The evolution of hurricane forecasting and technology since 2005

Seventeen years after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers has completed an extensive system of floodgates, strengthened levees and other protections.

Everyone heard it: An unsurvivable 15- to 20-foot storm surge forecast for Louisiana. Bigger and faster equals badder.Likewise, surge increases with the size of the storm, the speed of the winds, the distance traveled over water, the angle the storm approaches the coast (head-on strikes equal higher surge). So lets look at our famous hurricanes this century for comparison: Katrina, Rita, Ike and Laura. All of them were plenty strong -- Ike at 110 mph, Laura at 150 mph, Katrina at 175 mph and Rita at 180 mph. The longer a storm is over water, obviously means a slower storm -- Katrina, Ike and Rita all traveled at a speed of 10 to 13 mph, while Laura zipped at 15 to 17mph.