Hurricane Katrina

U.S. government meteorologists predict a “possibly extremely active” hurricane season in 2013, the top National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official said Thursday, with as many as half a dozen major hurricanes. NOAA expects 13 to 20 named tropical cyclones, seven to 11 of them reaching hurricane status, with maximum winds 74 mph or higher. Of those hurricanes, three to six could become major hurricanes, with winds of at least 111 mph. The forecast echoes outlooks released earlier this spring calling for another active hurricane season, which starts June 1 and ends Nov. 30. It continues an active trend stretching nearly two decades.

U.S. government meteorologists predict a “possibly extremely active” hurricane season in 2013, the top National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official said Thursday, with as many as half a dozen major hurricanes. NOAA expects 13 to 20 named tropical cyclones, seven to 11 of them reaching hurricane status, with maximum winds 74 mph or higher. Of those hurricanes, three to six could become major hurricanes, with winds of at least 111 mph. The forecast echoes outlooks released earlier this spring calling for another active hurricane season, which starts June 1 and ends Nov. 30. It continues an active trend stretching nearly two decades.

It has been a rough week or so for the Obama administration. From Benghazi to the tapping of reporters' phones to the IRS admitting that it targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny, the press is in a frenzy, and many are questioning President Barack Obama's future. If the president does not soon regain control of the narrative, he is likely to suffer the same fate as his predecessor - a collapse in public confidence and a vastly diminished second term. To understand President Obama's situation, we need to explore a little presidential theory and some recent presidential history.

It has been a rough week or so for the Obama administration. From Benghazi to the tapping of reporters' phones to the IRS admitting that it targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny, the press is in a frenzy, and many are questioning President Barack Obama's future. If the president does not soon regain control of the narrative, he is likely to suffer the same fate as his predecessor - a collapse in public confidence and a vastly diminished second term. To understand President Obama's situation, we need to explore a little presidential theory and some recent presidential history.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. - One day after Hurricane Katrina delivered a soggy wallop to some of Miami's southwestern suburbs, where streets and neighborhoods were under water yesterday, Florida's emergency planners were bracing for a second landfall by the hurricane as an even more dangerous storm. After crossing the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula, where its winds and downpours Thursday evening led to widespread street flooding and at least six deaths, Katrina reached the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, where it absorbed enough energy to boost its sustained winds to 100 mph. Forecasters said the storm, a Category 2 hurricane, might intensify further as it turned north and headed toward the Gulf Coast.

Editor's note: Marking the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Workers column offers the second of three firsthand accounts from Maryland-based employees who volunteered to respond to the Gulf Coast. John Trottman, 34, of Westminster has worked as a firefighter at Fort Meade for six years. In March 2001, the Military District of Washington, Fort Meade's command, launched an effort to train firefighters on its military bases in crisis counseling. Trottman was selected for the program and volunteered for the first time in 2004 after hurricanes Francis and Jeanne hit Florida.

It was a city known for revelry, but now it wallows -- thigh-deep, in places -- in a kind of third-world misery rarely seen in America. It was a city of half a million people -- four-fifths of whom got out while doing so was still possible, leaving 100,000 others, including the poorest and most vulnerable, behind to fend for themselves in the floodwaters. It was a city. Hurricane Katrina slammed more ferociously into Mississippi, carving a path of destruction across the Gulf Coast that will devastate its economy for years to come, uprooting oil rigs, shutting down refineries and ripping casinos from their moorings.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A sodden, slow-moving Hurricane Katrina lumbered ashore on Florida's densely populated southeastern coast yesterday, toppling trees that killed two people, knocking out power to more than 1 million households and dumping so much rain that widespread flooding was feared. "This isn't so much a wind storm as a rain storm. It's the flooding we're worried about," said Judy Sarver, director of the Broward County Public Communications Office. Largely because of what he called Katrina's "tremendous rain," Gov. Jeb Bush urged Floridians to prepare carefully for what became the sixth hurricane to strike their state in little over a year.

NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Katrina's torrential rain pushed floodwater to the eaves of homes, forcing residents to their roofs in search of rescue. Its 100-mph winds punched out hundreds of windows, ripped trees from the ground, toppled masonry and ripped slices of roof from the city's Superdome. "It was devastating," said Ron Forman, president of the group that oversees the city's aquarium and zoo. "And even with that, it could have been worse." Rescue workers expected, when dawn broke today, to begin finding bodies among the city's flooded neighborhoods.

WASHINGTON -- A decade-long drive to repeal the estate tax permanently is about to come to a head, but proponents are finding it surprisingly difficult to achieve their goal. The repeal proposal might be an indirect casualty of Hurricane Katrina, which forced Senate leaders to postpone a September vote on the plan when hopes that it would pass were high. Now, with the Senate poised to vote as early as this week, even some of the most ardent supporters of estate-tax repeal predict they will come up short.

It's "Prom Night" on Dancing with the Stars , and Jacoby Jones tells Karina Smirnoff he went to his prom "on a last-minute thing. " He was 5'7" and 160 pounds, and went stag. Once at prom, he played some pranks and got kicked out. Oooh, scandal! Jacoby's high school was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina when he was a college student. He's dedicating tonight's dance to his alma mater, Marion Abramson High School.   During rehearsals, the Ravens player keeps saying "rhumba" to rhyme with "Roomba" the self-propelled vacuum cleaner.

A power outage darkened the Superdome in the third quarter of the Super Bowl on Sunday night, an unnerving experience for a stadium that had been the refuge of last resort for many when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. The 34-minute outage seemed to halt the Ravens' momentum, coming almost immediately after Jacoby Jones returned a kickoff for a touchdown to start the second half. The Ravens had led 28-6, but the previously sluggish San Francisco 49ers went on to score two touchdowns and a field goal in the third quarter.

Bathed in colorful lights and swathed in banners, including one featuring Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco, the Superdome seems to have been polished to a fine sheen for Sunday's Super Bowl. But underneath the festive atmosphere linger the ghosts of Katrina. "It happens to me all the time, sometimes late at night or when I'm here alone," said Doug Thornton, who manages the Superdome. "I'll walk by one place and I'll remember an image of a person. And it will haunt me. " Super Bowl XLVII will bring happy hordes of fans, celebrities and VIPs to the domed stadium that for one misery-filled week in 2005 was the refuge of last resort for some 30,000 residents seeking shelter from Hurricane Katrina.

A recent editorial stated that "The whole nation was metaphorically holding its breath last week as Hurricane Isaac bore down on New Orleans, almost seven years to the day after Hurricane Katrina destroyed large parts of the city" ("We built that," Sept. 3). The fact of the matter is that the flooding of New Orleans was overwhelmingly the fault of the Army Corps of Engineers - who were solely responsible for designing and building the levee system they knew to be flawed - not the hurricane itself.

A few comments on your editorial "We built that" (Sept. 3): Hurricane Katrina was not the cause of the massive devastation, destruction and deaths in New Orleans these seven years ago. Rather, it was the failure of the man-made levees and floodwalls built and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. There is admissions now from the corps that the blame it originally placed on the city and state was unfounded. That truth being said, it is to the corps' credit that the $14.5 billion investment in flood control after Katrina performed as planned.

Your editorial "We built that" (Sept. 3), while recognizing the important role of the federal government in large infrastructure projects such as New Orleans' levee system, left readers with the mistaken impression that Hurricane Katrina scored a direct hit on New Orleans and its surrounding metropolitan area in 2005. Hurricane Katrina's landfall was on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, about 90 miles east of New Orleans. Our city and its area got the greatest impact from Hurricane Katrina's winds and storm surge, which overpowered the poorly-designed and built (with federal funding)

Hartford, Conn. -- The toughest question facing LSU women's basketball coach Pokey Chatman now is: Who's going to replace All-America point guard Temeka Johnson? For some coaches, this might be a difficult problem. But compared with what Chatman had to deal with in previous months, it wasn't a big deal. For example: How am I going to help 23 family members displaced by Hurricane Katrina? Or, how do we deal with the fact that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has taken over our locker room and our arena has turned into a triage center where people are dying?

With Hurricane Katrina battering the Gulf Coast, hundreds of planes, trains, automobiles and ships were not bringing anything - or anyone - in or out for most of yesterday, but officials said there might be some movement later today. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and others in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida were closed, and airlines flew their airplanes to safer ground out of the region. The carriers are monitoring them and airports in states to the north that might be in the storm's path, including Nashville and Memphis international airports.

When Tyler Badie thinks about New Orleans, he doesn't remember much. He was only 6 years old when his family left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. "I remember playing with my friends," Badie, now 11, said. "I remember the good food. And the Saints. " Now an athlete himself, Badie has earned a spot in the track and field AAU Junior Olympics, which will be held this week in, of all places, New Orleans. "It's going to be really, really nice," Badie's father, Shaun, said.

Marion W. Francis, the administrator of the Anne Arundel County Public Library, died of cancer June 22 at her Annapolis home. She was 64. Born in New Orleans, La., and raised in Jackson, Miss., she attended Murrah High School and acted and sang in extracurricular clubs. She was also a finalist in the Junior Miss Mississippi pageant. While earning a bachelor's degree in music from Millsaps College, she performed in its theater productions. She was active in Alpha Psi Omega, the national theater fraternity.