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Experts: New Orleans Not Hit That Often

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Sep 3, 2008 7:18 am US/Mountain

Experts: New Orleans Not Hit That Often

Good Question: Why Does New Orleans Keep Getting Hit?

Reporting
Alan Gionet
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (CBS4) ― New Orleans seems to have been the victim of bad luck over the past few years as hurricanes Katrina and Gustav took aim at the Gulf Coast city. CBS4's Alan Gionet asked the Good Question: Why does New Orleans keep getting hit?

"New Orleans lately has just been unfortunate in terms of the storms that have formed have happened to take a track up in that general direction, said Dr. Phil Klatzbach, a hurricane research scientist at Colorado State University.

Klatzbach said there are three hurricane alleys along the East Coast and Gulf Coast.

"Basically there are a few areas where these storms tend to hit," he said. "One is the North Carolina coast, the outer banks that area tend to stick out into the Atlantic Ocean and tend to get hit by the storms that are re-curving.

"South Florida is just kind of another predominant track that hurricanes take. The ones that are tracking east to west will often barrel right into Florida.

"And then what you'll get is you'll get these storms that form and track into the Gulf of Mexico and when a storm is in the Gulf of Mexico, it's got to make landfall somewhere."

The Colorado State team said New Orleans hasn't been hit an unusual amount. It isn't even the East Coast location with the most hurricane landfalls.

"Some of the times there's a loop current with very warm water that will penetrate in the eastern Gulf quite high and storms crossing that can become stronger than normal," said Dr. William Gray, CSU's lead hurricane researcher.

Before Hurricane Katrina, the last major hurricane to hit New Orleans was Betsy in 1965. Camille did some damage in 1969, but delivered her biggest blow east of New Orleans.

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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