![]() 18 Ninety-five percent of Wavelands residential and commercial structures were severely damaged. 17 The storm devastated Waveland, Mississippi, wiping out all the local resources, including those that municipal officials had staged ten miles north of town. 16 In the words of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta: The Port of Gulfport, Mississippi was left with virtually nothing and must rebuild almost from scratch. 15 A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report described the communications infrastructure in Biloxi and Gulfport as non-existent. 13 Hurricane Katrina left the downtown streets of Gulfport, Mississippi, under ten feet of water 14 and structures flooded for miles inland. It looks like a bomb hit it. 12 Major east-west highways in southern Mississippi became impassable due to storm debris: US-90 closed across the entire state and I-10 east-bound closed to the public, with only one west-bound lane open for emergency responders. 11 The city of Biloxi was decimated, according to municipal government spokesman Vincent Creel. Mississippi suffered extensive damage in all counties south of Interstate 20 and east of Interstate 55. After surveying the region from the air on August 30, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour likened the scene to that of a nuclear detonation, stating, I can only imagine that this is what Hiroshima looked like sixty years ago. 9Destroyed homes, beached vessels, collapsed bridges, uprooted trees, and other debris littered the ground and blocked waterways. According to NOAA, entire coastal communities were obliterated, some left with little more than the foundations upon which homes, businesses, government facilities, and other historical buildings once stood. The nightmare scenario that some had predicted prior to Hurricane Katrinas landfall became a reality as those on the ground saw the devastation for the first time. Bush described this hurricane as one of the worst natural disasters in our Nation's history. 8 ![]() 7 The Nation empathized with the harrowing stories of survival, loss, and family separation. The storm inflicted a terrible toll of human suffering, killing at least 1,330 and injuring thousands. ![]() ![]() Hurricane Katrinas powerful winds, storm surge, and subsequent flooding destroyed communities and infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Katrina also produced very significant storm surges approximately ten feet high as far east as Mobile, Alabama, where it caused flooding several miles inland along Mobile Bay. Surge waters flooded over six miles inland in many parts of coastal Mississippi and up to twelve miles inland along rivers and bays. 5 According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Hurricane Katrina produced a storm surge as high as twenty-seven feet in Louisiana and Mississippi. Hurricane Katrina generated violent waves and a massive storm surge before colliding with the Gulf Coast. 3 Six hours later, as it passed northwest of Meridian, Mississippi, Hurricane Katrina was further downgraded to a tropical storm. 2 The storm rapidly lost strength as it pushed inland through southern and central Mississippi by 1:00 pm cdt, it had weakened to a Category 1 hurricane. At the time, Hurricane Katrina had sustained winds over 115 mph and reported gusts as high as 130 mph. ![]() The massive storm continued to move north, rolling over portions of the Louisiana coast before its eye came ashore near the mouth of the Pearl River in Mississippi. Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a powerful Category 3 storm at 6:10 am CDT on Monday, August 29 in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. Chapter Four: A Week of Crisis (August 29 - September 5) Eastward from Lake Pontchartrain, across the Mississippi coast, to Alabama into Florida, millions of lives wereĬhanged in a day by a cruel and wasteful storm. ![]()
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