Hurricane preparedness for New Orleans January 25, 2005, the Louisiana Sea Grant forum discussed additional results of several simulations of strong hurricanes hitting New Orleans. Hurricane Cindy hit Louisiana at just barely hurricane strength on July 5, 2005. Many New Orleanians paid it little attention in advance, some having gotten blasé about threats of hurricanes which for decades had missed the city. However, Cindy's winds gusted to in the city, knocking branches off trees and causing New Orleans' largest blackout since Hurricane Betsy in 1965. The experience encouraged many to evacuate when the much more powerful Hurricane Katrina was heading towards the city less than
Hurricane preparedness for New Orleans Hurricane Ivan's threat to the city resulted in the largest evacuation of the city to date. Mayor Ray Nagin issued a call for a voluntary evacuation of the city at 6 pm on September 13. An estimated 600,000 or more evacuated from Greater New Orleans. The contraflow plan was put into full effect for the first time, but rather late in the evacuation due to various confusions. This proved valuable practice, for the contraflow was implemented much more smoothly in 2005. Hurricane Pam was a hypothetical hurricane used as a disaster scenario to drive planning for a 13-parish area in