Bobby Jindal: “the 2005 hurricane season featured 14 hurricanes, including Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the gulf coast and…”

“the 2005 hurricane season featured 14 hurricanes, including Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the gulf coast and became the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history. The season's hurricanes were responsible for over $100 billion in damage and over 1,800 deaths. Both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated my home State of Louisiana. On August 23, 2005, Hurricane Katrina was nothing more than a mass of organized clouds over the Bahamas, but later that day, the storm quickly intensified and headed toward the U.S. coastline. Late on August 25, the storm made the first landfall just south of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as a category 1 hurricane. By early in the morning of August 28, Hurricane Katrina's winds reached a remarkable 175 miles per hour, a category 5 storm. Hurricane Katrina seemingly intensified overnight from category 3 to a category 5 hurricane. Just before Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, NASA's QuikSCAT satellite mapped the storm's wind speeds. The data from the satellite helped forecasters describe Katrina's dangers in public information bulletins issued just before the storm slamming into New Orleans. Unfortunately, forecasting efforts may be crippled as data from the QuikSCAT satellite will become unavailable as the satellite's lifespan expires. Measuring a storm's intensity and tracking its direction are critical to determining appropriate level of emergency preparedness efforts.”