Florida Keys gets a taste of Katrina
The core came ashore between Hallandale and North Miami beaches, said a spokesman for the Monroe County (Florida) Tourism Development Council. This storm did not behave as forecasters projected it would. They originally forecast that it would go ashore around Fort Lauderdale, track west to the Gulf and do a hook to the right onto the panhandle.
"But instead, it came in a little to the south around Hallandale and North Miami and then started to slide southwest. As it slid down, it started taking some folks a little by surprise.
The storm did affect the whole Keys island chain, according to the spokesman. The area that had been under a tropical storm watch was quickly escalated to a warning, he said. We had to react pretty quickly at that point.
On Friday night Sloppy Joes bar on Duval Street in Key West had a foot and a half of water on the floor, the spokesman said. But by Saturday noon it was bone dry outside Sloppy Joes. The water that had seeped into the floor was replaced by tourists. -- D.C.
MIAMI -- The once
extremely powerful Hurricane Katrina continued to wreak havoc on
its path through the Gulf Coast states as it stormed its way
northward toward the Ohio Valley.
As of the latest
advisory, though, Katrina had been downgraded from the Category 4
storm it was at landfall -- with winds near 145 mph -- and measured
in as a Category 1 storm with sustained winds near 75 mph at press
time.
Katrina made
landfall just after 6 a.m. CDT Aug. 29 as a strong Category 4 storm
near the bayou town of Buras, La., after spending time the previous
day as an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm with maximum wind
speeds reaching 175 mph. Katrina first made landfall Aug. 25 near
Hallandale, Fla., as a Category 1 storm and regenerated again after
traveling over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
After making
landfall near Buras, Katrina hit New
Orleans Monday morning, pounding the city with 145-mph winds.
Windows were blown off the side of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in
downtown New Orleans, but all guests had been previously evacuated
from the rooms and took shelter in the hotels ballroom. Meanwhile,
thousands of residents sought shelter in the Louisiana
Superdome, home of the National Football
Leagues New Orleans Saints, but the storm
tore through its top. According to a
Superdome spokesperson, the structure and its temporary residents
were in no immediate danger.
Flooding was
widespread throughout the region, from Miami/Dade County, Fla.,
where the storm first hit land, to New Orleans, where parts of
Interstate 10 were submerged.
In addition, the storm
caused widespread power outages throughout the area, with about 1.3
million people in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida
without power, according to Associated Press reports.
There have been at
least 15 confirmed deaths due to Hurricane Katrina: three in New
Orleans during the evacuation of the city; seven in Florida during
the first landfall; two in Alabama; and three in
Mississippi. Authorities fear many others
may be dead or trapped in buildings awaiting rescue.
According to damage
estimates, Katrina could become the most expensive storm in U.S.
history, costing insurers up to $25 billion, surpassing Hurricane
Andrew, which cost insurers $15.5 billion.
To contact the
reporters who wrote this article, send e-mail to David Cogswell or
TravelWeekly.com managing editor Kimberly Scholz at [email protected] or [email protected].