Breaking News: Hurricanes

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Will it take redirecting the mouth of the Mississippi River in order to keep the Louisiana coast a viable place to live and work in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? Vince Neary, Tennessee Tech University associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, says such a bold, large-scale plan is necessary to stop the disappearance of the state's coastal wetlands "” which act as natural speed bumps against hurricanes and storm surges.

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New research calls into question the linkage between major Atlantic hurricanes and global warming. That is one of the conclusions from a University of Virginia study to appear in the May 10, 2006 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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Florida State University sociologists in Tallahassee, Fla. have found that some South Floridians who survived 1992's Hurricane Andrew suffered mental health problems many years later, a finding that has led the researchers to predict even more dire consequences for those who lived through last year's devastating Hurricane Katrina.

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As the Big Easy heads into a mayoral runoff this month between incumbent Ray Nagin and Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landreiu, the city may elect a white mayor for the first time in nearly thirty years. A report released by Brown University sociologist John Logan says Hurricane Katrina has reshaped the political map of New Orleans.

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Most Americans who gave money to help victims of the Katrina and Rita hurricanes also contributed to all of their normal charities as well, according to a nationwide survey released today by The Conference Board. (Fears were expressed that giving to help victims of the Louisiana and Mississippi disasters would reduce giving to other charities).

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A six-satellite array, designed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, will be the first to provide atmospheric data in real time for both climate research and operational weather forecasting by measuring the bending of GPS radio signals. The system is scheduled for launch Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

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Cooling rain that precedes some hurricanes as they come on shore may cause those storms to rapidly weaken as they move inland, but that same cooling rain might also cause shallow warm and cold "fronts" within a hurricane system, making it more likely to spin off tornadoes as the storm weakens.

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Experts at Johns Hopkins are joining efforts to identify more than 70 bodies recovered after Hurricane Katrina, which struck last Aug. 29, killing more than 1,200 in Louisiana and Mississippi. Most of those killed have already been identified and buried by their families.

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University of South Florida College of Marine Science hurricane experts say that record hurricanes lashed the Gulf coasts in 2005 because elevated surface sea temperatures (SSTs) did not fall during the winter of 2004-2005.

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Forget Padre Island, Destin or even Cancun, this spring break's hot destination for a group of Georgia Tech students is New Orleans. Starting Sunday, March 19, a group of students will be helping people whose homes were damaged by Hurricane Katrina to rebuild their lives.

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A study strengthens the link between the increases in hurricane intensity and tropical sea surface temperature. It found that while factors such as wind shear affect the intensity of individual storms or seasons, they don't account for the global 35-year increase in Category 4 and 5 storms.

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hurricane Katrina Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) has released video footage of a small-scale centrifuge model of the 17th Street Canal.

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Gerontology and sociology researchers are identifying factors that influence how aging families function as they struggle to regain a sense of normalcy. "We are concerned about their immediate welfare and about who and what is helping seniors regain stability and rebuild their lives in the aftermath of (Katrina)."

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The University of Iowa Libraries will preserve historical documents damaged by Hurricane Katrina, starting with documents and manuscripts from the Jefferson Davis Library in Biloxi, and the Biloxi Public Library. UI librarians hope to encourage other preservation experts to help restore documents damaged by the hurricane.

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Loyola University New Orleans has many faculty members located in New Orleans willing to comment on many different aspects of the aftermath and rebuilding from of Hurricane Katrina.

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Three dozen Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis students will head south to Mississippi to spend their spring break as volunteers helping people affected by Hurricane Katrina.

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Engineers will be studying small-scale models of sections of the New Orleans flood-protection system. The researchers will replicate conditions during Hurricane Katrina, supplying important information to help the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepare the city for next hurricane season and beyond.

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College students from around the nation this spring are turning away from more familiar notions of Spring Break "” partying, home cooking and sleeping late "” in favor of lending a hand in the Gulf Coast region devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

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The process of deciding how to rebuild New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is undermined by sharp racial gaps between blacks and whites about what should be done, according to new research by political scientists at the University of Chicago.

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The mass migration cause by Hurricane Katrina has the potential to forever alter the distinctive language of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, as well as that of many other American cities. Linguistics researchers are studying how the storm affects language across the region.

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As many Americans take pains to complete their last-minute holiday shopping, a group of Georgia Tech students will be helping people whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina to rebuild their lives.

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Three months after Hurricane Katrina ripped through southeast Louisiana, a survey of displaced and regular students at Southeastern Louisiana University shows that many continue to feel its impact psychologically, physically, and economically.

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Tulane University's Board of Administrators today approved a sweeping plan that strengthens and focuses the university's academic mission while strategically addressing its current and future operations in the post-Katrina era.

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West Virginia University Journalism students and faculty today (Dec. 1) launched an interactive, multimedia website devoted to documenting the stories of Hurricane Katrina evacuees who sought refuge at Preston County's Camp Dawson and are now living in West Virginia.

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Currently, pre-registration is underway at Loyola University New Orleans with 73.3 percent of Loyola's undergraduate students having already pre-registered for the Spring semester. Registration continues until classes begin January 9.

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Hurricanes this season have left more than physical damage. Mother Nature has also given rise to mental health concerns. Experts in this field at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York are available for interviews.

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Using the miniature helicopter used on-site in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to carry out aerial surveillance of the damage, a team from USF's Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue returns to sites in Katrina's destructive path to reassess building damage with improved optic capabilities.

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It is clear that there were multiple causes for the levee failures in New Orleans, but researchers need to gather more data to better understand what they were and how to rebuild properly after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, according to testimony today before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

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The Houston public schools have taken in 5,000 children displaced by the hurricanes and flooding that struck the Gulf Coast. As part of the multi-agency response to aid those evacuees, the Community Science Workshops sent its ScienceMobile to the city to assist educators.

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Researchers gather at Nov. 28 at the University of Mississippi to examine "On the Displacement of New Orleans Speakers: Linguistic Consequences of Hurricane Katrina" a roundtable discussion focusing on Mississippi Gulf Coast French, New Orleans Isleno Spanish and the New Orleans dialect of English.

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Rooms black with mold. Boats in trees, miles from shore. Enough debris to fill 11 World Trade Towers. These are some of the pictures University at Buffalo drew last week at a presentation on their reconnaissance visits to New Orleans, Alabama and Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.

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On Wed., Nov. 2, a multi-institution research team led by geotechnical engineer Raymond Seed of the University of California (UC), Berkeley, will release preliminary findings from a study of the New Orleans levee system.

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In a live and online Webcast seminar, structural engineers and social scientists who were dispatched to New Orleans and Mississippi in the days after Katrina hit will describe the vast devastation they saw and discuss strategies for improving U.S. resilience and response to natural disasters, terrorist attack and other extreme events.

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Robert Granfield notes that although most reports of criminal mayhem reported by government officials and press alike in Katrina's aftermath never actually occurred, the stories tell us much about the American psyche, what Americans believe about the poor and minorities, and what they expect in a time of disaster.

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Faculty and staff at Westfield State College have been actively involved in both assessing the results of the hurricanes and helping out at the scene.

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Soaring energy prices and the enormity of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will have a significant impact on the U.S. economy, putting upcoming holiday retail sales at risk. But the economic havoc generated by the two deadly hurricanes in and of itself is unlikely to trigger a recession.

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A Johns Hopkins emergency physician who spent the past five weeks working on public health issues in the Gulf Coast region following hurricane Katrina warns that the disaster's potential for wreaking havoc and damage to people's health may continue for months after the hurricane has passed.

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200 students, faculty and staff from Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, will spend their fall break in Gulfport, Mississippi, doing Hurricane Katrina-related relief work.

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A Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute engineer is headed to New Orleans as part of an expert team investigating levee failures in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The researchers plan to take lessons from the disaster and apply them to the design of levee systems across the country.

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Scientists monitoring ocean heat and circulation in the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have a new understanding of how these tropical storms can gain intensity so quickly: The Gulf of Mexico's "Loop Current" is likely intensifying hurricanes that pass over eddies of warm water that spin off the main current.

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On Oct, 3, MCEER and UB will send three teams of researchers to New Orleans to study damage to structures and lifelines; transportation and hospital decisions and remote sensing. Another team will travel to New Orleans on Oct. 19 to study environmental and health issues.

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The social and cultural impact of disasters lingers long after the deaths have been tallied, property has been restored or rebuilt, and lives have been returned to normal.

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The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and The Society for Consulting Psychology (SCP) are providing free assistance to workers and organizations affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

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The desire to assign cosmic significance to the arrival of hurricanes Katrina and Rita is an example of humankind's ages-old need to find reason within chaos, according to University at Buffalo anthropologist Phillips Stevens Jr., Ph.D.

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Just weeks after they fled New Orleans, many victims of Hurricane Katrina housed in shelters in Texas are having difficulties dealing emotionally with the disaster, particularly when another destructive hurricane headed toward the state where they took refuge, according to Nancy J. Smyth, Ph.D.

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Edgar Olsen has studied public housing issues for the past 35 years. He worked on a Department of Housing and Urban Development task force and reviewed the final reports of the influential Experimental Housing Assistance Program as a visiting scholar at HUD.

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"Whether this season is the worst on record or even in recent memory depends on the criteria used to define "˜worst,'" says Eric Gross, associate professor of history at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., who studies hurricanes and other natural disasters.

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Saint Louis University experts are available as sources on Hurricane Rita stories.

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Frederick, Camille, Hugo, Andrew, Ivan and Katrina. Just the mention of the names elicits vivid images of the destruction caused by these devastating storms.

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With the arrival of Hurricane Rita, "the psyche of the Southeast will be tested over the next few days," says University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) psychologist Joshua Klapow, Ph.D., (Prounounced "Clay-po").