Anyone watching the programme about Hurricane Katrina

[DuelingFanjo]

I'll be interested to see how the velodrome stuff is portrayed as I remember reports at the time which made it sound like it was some kind of outlaw land filled with criminals which clearly isn't true.

I'm watching this in total shock, how awful.

Ha! I was just going to start a thread saying exactly the same thing!

It's truely awful isn't it? It's horrible seeing people before the hurricane struck, so oblivious of what's coming their way.

I was watching too.I thought it was very odd at the time that afterwards that we never heard anything about what happened to the people who lost their homes or how the city was being rebuilt-it was almost as if it never happened.I guess most of the people affected were poor or black,so not deemed important enough to warrant coverage.It is very,very sad.

well it's like a lot of these things, once the news people have gone away and there's something else on the front pages we don't hear any more. I mean, I haven't heard much about what's happening in Haiti. I guess it's usually on anniversaries that we get the catch up. It's 5 years since Katrina, so perhaps on the anniversary of the Haiti earthquake we'll find out how they're doing.

I am catching up on it on the net now. I grew up with hurricanes and I am fascinated by them and have lived through a few. I can't believe how under prepared people were - the ones who chose to ride out the storm. And I am just 12 mins in.

Where I grew up public buildings are designed to be used as hurricane shelters as a matter of course. Doesn't seem like the same happens in hurricane prone parts of America.

Of course in a hurricane of that size and severity, in a small country there is no where to run so you gotta have everyone ready to ride the storm.

i saw it last night - thoose poor people ,looks terrifying !
but i was slightly a bit to the ones who didnt take the warning to get out while they could.

It did serve as a reminder of how scary it must have been - especially in that dome thing. God, couldn't think of a worse place to be, imagine if that roof had caved in!

I do remember reports as well, saying that inside the dome was criminal central with women and children being attacked.

The reports of criminal gangs attacking women in the dome was never verified and I understand that it was malicious rumour.

In the sixties my family endured a hurricane of this magnitude (actually a hurricane force 5 which is stronger than Katrina when it hit land) in the Caribbean and there were over 30 people sheltering in my great-grandad's house. The house lost it's entire roof in the early part of the storm so the went downstairs into the business which my great grandad had. The water was rising in the storm surge so they had to go back upstairs. The problem was that they could not get back out the doors because it was too deep to open it. So they had to break the solid wood floor - which took 2 hours to make a gap of about 15 ins wide. Everyone including my great aunt who was 8 months pg at the time got through that gap. Everyone spent the rest of the hurricane in the wind and rain. They got so cold that they had the same burning sensation as early frost bite.

The husband of one of our family friend was a fisherman and they were stranded on the outer atolls. They'd go to sea for over a week at a time. He and his colleagues spent the entire hurricane in coconut trees. The wind and rain beat every stitch of clothing off them and then took of the outer layers of their skins.