that I could not even stand up, and was forced to crawl across the parking garage floor to dash from one safe spot to the next.
In the afternoon, as the winds began to die down, I again looked to the south, towards the casino that was such a prominent landmark and I couldn’t see it. I scanned the horizon, peering over damaged buildings and downed power lines until I finally spotted it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The waves and storm surge had lifted the entire casino and dropped it into its own parking lot! I had never witnessed such power firsthand.
The part that I find truly terrifying is that hurricanes are not, in and of themselves, natural disasters. They are merely a weather event, helping the atmosphere to balance itself out. The same holds true for earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tornadoes. The only instance when these events BECOME “disasters” is when they have an impact on human populations. Otherwise, they would pass unnoticed.
There is no such thing as a natural disaster.
So here we are, five years after Katrina. Other hurricanes have come and gone. Rita, Gustav, Ike – all of them damaging with loss of life and tremendous loss of property, yet we as a species are still drawn to the coastlines of the world. We seem to have a magnetic pull towards the sea that is stronger than our knowledge of what it can do when the conditions come together to produce these violent storms. At least we have the ability to learn from our mistakes, to build better, to avoid the most dangerous areas, and with advances in technology, the warning times are getting better and better. Even with all these advances, the best thing to do when the evacuation order is given is still to just get out of the way.
I’ll wave to you from the other side of the highway as I head in to get myself into position.
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