Hurricane chief: Megadisaster 'is coming'

Tragedy worse than Katrina is not a question of if, but when, he says
Reuters News Service

MIAMI - If you thought the sight of the great American jazz city New Orleans flooded to the eaves — its people trapped in attics or cowering on rooftops — was the nightmare hurricane scenario, think again. Max Mayfield, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center, says there’s plenty of potential for a storm worse than Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,339 people along the U.S. Gulf coast and caused some $80 billion in damage last August. “People think we have seen the worst. We haven’t,” Mayfield told Reuters in an interview at the fortress-like hurricane center in Florida. “I think the day is coming. I think eventually we’re going to have a very powerful hurricane in a major metropolitan area worse than what we saw in Katrina and it’s going to be a megadisaster. With lots of lost lives,” Mayfield said. See: Hurricane chief: Disaster coming