Images of Hurricane Katrina and its effects can be found at www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/h2005_katrina.html (NASA).

Information about how prepared New Orleans was for hurricanes and floods is available at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_of_hurricane_risk_for_New_Orleans (Wikipedia).

Additional information about the impact of Hurricane Katrina and other extreme storms is available at coastal.er.usgs.gov/hurricanes/ (U.S. Geological Survey).

For information on the recovery effort after Hurricane Katrina, go to www.firstgov.gov/Citizen/Topics/PublicSafety/
Hurricane_Katrina_Recovery.shtml (U.S. Government).

Aerial photos of communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina are available at ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM (NOAA).

The National Hurricane Center has a Web site at www.nhc.noaa.gov/ (NOAA).

Hurricane predictions can be found at www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/hurricane.html (NOAA) and tsr.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/ (Tropical Storm Risk).

Learn more about the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake at quake.wr.usgs.gov/info/1906/ (U.S. Geological Survey).

The 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane in Florida is described at www.srh.noaa.gov/mfl/newpage/Okeechobee.htm (NOAA).

Moreira, Naila. 2005. The wind and the fury. Science News 168(Sept. 17):184-186. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050917/bob8.asp .

Sohn, Emily. 2005. Saving wetlands. Science News for Kids (April 6). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20050406/Feature1.asp .

______. 2004. Recipe for a hurricane. Science News for Kids (Sept. 29). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20040929/Feature1.asp .

______. 2004. An ocean view's downside. Science News for Kids (March 31). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20040331/Note2.asp .

Links to additional articles and information related to hurricanes and the damage they cause are available at http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/katrina.asp .

Books recommended by SearchIt!Science:

Nature's Fury: Eyewitness Reports of Natural Disasters — Carole Garbuny Vogel Published by Scholastic, 2000. This book tells the story of thirteen natural disasters. Chock-full of photographs and eyewitness accounts, it explores the impact natural disasters have on people, while also explaining how and why natural disasters occur. The first part of the book explores geology-related disasters—two major earthquakes, tsunamis, and the Mount St. Helens volcano eruption. Devastating storms, from hurricanes to tornadoes to blizzards, are described in the second part of the book. The third part of the book examines the dust bowl, a great fire, and a flash flood. With vivid eyewitness accounts appearing on nearly every page, this book is a compelling look at not only disasters but also survivors.

The Galveston Hurricane — Kristine Brennan Published by Chelsea House, 2002. What storm claimed more lives that any other natural disaster in U.S. history? A hurricane struck the port town of Galveston, Texas, in 1900—killing about 6,000 people and transforming the face of the city. With black-and-white period illustrations and photos, this book is filled with quotes from survivors to give a gripping, personalized account of the furious storm. Find out how the city managed to get back on its feet after the hurricane and discover what lessons we learned from the Galveston Hurricane.

America's Great Disasters — Martin W. Sandler Published by HarperCollins, 2003. If you think the Titanic was the disaster at sea that killed the most Americans, you may not have heard of the Sultana explosion, in which more than 2,300 people perished. The Sultana was a Mississippi River steamboat that had been designed to hold 376 passengers, but because the captain was getting paid by the military for each person he carried, he crammed more than 2,500 people onboard his ship. When the ship's boilers exploded, it was the greatest maritime disaster in U.S. history. The 1865 Sultana explosion, however, is only one of the great American disasters profiled in this informative book. Learn about the Johnstown flood, the Dust Bowl, the Wisconsin forest fire, the Galveston hurricane, the blizzard of '88, the influenza epidemic of 1918–19, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and more. The disaster stories, which offer first person historical accounts, also provide scientific information about the science behind earthquakes, volcanoes, and hurricanes.

hurricane A powerful tropical storm with heavy rains and winds of more than 74 miles (119 kilometers) per hour. The winds rotate around an area of calm known as the eye. Hurricanes begin in the tropical parts of the Atlantic Ocean and move generally northward.

In a hurricane, warm, moist air rises from the surface of the ocean and circles around a central point called the eye. As the winds get faster, they make tunnels through the thick clouds. Dry air above the storm sinks down into the eye and keeps it free of clouds.

silt Small grains or particles of broken-down rock. Silt particles are smaller than grains of sand but larger than the particles in clay. Silt is often found at the bottom of bodies of water, such as lakes, where it piles up slowly by settling gradually through the water.

wetland A low-lying area of land that is either soaked or covered with water. Marshes, swamps, and bogs are wetlands. A wetland is a kind of biome.

Copyright © 2002, 2003 Houghton-Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Used with permission.