Hurricane Katrina As Seen From Space: 5 Years Later

Its been almost 5 years since the disaster of Hurricane Katrina.

The city of New Orleans has not yet fully recovered from the devasting effect of the hurricane, which made landfall in the United States on August 29, 2005, and the failure of the levees which were supposed to protect the historic city.

As a way of reminding us all of the terrible impact the hurricane had, NASA has released this retrospective video. It contains images and analyses from a wide variety of satellites which imaged the hurricane as it developed, travelled through the Gulf of Mexico, hit the city of New Orleans, and finally it shows the amount of flooding which occured after the hurricane hit.

From a scientific standpoint, it is very interesting to see how the hurricane progressed in its development. Unfortunetly, the images of those trapped on rooftops are still burned into my memory, so the knowledge gained from studying this hurricane is somewhat bittersweet.