What was the name of the ...
Question: What was the name of the movie that predicted Hurricane Katrina?
Answer: I wouldn't say the made-for-cable Oil Storm, which aired on FX in June 2005, three months before Hurricane Katrina struck, predicted the disaster in the Gulf area any more than I'd say The China Syndrome (1970) predicted the near-meltdown of Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant, which took place shortly after the film was released (and gave its box office a nice boost, I might add). I'd say that the situations in both films paralleled those that unfolded in real life and that the raw material was out there for anyone who cared to put two and two together. In the case of Oil Storm and Katrina, let's start with the 2001 FEMA report that names three likely disaster scenarios facing the U.S.: a hurricane striking New Orleans, a terrorist attack on New York City and a massive earthquake in San Francisco (batten down the hatches, Frisco). A series of pieces in the Times-Picayune — nine in pre-Katrina 2005 alone — warning of weaknesses in the aging levee system (exacerbated by budget cuts) that could, if stressed by a serious storm, produce massive flooding in the portions of New Orleans that lie below sea level. There have been pervasive warnings that global warming and concomitant rising sea levels have increased the severity of hurricanes and tropical storms. Add them up and do some basic supply-and-demand math regarding oil prices, and you have James Erskine and Caroline Levy's Oil Storm. In the film, Category 6 Hurricane Julia wallops New Orleans and its environs over the 2005 Labor Day weekend, killing almost 1500 people in the Gulf area (home to roughly 25 percent of U.S. domestic oil and gas output) and shutting down the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which handles about 10 percent of U.S. crude-oil imports. Subsequent catastrophic events — two tankers collide in the congested Houston Ship Channel and force its shutdown; there's a terrorist attack on a Saudi Arabian oil terminal — drive US gasoline prices sky-high and wreak havoc on the economy.
