National Geographic Channel's 'Explorer' Deconstructs the Science Behind the Water That Drowned New Orleans

National Geographic Channel's 'Explorer' Deconstructs the Science Behind the Water That Drowned New Orleans

Program Follows the Water from Katrina's First Strike to Total Deluge and Includes Exclusive Earliest Footage of the 17th Street Canal Levee Breach by a Government First Responder, According to U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

WASHINGTON, May 2 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 40 million Americans live in the hurricane zone along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. When a major storm threatens, people tend to focus on the winds, but water can be just as deadly and destructive. That's the lesson of New Orleans. Even though the city was spared a direct hit by the hurricane, water crashed through the levees, invaded homes and changed lives forever. The images have been seen around the world, but do we understand the science behind the water that caused such horrific destruction? National Geographic Channel's Explorer answers these questions as it follows the awesome power of water in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which caused a great American city to drown.

Premiering May 17, at 9 p.m. ET/PT, "Explorer: Drowning New Orleans" shows viewers the science behind the disaster through eyewitness accounts and never- before-seen video, including exclusive footage of the 17th Street Canal levee breach shot at approximately 11:11 a.m. on Monday, August 29 by Captain Paul Hellmers of the New Orleans Fire Department. This footage is the earliest known visual documentation by a government responder of the levee breach that allowed Lake Pontchartrain to flow unimpeded into the Big Easy. Hellmers was a member of the first team to officially report the catastrophic breach that provided the baseline confirmation of this disastrous development and set in motion the response that has since been subject to scrutiny and controversy.

The airdate for the show will follow the anticipated release of what is referred to as "The Senate Report" on the Hurricane Katrina disaster, issued by the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The report, expected to be the most comprehensive analysis of the tragedy to date, will incorporate two still frames and eyewitness transcript from Hellmers' footage.

"Based on the Committee's research to date, the video shot by Captain Hellmers of the New Orleans Fire Department is the earliest known visual documentation secured by a government first responder of the 17th Street Canal breach site," said to David Porter, Counsel to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. "Further, we believe that Captain Hellmers was a member of the first governmental response team we believe was first to visually confirm, and officially report to authorities, that the catastrophic breach had occurred."

Within 48 hours, Hurricane Katrina's impact resulted in 250 billion gallons of water flooding the Big Easy, causing loss of life and destroying more than 150,000 homes. "Explorer" follows the water trail and delves into what went wrong on those fateful days in late August 2005. With important lessons to be learned, the show will also describe why many say the catastrophe was a man-made disaster and engineering failure.

Settled by the French in 1718, New Orleans resides below sea level and is surrounded by water from the Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. One of the most vulnerable cities during hurricane season, New Orleans depends on three critical defenses -- barrier islands, wetlands and levees. The first two are products of nature, but the last defense is man- made. More than 300 miles long, the levees were built to withstand up to a Category 3 hurricane and keep water from pouring into New Orleans. The French built the city's first levees, which are huge mounds of earth, often packed with clay. Current-day New Orleans also relies on concrete floodwalls, but even these can fail in two ways. The first is overtopping -- when water reaches extraordinary levels and pushes over the top. That's what happened on the Intracoastal Waterway in east New Orleans. The second is catastrophic failure -- when intense water pressure exerts so much force that the walls simply burst. Unfortunately, the 17th Street Canal levee met this fate when a 12-foot storm surge struck with immense force.

At 6:10 a.m. on Monday, August 29, Hurricane Katrina lands as a Category 4 hurricane in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, about 60 miles southeast of New Orleans. This is when something very complicated -- and very bad -- begins to unfold -- New Orleans is about to be hit by a storm surge from a direction few suspect. Around 7:00 a.m., the storm surge barrels down the Intracoastal Waterway and the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet Canal, colliding as a funnel. This added burst of energy causes the supercharged surges to blast over the levees.

Hurricane Katrina is long gone, but unbeknownst to the citizens of New Orleans, the disaster is just beginning. By 9:00 a.m., most of New Orleans is still dry, but that will soon change when the 17th Street Canal levee is breached and water from Lake Pontchartrain pours into the city. Captain Hellmers documents the levee breach with his handheld video camera at approximately 11:11 am, as his team called in their observations to authorities and setting in motion the official response to this tragic development.

As the water rises, thousands of people who stayed in the city scramble to find higher ground in attics and on rooftops. It isn't until the next day, August 30, that the flooding receives wide coverage in the press. Amid chaos, firefighters on the scene are some of the first responders and the first to realize New Orleans has not escaped unscathed. "You could taste the salt, and right off the bat you knew that that was a big problem, because with normal rainwater, you don't taste the salt," commented Captain Tom Howley. "We knew the levees had busted somewhere."

Had the 17th Street Canal levee stayed intact, the flooding would probably have been minimal and New Orleans would have been spared much hardship. In the months following Katrina, many experts and government officials speculated about precisely when the 17th Street Canal levee breached. Now exclusive footage featured in "Explorer: Drowning New Orleans" provides the clearest evidence to date establishing a base timeline for the breach and the beginning of the official response.

On August 31, nearly 48 hours after Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, the floodwaters finally stop rising when the level in the city matches the level of Lake Pontchartrain. In other cities, water drains naturally to low- lying areas. But this isn't the case for low-lying New Orleans, where every drop has to be pumped out by a sophisticated grid of 22 pumping stations. The stations can pump out 30 billion gallons a day, but the devices are useless until the holes in the levees at the 17th Street Canal, London Avenue Canal and Industrial Canal can be fixed.

Katrina had weakened to a Category 3 hurricane when she hit the Big Easy, precisely the kind of storm the levees were built to withstand. The levees weren't overtopped, so why did they fail? "Explorer" explains the latest scientific theories behind what is among the worst engineering failures in U.S. history and what might have been done differently to spare New Orleans. The program also examines what lessons can be learned from the science of water.

"Explorer" is produced for the National Geographic Channel (NGC) by National Geographic Television & Film (NGT&F).

Based at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Channel (NGC) is a joint venture between National Geographic Television & Film (NGT&F) and Fox Cable Networks. Since launching in January 2001, NGC initially earned some of the fastest distribution growth in the history of cable and more recently the fastest ratings growth in television. The network celebrated its fifth anniversary January 2006 with the launch of NGC HD which provides the spectacular imagery that National Geographic is known for in stunning high definition. NGC has carriage with all of the nation's major cable and satellite television providers, making it currently available to 59 million homes. For more information, please visit http://www.nationalgeographic.com/channel.

Source: National Geographic Channel

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