October 2005

Expert: Storm was predictable

By Tanya Brown, Lafayette Journal and Courier

Video of talk

Quicktime version of talk (16MB)

For Jeffrey Vitter, dean of the College of Science at Purdue University, Hurricane Katrina was personal.

Vitter, whose family migrated to New Orleans from France in the 1840s, watched the scenes unfolding on the Gulf Coast with a sense of dread. He, better than most, knew what the general public in Indiana did not know -- that officials in the city had been warned of such a storm often.
On Tuesday, he introduced Matthew Huber, a Purdue atmospheric scientist, to an audience of about 350 students and community members in Stewart Center.

They had come for the answers state and federal Louisiana officials had known all along about the strength of a Category 4 or higher hurricane, and what it would do to New Orleans.

"To see the levee break, when with proper attention it would not have done that, was very frustrating," Vitter said, in the hall, as Huber used color computer simulations behind him to show the audience how a storm like Katrina had been predicted by climate researchers for years.

Vitter's mother and three brothers, including U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., all had homes in the city that were likely damaged or destroyed by the flooding and winds. And that damage, as well as a death toll that rises daily, could have been prevented, according to Huber.

"When you look at the officials' plans for the levees around Lake Pontchartrain, you'll see they were designed for the kind of storm they were planning on -- no larger than a Category 3," Huber told the group, which had come for his public talk, "Katrina: What Do We Really Know about Hurricanes?"

"The sad reality," Huber said, "is that a 100-year event can easily happen every 50 years. One way or another, we knew this basic (storm) pattern was going to occur, and also knew something like this was going to happen."

Huber stepped away from the projection screen, which flashed images of destroyed cars, flooded streets and residents trapped on their roofs.

With a series of complicated equations and public-friendly climate simulation models, Huber explained that as global warming slowly caused ocean waters to warm, hurricanes increased in intensity proportionately until, sooner or later, a Katrina-type storm was bound to hit the Gulf Coast.

Since 1990, much climate information suggests that hurricanes have been increasing in intensity. There aren't more hurricanes, he explained, it's just that "they are doing more work.

"All levels of government were educated on this. It was not a surprise. To the degree that there was a failure, it is firmly in the ballpark of the policy-makers in this instance," Huber said.

DeLores Delleur, a West Lafayette resident who attended the talk, lamented that as she left.
"We have a son in Florida who boards up on a regular basis," she said. "What happened is too obvious. I don't think there are any questions anymore. The will to do something about it is just not there."

But Vitter is hoping there will be, for the sake of the city he loves, whose culture and economic value as a seaport can't be rebuilt elsewhere.

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