Just like the Mississippi coast, the Tampa Bay area is vulnerable to a hurricane’s fast moving tide.
Hurricane Katrina made a direct hit just east of New Orleans at the mouth of the Pearl River. Its storm surge nearly washing the town of Waveland off the map.
That’s where Steve Treutel lives. He is a meteorology enthusiast. He even wrote a book about hurricanes. WFLA News Channel 8 Chief Meteorologist Steve Jerve met traveled to the region to meet up with Treutel and explains the area around where they were standing was completely under water when Katrina struck the area.
It was a decade ago that Treutel and his family decided to ride out Katrina, and he captured it all on camera. Treutel shows Jerve video of the fast rising water captured from their home, a half-mile from the beach. As the sudden chaos of the storm unfolds, the Treutels and their 15-year-old son, Hunter, managed to tape the horrific experience as it unfolds – even as water is in their house and rising in their kitchen.
