Diary of a mad hurricane: 'It all started crashing pretty fast'
For several days as Hurricane Katrina first threatened and pounded the Gulf Coast, then flooded New Orleans, dozens of government agencies and private researchers helped predict, resist, and recover from the storm. In a series of timelines, U.S. News staffers detail the activities of:
FEMA officials: On paper, feds gave an upbeat analysis;
Climate researchers: Experts feared the worst;
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: 'It all started crashing pretty fast';
The Army's 82nd Airborne Division: A waiting game;
The Coast Guard: 'Hoisting up every vulnerable-looking thing;
The National Guard: 'We did respond with amazing speed';
State and local emergency officials: Getting through the storm;
and airborne storm chasers: A view from the eye.
Here, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers's story:
Four officials of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers piece together their day-by-day recollections of Hurricane Katrina. Here are their accounts:
Col. Richard Wagenaar, New Orleans district commander
Wagenaar has been a New Orleans resident only since July, having arrived after a yearlong stint with the joint command in South Korea. Even so, he says, he had a bad feeling about Katrina early on—maybe he hadn't hardened his nerves to hurricane danger the way longtime residents had. He'd been watching Katrina's progress on TV, and when the storm turned southwest after crossing Florida on Friday, August 26, he recalls thinking, "That's strange—hurricanes don't usually do that. The forecast was still for it to hit the [Florida] panhandle, but I had a hunch that something wasn't right."
Saturday, August 27. Louisiana is now projected as a probable landing site for the hurricane, so Wagenaar, "along with my civilian and military deputies," decides to evacuate the crisis management team to Vicksburg, Miss., and to activate the CAT, the Crisis Action Team. "We were getting nervous." About noon, "I told the CMT [about 40 people, all civilians] they had to be in Vicksburg." He also evacuates his wife to Vicksburg—against her protests—and finishes boarding up his house in Slidell, La., as best he can, Saturday evening. "I'd only been in command since July 12 [2005]," Wagenaar recalls, "but I had a feeling we would be in the middle of this thing."
Sunday, August 28,–Monday, August 29. Nine people end up spending the night in New Orleans, out of a complement of some 1,200 personnel. "By noon, there were only eight guys left," Wagenaar says. He and seven corps employees make up the CAT, plus a guard from their private security contractor. Two of them go to visit parish emergency operations centers to let them know a small contingent of the corps is staying at the district office and tell them, "We'll see you on the other side." At 7 p.m., the corps team enters the district office's Category 5-certified hurricane bunker, which sits inside a warehouse. It is the first time the facility has been used to wait out a hurricane. The bunker is a metal structure about the size of an RV, with hollow-core walls 6 inches thick; the outer wall is 1-inch steel, and the hollow core is filled with water, which gives weight and provides water storage for the crew inside. The doors are hatches like those you'd find on a battleship, and there are porthole windows with metal covers. The bunker houses a small conference room, a kitchen, and an area with beds and a shower. Space is tight. They have phone lines, satellite TV, E-mail, and a portable satellite phone.
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