Hurricane Katrina 2005

Live Footage Is Good; Remainder Is Negligable 2005-11-17 I reside in Biloxi, Mississippi. I evacuated before Hurricane Katrina struck Mississippi and Louisiana on 29 August 2005 and I returned to a shocking devastation--a devastation so emphatic that it numbs both mind and spirit. Like many who evacuated, however, I was eager for up-close footage of the storm as it came ashore on the Mississippi coast; the Richard Horodner HURRICANE KATRINA: AS IT HAPPENED was among the earliest "storm chaser" DVDs to become available and I purchased a copy as soon as it reached the market.

It would be impossible for one person or a small group of people to do full justice to the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina. Even so, Horodner and his crew did capture footage of the storm as it first moved across Florida and then slammed into the Louisiana-Mississippi coast. The DVD includes footage from such cities as Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Fort Walton, Florida; Gulfport, Mississippi; and Slidell, Louisiana. Although taken primarily from vehicles moving on the streets, by and large the footage is quite good.

Unfortunately, there is very, very little live footage of the aftermath of the storm, a few snips from Florida, a few snips from Mississippi. I was disappointed in this, but I was more seriously disappointed in the remainder of DVD content. The DVD has a running time of appoximately sixty minutes, but only about half of this is "live footage;" the remainder is essentially weather radar and satelite imagery of little interest, most of it pulled (I think) from NOAA. I was particularly annoyed to find that ariel views of the coastline seemed to consist of satelite photographs shown to a soundtrack that suggests a helicopter.

Still, I have to give Horodner and his crew credit for being willing to face the storm dead on and for capturing quite a few arresting images as it came ashore. Although I do not think the DVD will appeal to a wide audience, it is nonetheless an interesting addition to the library of Hurricane Katrina materials.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

- Amazon