National Weather Service bulletin for New Orleans region

The **National Weather Service bulletin for the New Orleans region of 10:11&nbsp;a.m., August 28, 2005** was a vividly worded release issued by the local Weather Forecast Office in Slidell, Louisiana warning of the devastation that the Gulf Coast of the United States could experience as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Partly due to this bulletin, people in southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi, those most affected by the storm, followed evacuation orders more closely, resulting in fewer deaths.

## Background 
On the evening of August 25, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane near the Miami-Dade – Broward county line in southern Florida and weakened into a tropical storm as a result. The next morning, after passing over the state, Tropical Storm Katrina moved into the Gulf of Mexico, strengthened back to hurricane strength, and from the influence of the warm waters from the Loop Current, began rapid deepening.

At 11:00&nbsp;p.m. EDT August 26, approximately 56&nbsp;hours before Katrina's landfall near Buras, Louisiana, the National Hurricane Center had predicted that the New Orleans metropolitan area could face a direct hit by the storm. As New Orleans is on the Mississippi River delta and much of the city is below sea level, a strong hurricane could have a devastating effect on the city. Previous warnings, such as the one made by the Houston Chronicle in 2001, told of a disaster that "would strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20 feet of water" following a severe hurricane  landfall on the city. The National Hurricane Center's director, Max Mayfield, said the Mississippi/Louisiana area has "the greatest potential for nightmare scenarios," and that this has been known for at least the three decades he has worked at the NHC. Other publications, such as *Popular Mechanics*, *Scientific American*, and The Times-Picayune predicted doomsday situations in which a sinking city would drown and its residents would be left homeless.

In 1965, Hurricane Betsy made landfall just south of New Orleans, causing widespread flooding in the city. As a result, a system of levees was authorized by Congress to handle future storm events. However, the protection given by this system was limited to hurricanes up to Category 3 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.

Three days before Katrina's second and third landfalls, the National Hurricane Center began predicting that the storm would make landfall as a major hurricane. which was upgraded to a hurricane warning by 10:00&nbsp;p.m.  that same evening. At this point, Katrina was a Category 3 hurricane with 115&nbsp;mph (185&nbsp;km/h) winds and about 335&nbsp;miles (540&nbsp;km) to the south-southeast of the Mississippi River's mouth. At that time, the Weather Forecasting Office  issued an "urgent weather message" describing the destruction Katrina would likely cause in the region:

An equally-explicit bulletin was repeated at 4:13&nbsp;p.m. CDT.

## Impact
In the months after the storm, Congress appointed a two-party system committee to look into the response to Hurricane Katrina and the preparations before to its landfall. The committee said that the forecasts given by the National Weather Service were timely, were not responsible for failures in other agencies, and were likely responsible for saving thousands of lives.

## Related pages
* Hurricane Katrina
* Hurricane Katrina tornado outbreak
* Meteorological history of Hurricane Katrina

## References