Hurricane! - Katrina, Gilbert, and Camille

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, killing at least 1,300, destroying over 600,000 houses, and turning downtown New Orleans into an uninhabitable swamp. Hurricane Katrina: The Storm that Drowned a City presents astonishing storm footage, suspenseful eyewitness testimony, and a penetrating analysis of what went wrong. Viewers relive the storm through the eyes of survivors and the stories of top engineers, hurricane experts, and emergency officials as they grappled with the arrival of the storm and its traumatic aftermath. Hurricane! - Witness nature's fury as hurricanes Camille and Gilbert crash onto the Gulf coast. "It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen," says Hugh Willoughby, relishing the unusual object of his profession. "That's one of the reasons why people fly into hurricanes." Join Willoughby on a data-gathering flight made into the eye of Hurricane Gilbert in September 1988. NOVA obtained spectacular footage of the storm's center--a canyon of clear blue sky surrounded by a wall of clouds 10 miles high. Watch how these highly-trained scientists routinely--and carefully--fly into the world's most destructive storms to discover what makes them tick and to measure their intensity and probable path. Then hear first-hand accounts of Hurricane Camille, the most devastating storm ever to strike the United States. (112 min on 2 discs)