To those affected by Katrina in both Florida and the Gulf Coast

Recently, there has been a catastrophe associated with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and severe disruption of life in the south Florida area. NWHHC expresses sorrow for those affected by this terrible storm and hopes for a speedy recovery in both landfall locations.

To the remainder of hurricane coast residents:

At both cases, much of the destruction could have been prevented. In South Florida, the major issue was not taking the hurricane warning seriously. The prevailing attitude was "Katrina is only a tropical storm, it cannot do anything". Katrina was always forecast to be a hurricane and the National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued a Hurricane Warning the day before landfall. This provided residents ample time to prepare, time which was not properly used. A Hurricane Warning is a Hurricane Warning. An official Hurricane Warning applies for a 1-5 hurricane, and all category of hurricane should be treated as a life and death event and all precautions necessary for the protection of property should be made, whether the winds are 75 m.p.h. or 175 m.p.h.

A second issue for south Florida was that people again focused on the exact forecast track, even after Charley last year did not follow the forecast track. Despite the education efforts to get people to focus on the NHC cone, people followed the exact forecast track. NWHHC products do not yet have a cone as there is not a sufficient forecast sample to generate a cone of error; however, next year, one will be as there will be 2 full years of verified forecasts against Best Track. Residents are reminded that tropical cyclone forecasts are subject to error.

The main reason for the large loss of life for the Gulf Coast was failure to comply with evacuation orders. There were many people not able to have access to transportation for evacuation. Automated transportation is not needed for an evacuation. Those with the ability to walk, should do so if all else fails. The 30 hour lead time for the hurricane warning could have allowed people to walk up to 70 miles, far enough to find shelter from the storm.

A second point than needs to be addressed regarding the failure to evacuate is that a mandatory evacuation means evacuate, with no questions. If an entire county is under an evacuation order, that means everyone is to evacuate and find shelter. The attitude that a place survived the last big storm so this one will not cause any problems is extremely dangerous. Many previous storms had their wind speeds severely overstated. Statistics from the past should not be used until the changes as a part of the NOAA Reanalysis Project completes the reanalysis of that particular season.

We hope for a quick recovery in the affected areas and hope that this type of death and destruction never occurs again.