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In less than 12 hours on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the
Louisiana coast, leading to more than a thousand deaths and transforming a city
of over one million into an uninhabitable swamp. "Storm That Drowned a City" is
NOVA's definitive investigation into the science of Hurricane Katrina,
combining a penetrating analysis of what went wrong with a dramatic,
minute-by-minute unfolding of events told through eyewitness testimony. What
made this storm so deadly? Will powerful hurricanes like Katrina strike more
often? How accurately did scientists predict its impact, and why did the levees
protecting New Orleans fail?
Unlike many news shows on Katrina, this program focuses in depth on the
factors that made New Orleans so vulnerable. Shrinking wetlands had steadily
eroded the city's natural protective barrier against the fury of tropical
storms. Ironically, the vast effort invested in diverting the Mississippi River
and building defensive levees had only helped to accelerate the sinking of
entire neighborhoods below sea level. Meanwhile, growing evidence indicates
that poor construction led to the failure of several critical levees (see How
the City Flooded). The program investigates these issues with exclusive
coverage of top engineers, hurricane experts, and emergency officials as they
grapple with the first few traumatic days of the disaster.
The one-hour documentary also shows how the disastrous impact of a strong
hurricane was clearly foreseen by the scientists and agencies participating in
"Exercise Pam" a year before Katrina (see The Man Who Knew). Computer models
of Katrina's impact turned out to be impressively accurate, but the predictions
ultimately failed to influence authorities and prevent the tragic aftermath of
the storm.
More than just an engineering story, "Storm That Drowned a City" looks to the
future and asks what can be done to make New Orleans a safely habitable city.
In a program full of gripping footage gathered in the wake of the catastrophe,
NOVA exposes the immense challenges posed by rebuilding New Orleans as well as
examines why the city was so tragically unprepared when the long-feared
disaster finally struck.
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Why did some
neighborhoods in New Orleans remain dry while others flooded? It's one of many
pressing questions that engineers and other experts are now asking in the wake
of Katrina.
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