After state and local officials spent the weekend preparing for its arrival, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana on August 29. U.S. News documents what the officials were doing as the storm hit and as New Orleans began to flood.
The storm is vicious. New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass is celebrating his birthday hunkered down on the fourth floor of the Hyatt Hotel with the mayor and other top officials to ride out the storm. His spokesman, Capt. Marlon DeFillo, gives him a box of Oreos.
"It was the only present I got that day," he says. They had a generator but quickly lost much of their communication with the outside world. "I knew it was bad when glass started breaking out at the Hyatt," he says. Jefferson Parish, slightly protected from the worst part of the storm, records sustained winds of 120 to 130 mph, with gusts up to 160 mph. Walter Maestri, who has been the parish's emergency manager for nine years and weathered countless hurricanes, steps outside during the height to witness its fury.
"Rain was falling parallel to the ground," he says. He watches as the pine cones from a nearby tree are ripped off and embedded 3 to 4 inches into the ground by the force of the winds. "They were like bullets," he says. Big two-by-fours were flying through the air and puncturing walls.
By the time the eye of the storm smacks into Louisiana at 7 a.m. on Monday, most of the communications systems are down in most of the southeastern parishes. The land lines go dead throughout the south. Cellphone and radio repeater towers are toppled. Police radios go off the air when the main radio tower is blown off a building. The 800 mHz radios still work in a few places, but batteries die quickly. Even satellite phones don't work in the storm, with the dense cloud cover.
No power; Guard activated
All around the state, power goes out. The emergency operations center loses power, but its two massive generators kick in immediately, after a slight flicker. Louisiana activates all 5,700 of its available national guardsmen. The eye passes directly over Louisiana National Guard Lt. Col. Jacque Thibodeaux in his second-floor command center at Jackson Barracks.
At 3 a.m., he steps out front into the parking lot as the first waves of rain begin lashing New Orleans. There is about 4 inches of water pooling on the ground. Only an hour later, when he checks again, he can only see the roof rack of his Chevy Avalanche in the parking lot, buried by at least 6 feet of water. But they still have electricity from a generator, and they are still in touch with officials in Baton Rouge by radio.
Their headquarters is on the highest ground of the base, but it is still completely isolated by water. It has taken a double hit. A 25-foot storm surge driven by 150 mph winds from the east brings the first water. Around the same time Monday morning, a 23-foot tidal surge overwhelms the Industrial Canal levee (which is 15 to 17 feet tall), sending a 15-foot surge from Lake Pontchartrain coming from the other direction. Parts of the base are buried under 20 feet of water. The water comes in so fast that it topples some of the brick wall along the perimeter of the base. His headquarters is surrounded by 12 feet of water.
