20 years after Hurricane Katrina, here’s how Gulf Coast life has changed

By Anita Lee, The (Biloxi, Miss.) Sun Herald (TNS)

Meteorologist Richard Knabb was working his first season as a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center when Hurricane Katrina hit Category 5 status in the Gulf of Mexico.

He was pulling together updated forecasts on the overnight shift and had just seen the latest aircraft data. He called the hurricane hotline, alerting National Weather Service personnel in the Gulf to the hurricane’s status.

“When I told them what the aircraft had found and that it had reached Category 5, all I remember is complete silence on the line,” Knabb recalls. “You know, usually people react or have a comment or say something after that, but everybody was just kind of taking in the moment like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is maybe something unlike we’ve ever see