This is the bottom of the ocean
- an ocean of air as vast and
volatile as any sea.
Above the earth's surface,
currents ebb and flow.
Some spiral into whirlwinds.
The dust devil has more bluster
than bite.
Other twisters are downright
deadly.
Tornado on the ground
on highway 44!
Damage everywhere.
We've got numerous people
injured!
Get away from the windows!
Tree just blew over!
Get away from the windows!
Get away! Get away!
Tornadoes pack the fastest winds
on earth.
But in magnitude,
this spinning giant goes unmatched.
Hurricane, typhoon, cyclone
all equally fearsome.
By any name,
the greatest storms on earth.
Severe tropical storms afflict
every continent except Antarctica.
In this century, they have claimed
over half a million lives.
Tornadoes have killed over 10,000
in the United States alone.
Today, electronic eyes pierce
the atmosphere,
and map its shifting winds.
Scientists chart the anatomy
of a storm.
Their sensors record speed and
bearing.
Make yours the same level
as the tripod.
But none can predict the birth
of a killer.
That thing's a right mover!
We gotta get out of here, fast!
Let's go!
Nothing in our power can stop the
fury of Nature's whirling winds.
Early spring, 1991.
A southern sun heats the waters
of the Gulf of Mexico.
Warm, moist air rises,
and travels northwest,
over Texas, Louisiana,
and on
toward the central United States.
More than a thousand miles away,
cool dry air rushes south
from Canada.
Rising over the Rockies,
dry upper level air flows east,
then spills onto the Great Plains.
These forces collide over Tornado
Alley on Friday, April 26th, 1991.
Fast winds high above the ground,
over slower winds below,
make the air roll horizontally,
like a pencil on a table top.
The atmosphere is unstable.
Thunderstorms erupt across
the plains.
Here and there, an updraft lifts
the horizontal spinning of the air
into a vertical position.
Now the storm rotates as it feeds
on warm, moist air near the ground.
The day gives rise to "supercells"
- the most complex and dangerous
thunderstorms on earth.
Their underbellies bubble with
instability.
Lightning and hail are the least
of their threats.
Under the right conditions,
they can also spawn monsters.
The National Weather Service
has tracked the warning signs
for a week,
predicting severe weather.
By April 26th, conditions are
text-book perfect
for a major outbreak of tornadoes.
Throughout the afternoon and
evening, across the central states,
fifty-six twisters are reported.
Honey, be careful.
Is it going away from us?
Honey.
Honey.
Is it going away from us?
I sure hope you're right.
Then, at 5:57
a killer touches down in Kansas.
In Wichita,
residents are sitting down to dinner
when warnings send them running
to basements and storm shelters.
Look at this stuff
floating in the air, Ginger.
Take cover!
Around 6:20, the tornado takes
on a pinkish hue
as it pulverizes a nursery full
of geraniums.
By the time it hits McConnell Air
Force Base,
the twister is nearly
The base hospital, school,
rec center
and over a hundred housing units
are leveled.
the town siren fails,
but most residents heed warnings
by police, and news reports.
The tornado's funnel has widened
to almost 600 feet.
At 6:40, it tears through the
Golden Spur Mobile Home Park.
The twister finally dissipates
northeast of Andover.
Within minutes, its parent storm
drops another funnel
along the Kansas Turnpike.
Can you get in the left lane, Greg?
Yah!
I'll like you know this go away.
You're okay, you're okay.
Keep going', man.
Keep going'.
Faster?
No.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lots faster.
Lots faster!
A local TV crew tries to outrun it.
Lots faster, Greg.
It's catching us.
You gotta go buddy!
Even at 85 miles an hour,
they can't get out of its way.
They stop at an overpass
where a father and his two
daughters run for cover.
As the twister spins out its
final moments,
a dread calm takes its place.
We need some place to sit down.
Along the turnpike,
people are pulled from trucks and
cars tossed like children's toys.
Andover is hardest hit.
In what was the Golden Spur
Mobile Home Park,
ten bodies are found.
Is anybody in there?
Kansas bears a bitter toll:
over 1,700 homes destroyed
or damaged, and 20 dead.
Survivors will never forget.
The car was hovering.
It was about three foot
off the ground,
and just sort of floating
in the air.
Then all of a sudden the car left,
and went right out the roof.
What looked like typing paper
floating around was really not,
it was like Garage doors.
Garage doors and window
frames, parts of houses.
Ambushed on a country road,
Brook Ibarra took shelter under
the nearest tree.
In a flash, she was airborne...
then dropped a thousand feet away.
The cows all of a sudden started
running like a stampede.
I was picked up by the tornado
and there was all sorts of debris.
One thing I remember was the cow
that flew past me.
He was screaming.
And then, before I knew it,
it was over.
I was just laying in the field
next to a tractor engine.
Wounds are healed.
Neighborhoods rise from the rubble.
The human spirit endures.
Such is life in Tornado Alley, USA.
Midwesterners once called them
"cyclones".
Early photographs
and motion pictures held viewers
spellbound.
Tornadoes begat their own myths.
Some claimed they fused coins
in people's pockets,
and cooked potatoes in the ground.
In truth, they make airborne
missiles of everyday objects.
Some have deposited heirlooms
forty miles from home.
Do they pluck feathers from
chickens?
No. Blame that on sheer fright.
They inspire no less terror
in people.
April 3rd and 4th, 1974.
In the largest outbreak on record,
March 18th, 1925.
The deadliest tornado in history
leaves the longest path.
Until the 1950's, accurate tornado
wind speeds remain a mystery.
Then a frame-by-frame analysis of
this footage clocks flying debris
at 170 miles an hour.
Tornado science takes a leap
forward in 1953
when Dr. Ted Fujita leaves Japan
for the American Midwest.
Main reason why we are here
is to find out what tornado did.
And in case of future tornadoes
what people should do.
That's the kind of thing
we want to find out.
Four decades of research will earn
him the title "Mr. Tornado."
I think it's a grain elevator
up there.
At disaster sites, Fujita proves
there's much to be learned without
braving a twister directly.
He likens tornadoes to criminals
who leave their fingerprints
behind.
Ground markings are clues
to a twister's inner structure
and dynamics.
To test his theories,
he builds a tornado machine
at the University of Chicago.
He discovers that
most strong tornadoes
are actually several small twisters
rotating around the center
of a larger one.
These mini-tornadoes can lay
waste to one house,
yet leave its neighbor unscathed.
Fujita's ideas have been amply
confirmed in Nature,
and remain a cornerstone of
tornado science.
Although they occur
around the world,
three out of four tornadoes streak
the skies over the United States.
They favor the springtime, and the
warm hours between noon and sunset.
We say a tornado "touches down".
It actually sucks in air from
near the ground
and carries it upward in a spiral.
Most range from 150 to 1200 feet
in width,
and travel over land at about
The funnel is often hollow,
a tube of condensed water vapor
that takes on the color of dust
and debris.
In North America, most tornadoes
rotate counterclockwise.
Perhaps one in a thousand spins
in the opposite direction.
Twisters appear in many guises.
They can bring to mind
the snapping of a bullwhip...
or the delicate dance of ghosts.
A single storm can spawn several
distinct funnels
- a grouping referred to as a
"family."
For all their fury,
most tornadoes are short-lived.
Many last only minutes.
To the scientists who would study
them, they are elusive prey.
How to penetrate the twister's
secrets?
Aiming weather balloons and
instrumented rockets into tornadoes
have yielded limited results.
All right. Three. Two. One.
Fire!
There! Perfe...
No.
In the 1980's, researchers at the
National Severe Storms Lab
tested the "totable tornado
observatory", nicknamed TOTO,
after Dorothy's dog
in The Wizard of Oz.
This four-hundred pound package
of sensors
was to record what no human can
even approach
without risking life and limb.
But predicting the path of a tornado
proved to be nearly impossible.
TOTO had one close call,
no direct hits.
For now, the safest way to see
inside tornadoes
is to probe them from afar with
Doppler radar.
Like an x-ray of a storm,
the system displays wind speed
and direction.
In 1981, scientists first detected
the spiraling signature of
a tornado on Doppler radar.
Today, the system is used to
issue warnings to the public.
Still, we're not exactly sure
why twisters form at all.
For Howard Bluestein,
Professor of Meteorology
at the University of Oklahoma,
there's only one way to find out.
Satellite pictures are nice.
Radar pictures are nice.
But you need to look out the window
and see the clouds at a
very very fine scale
to get a feeling for
what's happening.
I don't understand
how one can study a phenomenon
without actually experiencing it.
Seeing it or feeling it
or tasting it.
To me, that sets everything
in motion.
That makes me want to understand
why it's there,
what causes it,
what's gonna happen to it.
They just issued a tornado warning
for right where we are.
Every spring, Bluestein exercises
two considerable talents:
chasing tornadoes, and measuring
them with the latest technology.
Portable Doppler radar is like
a meteorological magnifying glass.
It allows Bluestein to measure
wind speed in very fine detail,
in specific regions of a tornado.
Okay, we better get going quickly.
That thing is starting to form
a nice funnel.
Actually, hold it.
Hold it. Hold it!
Can you turn it on?
It is starting to form a funnel
and it's not that far away.
I'm on the left side of that
tight circulation.
Bluestein's success rate is
better than most storm chasers'
The funnel cloud is just
to our north, northwest.
We're packing up the radar...
He estimates one
in nine expeditions ends
with an encounter.
OK, tornado is crossing the path
of the radar.
Debris in the air.
Strong tornadoes almost always form
under the southwest edge of a storm.
Bluestein plots his course
accordingly,
and tries to place his team roughly
two miles from touchdown.
Center it right on the funnel!
Oh, what a classic!
Should I go to FM?
Only if you have a good CW signal.
We're detectives.
We're looking for lots of bits
of evidence.
And the more pieces of evidence
we have,
the more likely it will be
that we'll be able to solve
the puzzle of why tornadoes form
and what's their structure.
April 26th, 1991.
Bluestein and his team track
the outbreak
that will ravage Andover, Kansas.
A spectacular funnel stops them
in Red Rock, Oklahoma.
Their Doppler radar will capture
the fastest windspeed on record:
nearly 280 miles an hour.
In the heat of the chase, even
Bluestein can miss a beat.
Let's get out of here fast,
let's go!
For less frenzied fieldwork,
Bluestein turns to these hunting
grounds: the Florida Keys.
August, 1993.
The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration,
and the National Geographic
Society
reunite Bluestein
with Dr. Joseph Golden,
expedition chief scientist.
As a graduate student,
Bluestein once joined Golden to
explore the skies over Key West.
This expedition marshals
state-of-the-art scientific
and photographic technology.
The quarry?
A phantom twister that haunts
these tranquil waters.
In 1967, on a vacation trip,
Golden took a sightseeing flight
over the Florida Keys,
and had a chance encounter with
one of our atmosphere's most
startling apparitions.
Since that time,
he has become the world's leading
expert on waterspouts.
Our knowledge of these ethereal
ribbons was once based largely
on mariners' accounts.
Golden first emphasized their
similarities to tornadoes.
Though usually smaller than a
twister over land.
They form in gentler weather
than most violent tornadoes,
allowing close inspection.
Smoke flares will help visualize
airflow near the sea surface.
For Bluestein, this is an
unparalleled ringside seat.
When we're out in the great
plains looking at tornadoes,
we cannot see what's happening
right at the ground very clearly,
nor can we see what's happening
at cloud base extremely clearly.
The perspective that we get
from the helicopter
in that we can look down
at the sea surface...
and see the effect of rotation
at the ground level
and also be at cloud base
and practically kiss...
the condensation funnel
that's right outside the window
is really spectacular.
Ultimately, the ghostly waterspout
may reveal the hidden forces
that trigger tornadoes.
Joe, I guess climatology works.
That was incredible!
Other whirling winds demand a
more lofty vantage point.
Book a seat on the Space Shuttle for
the perfect view of these monsters
- over 500 miles wide,
and some ten miles high.
Creatures of the sea,
they breed in the warm oceans of
the tropics.
Depending on their birthplace,
we call then 'cyclones',
'typhoons', or 'hurricanes'.
These giants can stir up
more than a million cubic miles of
the earth's atmosphere every second,
and travel across an ocean at up to
Yet they have humble beginnings.
In the summer and fall,
the sun heats vast stretches of
tropical ocean
to over 82 degrees Fahrenheit.
Warm, moist air rises over these
hot spots,
forming bands of thunderstorms.
Upper level winds push storm
systems westward,
as surface winds spiral into the
low pressure beneath the clouds.
Occasionally,
one such spinning wheel
of thunderstorms gathers strength,
feeding on moisture and heat.
When winds reach 74 miles an hour,
a hurricane is born.
The storm's architecture is
highly organized.
Rain bands up to 300 miles long
converge in the most violent sector:
the "eye wall".
Here, winds of up to 200 miles
an hour spiral upward.
Within the "eye", down drafts of
dry air create an eerie calm.
Most severe tropical storms spin
out their lives,
uneventfully, in the open sea.
When one threatens to come ashore,
the world's eyes are trained upon it
- including those of Jim Leonard.
A professional storm chaser,
Jim checks forecasts religiously.
He prowls the globe for weather
that most people would simply flee.
Among chasers, Jim has few peers.
Some say he has videotaped more
severe storms than anyone on earth.
He has no formal training,
no college degree in meteorology.
Just a life-long passion.
When I was ten years old
I had my first real hurricane
experience with Hurricane Donna.
We got probably winds of 80,
It was quite an exhilarating
experience at that point.
People think I'm crazy but, that's,
you know, that's their own opinion.
It's not gonna change.
I've always been crazy about storms,
I always will be.
The best of them all, probably,
was Hurricane Hugo,
went down to Puerto Rico
and got a direct hit.
And as it got stronger and stronger,
debris was starting to be
lifted off the parking lot,
and it looked like it was gonna
get blown back toward us.
So we decided at that point to start
going down the stairway.
As we're going down the stairwell,
the rain is being driven into the
walls through the stairs,
coming down the stairway.
And the wind you see up here
squealing.
At this point it's probably
in excess of 150 miles an hour.
And that was quite an experience.
It was like, one of the chasers
called it the Hallway from Hell.
I have no reason to be in a storm
if it's gonna scare me.
I'll, y'know, get to the point,
y'know, y'know, play the safe route
as far as I can.
But if I want to get that
ultimate shot, y'know,
of course you're gonna take
some chances.
Now is this a piece of wind
or is it a piece of wind?
Really! I wouldn't miss a great
eye wall like this for anything.
Jim and a fellow tracker have
a close call
as Omar's eye wall comes ashore.
Now the storm's placid eye
engulfs them.
It seems over, it really does,
but it's not.
We're gonna get blitzed again.
It's so eerie. I know.
I can't believe that
we're going to get blitzed again.
It seems impossible.
That was flabbergasting.
The unsettling lull does not last.
Here, the trailing edge of the
eye wall rushes in,
with winds blowing in the
opposite direction.
God, I didn't... no way!
It looked like it was gonna wait
a few minutes!
It wasn't comin' on as fast.
Yeah! If I knew it was this,
I would've hurried more.
In 1991, Jim achieves a
personal best.
Typhoon Yuri, when it came,
approached
the southern part of Guam,
I did a little bit of
carelessness there
but I got the storm surge shots
that I always wanted to get.
The water came up a little faster
than I thought it would.
Winds and low pressure allow the
sea surface to rise
near the storm's eye.
When it hits land, this mound of
water rushes ashore.
That's what you call storm surge!
Great.
Oh, great!
When the surge is waist-deep,
Jim retreats.
He, more than most, knows that
a hurricane's most deadly weapon
is not wind, but water.
Nine out of ten hurricane victims
are drowned by storm surges.
They can raise tides more than
twenty feet above normal,
and flood a hundred miles of
coastline under ten feet of water.
Fifteen percent of the world's
population live at risk
from severe tropical storms.
Atlantic hurricanes assault
the U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean.
Typhoons born over
the western Pacific Ocean
batter Japan, China,
and the Philippines.
Mostly deadly are the cyclones
that strike Bangladesh.
Here, millions farm a river delta in
places only inches above sea level.
Escape routes are few.
Loss of life has been appalling.
In a single 1970's storm,
over 300,000 dead.
Of all the atmosphere's threats,
these giants should hardly catch us
off guard.
Weather satellites track them
from birth.
But no technology can predict
exactly where one will go.
To penetrate
the hurricane's secrets,
researchers ride a flying laboratory
into the eye of the storm.
David?
Yes, sir.
We're gonna go in at 10,000 feet.
At ten, No?
Yeah. We're playin' it safe.
Looks impressive, anyway.
We have about 15 miles to the
beginning of the wall here.
External sensors
measure temperature,
air pressure, humidity,
and wind speed
as the plane braves the turbulence
of the eye wall.
We've got a hundred
knots of wind, now.
I thought it might drop off
but it hasn't.
Not yet.
If it hasn't by now
it probably won't.
We may see some 200 knot gusts here.
Okay, we're just coming into
the edge now.
An oasis of calm
over nine miles tall,
the eye is virtually clear
from sea to sky.
You guys see the center
down below there?
I think we're just about
directly over it.
Looks good, looks good.
I think we got the center.
OK, I'll mark it.
The eye's exact location
and vital statistics
are sent to forecasters on shore.
Data also flows to this
meteorological think- tank,
the Hurricane Research Division,
in Miami, Florida.
What global ingredients determine
how many hurricanes are born
each year,
and what paths they follow?
Stanley Goldenberg, research
meteorologist,
says clues range from the El Nino
phenomenon to rainfall in Africa.
He crafts computer models
based on the premise
that an organized piece of weather
like a hurricane
can be defined
in mathematical terms.
The atmosphere is an orderly
universe.
There's physical rules, physical
laws that govern these things.
It's just a matter of having
the right data,
looking at it with the right tools
and the right analyzes.
I mean, the real art is pulling
the information out of the data.
Goldenberg helped refine one of
the models
the National Hurricane Center
uses to issue forecasts.
But he had never experienced a
hurricane on the ground until 1992.
On August 17th, Tropical Storm
Andrew takes shape,
about halfway between Africa
and the Caribbean.
During the following days,
the storm slowly intensifies.
Then, high level winds begin to
tear Andrew apart,
slowing its momentum.
It's slower.
It's the slowest one.
Three days puts it here.
So by four days...
To Goldenberg, and most other
meteorologists,
Andrew has only the slimmest chance
of ever becoming a hurricane.
Friday, August 21st.
As high level winds die down,
Andrew begins to reorganize,
and quickly gathers strength.
Computer models show Andrew might
head toward southern Florida,
but Goldenberg and his colleagues
dismiss any immediate threat.
Stan leaves work early, to prepare
for an important weekend.
His wife Barbara is due to deliver
their fourth child on Sunday.
Andrew's winds exceed 74 miles
an hour on Saturday, August 22nd.
Hurricane warnings in effect
for Dade and Brown Counties.
Hurricane watch in effect...
The first hurricane
of the Atlantic season is born.
By noon on Sunday, massive
evacuations are ordered
along the Florida coast.
Sunday afternoon.
Right on schedule, Barbara has been
in labor since around 6 AM.
Here we have from the hurricane
to the other action in this room.
Which is Barbara going through
early stages of labor.
Four centimeters contracted,
going through labor pains,
In the birthing suite,
Stan videotapes the proceedings
with all the fervor of an
expectant father.
Still, the meteorologist in him
can't help but be distracted.
And we still have, waiting
for the hurricane.
Beautiful skies. Calm.
You'd never know what was going
to happen here
in the next 12 to 14 hours
or so.
Late in the day,
Andrew's winds accelerate to
a hundred fifty miles an hour.
Traveling nearly due west,
it descends upon the Bahamas.
Around 6 PM,
it strikes Eleuthera Island,
packing a storm surge 23 feet high,
taking four lives.
Having a boy makes you feel like
a father
and having a little girl makes you
feel like a daddy.
Stan steals a few hours with new
arrival Pearl,
then leaves the hospital.
He'll ride out the storm at home.
In Miami, violent skies herald
Andrew's approach.
Inland, residents take routine
safety measures.
Seven miles from shore,
Stan and his boys are joined by
his sister-in-law and family.
Sunday, 23rd of August.
We have the family here:
Jonathan, Daniel,
Roger, Benjamin, Joseph,
Aaron, Ruben.
We have Ann.
And we're gonna weather it out
through the storm.
Say hi, Daniel.
Hi
In the dead of night,
Andrew suddenly intensifies as it
approaches the tip of Florida.
August 24th, around 4:30 AM.
Andrew comes ashore.
Our TV's out, maybe the power's out
for the duration of this.
You can hear that outside...
You'll start hear
the rule outside.
In the hallway of the Goldenberg
house.
Winds outside,
I think, are at least a hundred,
hundred and ten miles an hour
or more...
Arie, are you OK?
It's okay, it's OK.
And there is the cat...
And there is...
every body here?
Just waiting it out in the hall
because we lost the plywood
on the front window
The rear plant gate would
probably layers.
And we are sitting back here
resting in the Lord,
In the hall way.
We can feel our ears
possibility cut?
pressure drops.
Yes, Johnson.
Lord we thank you and ask for
your protection.
This is Stan, at 8:30
in the morning.
We have been through a night.
This is our street,
trees down everywhere.
The back street is a history
in front of me...
just one window broken
on that car.
Trees down everywhere.
These are our sweet precious
neighbors
These shadows survive the storm
every window cover
with these type shadows survived.
But our house, which had wood
shutters, the roof lifted off.
and as you can see,
we have no house.
This wall fell on us, containing
the refrigerator, the stove.
This is the wall, fell on top of us,
the stove down there,
the cabinets, all fell on top of us,
and that small space you're
looking at,
the mattress and everything,
that's where we were pinned during
the worst part of the storm.
Incredibly, three adults, six
children and a kitten emerge,
unharmed, from the wreckage
that was Stan's home.
The scope of the disaster
has not yet dawned on Miami.
At the hospital, Barbara rests
assured that her family is safe.
We will perhaps get the first look
at what's going on, up in the air.
The hospital had an emergency
generator,
so we still had power.
And we saw all of the first footage
of this destruction and storm,
and we were in shock.
The first areas they went through
they were kind of relieved,
saying, "Oh..." and just making
interesting comments
about how this car is thrown here
and there.
But they became much more sober
as they went farther south.
It did not look possible that
anybody could be alive.
And that was just a mile or
two from my house.
And at that point, I really
felt despair.
One two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight.
And there must have been about,
oh, let's say,
counting and trying
to estimate
at least three to four hundred
mobile homes here.
The rest are just completely gone.
In the morning, my wife finally
got through to somebody there
just to find out that I was okay,
somehow we both had a peace,
that each of us was okay.
But I still remember the
first time,
I got through to her on the phone,
I just wept.
I mean it wasn't just the excitement
of me getting through to her,
as me pouring out the emotions
of what I'd been through.
I mean, we'd been through an
incredible experience.
Andrew's storm surge wreaked
havoc along the Florida coast.
But its winds devastated an area
larger than the city of Chicago:
some 135,000 dwellings damaged
or destroyed.
The homeless numbered 160,000.
It seemed miraculous only 44 died.
Not one official wind gauge
survived Andrew's peak winds.
No one knew
how fast they had gusted.
Intrigued, Dr. Ted Fujita
"Mr. Tornado"
flew to Miami to study the
aftermath.
Roofs ripped from homes.
Trees snapped in half.
Concrete beams carried hundreds
of feet.
Plywood embedded in a tree trunk.
Fujita finds evidence of winds up
to 200 miles an hour.
But his most startling finding comes
from aerial surveys
with local meteorologists.
They point out narrow streaks of
total devastation
near areas with lesser damage.
To Fujita the patterns are
eerily familiar.
He develops a theory:
that the worst damage in Andrew
was caused by "mini-swirls":
tornado-like rotations, brief but
violent, embedded in the eye wall.
The theory has personal meaning
for Stan Goldenberg.
We never expected the kind
of damage we experienced.
Not only were we
in the areas of
some of the maximum areas
of the storm,
we had in addition, we believe,
an area of more intense winds
probably caused by the mini-swirls
that Ted Fujita talks about.
There was a strip,
right through my house,
of homes that were devastated,
and I was right in that strip.
Stan would relocate his family to
a new house.
Parts of Florida remains scarred
to this day.
Andrew also ravaged the Louisiana
coast, taking 17 lives.
Finally, the storm would vanish
over the mid-Atlantic states,
some two weeks after its birth.
Andrew was America's costliest
disaster.
But it had a silver lining.
It spared New Orleans,
a city defined by water.
Repeatedly flooded and drained
over the past three centuries,
the metropolis was built
on swampland
surrounded by
the Mississippi River.
Shaped like a bowl, the city's
terrain rises near its edges,
and dips in its mid-section to
below sea-level.
Lake Pontchartrain crowns its
northern shore.
Over a hundred miles of levees
and flood walls up to 20 feet
above sea level
keep river and lake at bay.
Massive floodgates fill the gaps.
New Orleans has one of the best
drainage systems in the world,
powered by 21 colossal pumps.
The city has known hurricanes in
this century,
but not a direct hit from a storm
like Andrew
- and not with up to a million
people to evacuate
over narrow bridges and causeways.
Former Meteorologist-In-Charge
of the New Orleans National
Weather Service office,
Bill Crouch fears the levee system
provides a false sense of security.
It's a two-edged sword,
because it protects the people's
homes most of the time.
But if water ever comes over
the levees,
it's going to get as deep as
the levees are tall.
And the lake would be 19
or 20 feet deep.
This means that in parts of New
Orleans that are below sea level,
the water could be 30 feet deep.
That is you would not be safe
even in a three-story house.
So, those are the scenarios
we look at,
which would force people to go
upward in the buildings down town,
and even using that refuge,
it's my belief there would
still be a great loss of life.
One day, five, perhaps fifty
years from now,
a hurricane like Andrew might
descend on New Orleans.
The city might be jammed with
tens of thousands of tourists
- oblivious to the dangers of
hurricanes.
Evacuation would be ordered,
and many would heed the call.
But advance weather could move
in quickly
and flood the causeway,
knocking out bridges.
A hurricane approaching
from the southeast
could fill Lake Pontchartrain
with its storm surge.
Water would rush over hurricane
protection levees.
Pumping stations would be
overwhelmed.
This grim scenario may be imaginary,
but the threat is not.
A hundred thousand might be stranded
in the heart of the city.
The city of New Orleans has
enlisted federal, state
and local emergency management
agencies
to prepare for
just such a nightmare.
There are many other potential
disasters along the U.S. coastline.
It is only a matter of time before
another great storm exacts its toll.
Nature has given us fair warning.
A gossamer veil of atmosphere is all
that protects us
from the sterile reaches of space.
What we call 'weather' is simply
the Earth's attempt
to balance heat and moisture
around the globe.
Swirling winds may spawn
tornadoes and hurricanes,
but they can also breed whimsy.
A hay devil on a summer
afternoon...
Our home is a planet perpetually
in the making, forever new.
The same awesome powers that sustain
life can also wreak destruction.
It is up to us to be prepared.
There lies the challenge,
and the delight,
of living on this dynamic Earth.