NWS Contributes Artifacts to National Museum of American History's Hurricane Katrina Collection

Museum Director Dr. Brant Glass comments to NWS Director David L. Johnson as museum staffers look on (Photo: Christopher Vaccaro, NOAA/NWS)

(June 14, 2006) -- National Weather Service Director David L. Johnson has contributed a number of artifacts to be included in a Hurricane Katrina exhibit planned for the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington. The artifacts will be added a list museum staffers began collecting shortly after the killer storm slammed into the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005.

The National Weather Service contributions include a dropwindsonde instrument package (transmits temperature, wind speed, humidity and air pressure data) similar to one dropped into Hurricane Katrina from a NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft; replicas of a National Hurricane Center tracking chart, posters used to brief President Bush during his visits to New Orleans and aerial photographs of the devastation.

Of particular interest, was a copy of the now famous "Inland Hurricane Warning" issued by Forecaster Robert Ricks Jr. of the NWS Weather Forecast Office in Slidell, La. on August 28 - nearly 24 hours before landfall. It read in part,

...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...

...THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. 
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD 
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE 
BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING 
SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.... POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS.

...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. 
WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY 
MODERN STANDARDS....

The collection also includes a rosary from his grandmother that Ricks held as he and his colleagues in Slidell rode out the storm.

More than 60 items were collected previously by the museum staff. They included pieces from the New Orleans levees, a kitchen clock stopped at 9:27 a.m. (when the storm struck Waveland, Miss.), curtains with water marks and a hurricane evacuation sign. One of the most devastating and deadly disasters to strike the United States, Hurricane Katrina is believed to have claimed at least 1,200 lives and caused billions of dollars in damage.