English:
Hurricane Katrina damage. Upper: destroyed Baptist Church, Gulfport, Mississippi; Lower: grounded fishing boats in Plaquemine Parish, Louisiana

Title: Coast watch
Identifier: coastwatch00uncs_19 (find matches)
Year: 1979 (1970s)
Authors: UNC Sea Grant College Program
Subjects: Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology
Publisher: (Raleigh, N. C. : UNC Sea Grant College Program)
Contributing Library: State Library of North Carolina
Digitizing Sponsor: North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

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TOP: A man looks over debris from a Baptist church in Gulfport, Miss. BOTTOM: Hurricane Katrina's winds storm surge tossed fishing boats ashore like toys, grounding them in Plaquemine Parish, La. and or "SLOSH" and prepared by the National Ocean & Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for coastal sections. The model predicts the worst-case storm surge from an array of hurricane tracks for each hurricane category. Rogers then combined the results of the study grids and plotted the peak water levels along the "first developed shoreline from Texas to Tampa Bay." "For most of the Mississippi coast, the storm surge for each hurricane category is roughly twice as high as is typical for other areas along the Gulf and Atlantic coast," he says. Although Katrina weakened to a Category 3 before making landfall, experts estimate the surge to have maintained a level associated with a Category 5 hurricane. The surge did not dissipate as rapidly as the wind speed, says Rogers. "Katrina came into the Mississippi Gulf Coast on the worst possible track for a high storm surge," he says. "The shallow depth of the offshore shelf in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the bay-like shape of the shoreline, contributed to the high surge." "It is therefore no accident that Camille and Katrina set records in the same area," Rogers adds. Another hot spot is the Big Bend area of Florida that stretches from Bayonet Point through Homosassa Springs and the Crystal River to Steinhatchee. New Report The FEMA MAT report makes numerous flood recommendations, including establishing flood levels in the building codes that exceed the current base-flood elevation. The federal agency also encourages communities to review storm surge data and conduct a revised tide frequency analysis. For rebuilding efforts, it encourages local officials to use the Katrina Flood Recovery Maps until the new flood maps are released. The base-flood elevations were established to expedite the rebuilding process of hard-hit areas in Louisiana and Mississippi. "Although FEMA cannot require communities to adopt the Advisory Flood Elevations, continued use of the flood data on the current Flood Insurance Rate Maps could result in residential and commercial buildings that will be vulnerable to flood damage," the report says. The buildings in Mississippi and Louisiana were not built high enough or do not have the structural integrity to resist flood forces that may be encountered in future large events, m To find out more about the FEMA MAT report on Hurricane Katrina, visit the Web: vvww.fema.gov/rebuild/mat/mat_repts.shtm and click on "New MAT Reports." Coastwatch I Autumn 2006 I www.ncseagrant.org 11

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