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A Chronology of Hurricane Katrina
The Guardian ^ | September 3, 2005

Posted on 09/04/2005 1:30:47 AM PDT by neverdem

Saturday September 3, 2005 8:31 PM

By The Associated Press

A day-by-day look at Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

Wednesday, Aug. 24:

- Tropical Depression 12 strengthens into Tropical Storm Katrina over the Central Bahamas; a hurricane warning is issued for the southeastern Florida coast.

Thursday, Aug. 25:

- Hurricane Katrina strikes Florida between Hallandale Beach and North Miami Beach as a Category 1 hurricane with 80 mph winds.

Friday, Aug. 26:

- Katrina weakens over land to a tropical storm before moving out over the Gulf of Mexico. It grows to a Category 2 hurricane with 100 mph winds, veering north and west toward Mississippi and Louisiana.

- 10,000 National Guard troops are dispatched across the Gulf Coast.

Saturday, Aug. 27:

- Eleven people dead in Florida from hurricane-related causes.

- Katrina becomes a Category 3 storm, with 115 mph winds; a hurricane warning is issued for Louisiana's southeastern coast, including New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, and for the northern Gulf coast.

- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin declares a state of emergency and urges residents in low-lying areas to evacuate.

- Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour declares a state of emergency. A mandatory evacuation is ordered for Hancock County.

- Coastal Gulf residents jam freeways and gas stations as they rush to evacuate.

Sunday, Aug. 28:

- Katrina grows into a Category 5 storm with 160 mph winds and heads for the northern Gulf coast.

- Nagin orders a mandatory evacuation for New Orleans. But 10 shelters are also set up, including the Superdome, for those unable to leave.

- Evacuation orders are posted all along the Mississippi coast.

- Alabama Gov. Bob Riley declares a state of emergency.

Monday, Aug. 29:

- Katrina, a Category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds, makes landfall near Buras, La., at 6:10 a.m. CDT (7:10 a.m. EDT).

- President Bush makes emergency disaster declarations for Louisiana and Mississippi, freeing up federal funds.

- Katrina rips two holes in the Superdome's roof. Some 10,000 storm refugees are inside.

- At least eight Gulf Coast refineries shut down or reduce operations.

- Airports close in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Biloxi, Mobile and Pensacola. Hundreds of flights are canceled or diverted.

Tuesday, Aug. 30:

- The hurricane death toll in Mississippi rises to more than 100.

- Two levees break in New Orleans and water pours in, covering 80 percent of the city and rising to 20 feet deep in some areas. Many people climb onto roofs to escape.

- Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco says everyone still in New Orleans - an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people - must be evacuated. Crowds swell at the Superdome and the New Orleans convention center.

- Rescuers in helicopters and boats pick up hundreds of stranded people in New Orleans. Reports of looting emerge.

- About 40,000 people are in American Red Cross shelters, not including New Orleans.

- Bush cuts short his vacation to focus on the storm damage.

Wednesday, Aug.31:

- Nagin offers a startling estimate of New Orleans' death toll: ``Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands,'' he says.

- ``At first light, the devastation is greater than our worst fears,'' says Blanco, Louisiana's governor.

- The looting grows exponentially. Thieves use a forklift to smash into one pharmacy. Blanco asks the White House to send more people. New Orleans police are called off search-and-rescue missions to combat out-of-control looting.

- Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt declares a federal health emergency throughout the Gulf Coast, sends in medical supplies and workers.

- Army Corps of Engineers estimates it will be at least 30 days or more before New Orleans will be pumped out.

- Bush authorizes a draw-down from the nation's Strategic Petroleum reserve.

- Gasoline prices surge above $3 a gallon and shortages crop up.

- Five offshore Louisiana oil rigs are reported missing and two more are adrift.

- An estimated 52,000 people are in Red Cross shelters. An additional 25,000 are in the Superdome, where conditions are worsening by the hour.

- An exodus from the Superdome begins, with the first buses leaving for Houston's Astrodome, 350 miles away.

- Pentagon mounts one of largest search-and-rescue operations in U.S. history, sending four Navy ships with emergency supplies.

- Water levels stop rising in New Orleans. Engineers work to close a 500-foot gap in a failed floodwall.

Thursday, Sept. 1:

- Looting, carjacking and other violence spreads, and the military decides to increase National Guard deployment to 30,000.

- Outside the New Orleans Convention Center, the sidewalks are packed with people without food, water or medical care, waiting for buses that do not come. Tempers flare.

- Nagin, the New Orleans mayor, calls the situation critical and issues ``a desperate SOS'' for more buses.

- Crowds at the Superdome swell to 30,000 with another 25,000 at the convention center. The first refugee buses arrive at the Houston Astrodome. Elsewhere, 76,000 people are Red Cross shelters.

- Violence escalates. Rescue boats are stolen by marauders, shots are fired at helicopters evacuating hospital patients.

- Doctors at two New Orleans hospitals plead for help, saying food, water and power are almost gone. Helicopters evacuate up to 600 patients but an estimated 1,500 others remain stranded.

- The death toll in Mississippi hits 126.

- Bush asks his father and former President Clinton to lead a fund-raising campaign for hurricane victims.

- Texas agrees to take in 75,000 hurricane evacuees.

- Six hundred massive sand bags arrive to help shore up New Orleans' broken levees.

Friday, Sept 2:

- Bush tours hard-hit Gulf coast areas and acknowledges the failure so far of government hurricane relief efforts. ``The results are not acceptable,'' he says.

- Thousands of National Guardsmen arrive in New Orleans in truck convoys carrying food, water and weapons.

- Congress approves $10.5 billion to cover the immediate rescue and relief efforts.

- The United States and European nations tap oil-and-gasoline stockpiles for 2 million barrels a day, hoping to stem gas shortages.

- Explosions rock a chemical storage plant in New Orleans and other scattered fires break out.

- Fifteen airlines get permission to fly up to 25,000 refugees out of New Orleans to San Antonio.

- Texas opens two more giant centers for victims after the Astrodome fills up. States as far away as Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming and Michigan offer to accept refugees.

- More than 50 nations pledge hurricane assistance.

Saturday, Sept. 3:

- Bush orders more than 7,000 active duty forces to the Gulf Coast.

- More than 25,000 residents have evacuated from New Orleans since Friday, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency says.

- Coast Guard says has it has rescued 9,500 people since Katrina hit.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Louisiana
KEYWORDS: emergency; hurricanekatrina; incompetence; katrina; katrinafailures; stateofemergency; timeline
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I first saw this AP story on the NY Times, but, since they have to be excerpted, and eventually pay an archive retrieval fee for the whole story, I used the Guardian's version. I thought the Guardian's version didn't include every item that was in the Times' version, but neither states that the governor of Louisiana declared a state of emergency. I happened to see Many Evacuated, but Thousands Still Waiting(still no state of emergency in LA) , but I couldn't believe it.
1 posted on 09/04/2005 1:30:47 AM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Tin fish rusting in Lake Nagin. Attaboy, Mayor!

2 posted on 09/04/2005 1:37:03 AM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: neverdem

An article today explicitly stated that the governor of Louisiana still hasn't declared a state of emergency as of this evening. Look for the washington post article, it lists some unbelievable explanation for why they refused to allow the feds to take control.


3 posted on 09/04/2005 1:38:48 AM PDT by Mount Athos
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To: neverdem; All
 Katrina: A timeline -- proof the Federal response was NOT SL...

4 posted on 09/04/2005 1:42:48 AM PDT by backhoe
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To: neverdem

Of course, AP conveniently leaves out that President Bush flew over New Orleans on Wednesday. Would that make it look like he was involved too early, since the levee had broke only on Tuesday?


5 posted on 09/04/2005 1:44:44 AM PDT by line drive to right
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To: martin_fierro

Are these the same buses? (Lower right hand corner)

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24426968.jpg


6 posted on 09/04/2005 1:46:16 AM PDT by Howlin (Have you check in on this thread: FYI: Hurricane Katrina Freeper SIGN IN Thread)
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To: Mount Athos

I read some of the Washington Post detail. It looks like the blame Bush mantra from the MSM is starting to fizzle.


7 posted on 09/04/2005 1:46:19 AM PDT by GWB00
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To: Mount Athos

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1476915/posts

That's the story you mentioned....


8 posted on 09/04/2005 1:46:30 AM PDT by konaice
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To: Howlin
Are these the same buses? (Lower right hand corner)

NO Those are different buses!!!

SCOOP!!!

Howlin finds YET MORE BUSES the mayor did not deploy!!!

9 posted on 09/04/2005 1:49:27 AM PDT by konaice
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To: martin_fierro

Superb photo of "Lake Nagin"! Wow - look at the petrol slick at about 5 o'clock. Looks like they were gassed up and ready to go. So if Nagin tries to tell us later that he couldn't get petrol...


10 posted on 09/04/2005 1:49:34 AM PDT by agere_contra
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To: neverdem

The AP also conveniently forgot:

Aug. 28: Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said that President Bush had called and urged the state to order the evacuation.

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:RGrwXIfpv8UJ:www.cnn.com/rssclick/2005/WEATHER/08/28/hurricane.katrina/%3Fsection%3Dcnn_topstories+president+bush+called+blanco+mandatory+evacuation+new+orleans&hl=en

Yep, the original story is only in google cache.


11 posted on 09/04/2005 1:56:26 AM PDT by cgk (We'll have to deal w/ the networks. One way to do that is to drain the swamp they live in - Rumsfeld)
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To: martin_fierro

There are 279 buses in that pic. What's the capacity of a school bus? 35-40? More? 9,765 people @ 35 people per bus.
11,160 at 40 per bus... Toss in a pail for Nagin's toilet concerns, stop at walmart, loot a shower curtain,coloring books for the kids, and hit the road.


12 posted on 09/04/2005 1:57:26 AM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: martin_fierro
"Nagin, the New Orleans mayor, calls the situation critical and issues ``a desperate SOS'' for more buses.

I guess he forgot about those. I haven't come across the pic yet, but there are another 345 public transit buses kicking around somewhere as well.

13 posted on 09/04/2005 2:01:38 AM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: Mount Athos
An article today explicitly stated that the governor of Louisiana still hasn't declared a state of emergency as of this evening. Look for the washington post article, it lists some unbelievable explanation for why they refused to allow the feds to take control.

That is the second link in comment# 1. The bias of the MSM will only be exposed by using them to source their own hypocrisy and incompetence.

David Brooks could be correct about The Bursting Point, but care for the little guy and dem behavior does not compute.

14 posted on 09/04/2005 2:03:26 AM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: martin_fierro

It looks like there's almost 250 buses under water. The mayor could have moved tens of thousands of people with those buses ahead of time.


15 posted on 09/04/2005 2:36:52 AM PDT by Prince Charles
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To: neverdem
Looks like some monumental screw-ups were made at the local and state levels in New Orleans and Louisiana. The "media" will try and blame Bush and the Federal government of course, to cover for liberal incompetence.
16 posted on 09/04/2005 2:41:20 AM PDT by Uncle Vlad
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To: neverdem
mandatory evacuation

What part of "mandatory evacuation" didn't they understand?

You get out somehow and go to a Red Cross shelter. The friggin DemonRAT mayor or governor uses those school buses to get them to somewhere safe.

It's like what part of "illegal alien" don't DemonRATs understand?

The people I feel sorry for are those that followed the mandatory evacuation order, left, and lost everything they'd owned. My heart goes out to them.

I guaran-damn-tee none of those looters were registered Republicans.

I'm more convinced of that than ever, after listening to these Boston DemonRAT liberals bash Bush in the days since the levees broke.

I don't know who the DemonRAT equivalent of Rush Limbaugh is, but all the DemonRATs up here talking the same points and marching in lockstep.

Maybe it's just network news or CNN. My Foxnews went out on my cable and I've been forced to watch CNN. It's burning a hole in my gut.

17 posted on 09/04/2005 2:49:12 AM PDT by benjaminjjones
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To: benjaminjjones

National Hurricane Director had to call Nagin at home Saturday night to plead: "Get people out..."
Knight Ridder Newspapers ^ | Sun, Aug. 28, 2005 | BY MARC CAPUTO, DAVID OVALLE AND ERIKA BOLSTAD


Posted on 09/03/2005 2:14:14 PM CDT by joinedafterattack


MAYOR CRITICIZED EVEN BEFORE LEVY BREAK. National Hurricane Center Director had to call Nagin at home Saturday night to plead: "Get people out of New Orleans." "The criticisms of Nagin came from above as well. Numerous officials urged him to evacuate the city, but he worried about the legality of ordering people out when New Orleans has few safe hurricane shelters. Also, National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield in Miami called Nagin at home Saturday night and told him: Get people out of New Orleans.

''I could never sleep if I felt like I didn't do everything that I could to impress upon people the gravity of the situation,'' Mayfield said. ``New Orleans is never going to be the same.''

When a grim Nagin issued the mandatory evacuation order Sunday, he said: ``We are facing a storm that most of us have feared . . . God bless us.''


18 posted on 09/04/2005 2:51:52 AM PDT by stocksthatgoup (Polls = Proof that when the MSM want your opinion they will give it to you.)
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To: martin_fierro

whole story


19 posted on 09/04/2005 3:27:17 AM PDT by beyond the sea ("I was just the spark the universe chose ....." --- Cindy Sheehan (barf alert))
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To: konaice

Great link. Thanks for posting.


20 posted on 09/04/2005 3:52:58 AM PDT by Right_in_Virginia
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