The Poland Avenue Streetcar Barn in the aftermath of the 1915 Hurricane.

Sunday was the opening of the 2014 hurricane season. No doubt my friend (and Legendary Local) Arthur Hardy hopes “Hurricane Arthur,” the first name of the season to be assigned to a storm by the National Hurricane Center, will be a bust.

Here are two articles that will help you understand the impact of hurricanes on New Orleans. First, New Orleans Hurricane History, from MIT. This article goes up to 2004, stopping at Hurricane Ivan. Second is an article from the Times-Picayune newspaper’s 175th Anniversary coverage.

If you’re teaching about hurricanes, there’s no substitute for personal experience. I don’t recommend you come down to the Gulf Coast to ride out a storm just for the fun of it, though. If you’re in New Orleans, do check out the exhibit, Living with Hurricanes, Katrina and Beyond, at the Presbytere, located at Jackson Square. It’s an intense and very-accurate presentation of what Katrina was all about. If you’re a local teacher, I would heartily recommend you work on a field trip to the exhibit for your class(es).

 

 

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