History Museum Gets Katrina Artifacts

On Wednesday, officials of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration donated objects related to Katrina, including Ricks's weather message and his rosary, to the National Museum of American History. "When we issued the warning, the response we got was, 'This is clearly over the top -- you are hyping the storm,' " said retired Brig. Gen. David L. Johnson, director of NOAA's National Weather Service.

One reason the predictions were so precise, Johnson said, was the use of a cylinder-shaped instrument called the dropwindsonde, which is dropped into the eye of the storm by specially outfitted planes known as hurricane hunters. During the excursions into Katrina, 274 instruments were dropped. They transmit data about the temperature, wind speed, humidity and air pressure back to the aircraft.

One dropwindsonde, identical to the ones used last year -- the instruments are rarely recovered -- was donated yesterday. Among the other items was a replica of the tracking chart created by National Hurricane Center specialists after they studied the computer models.

In a boardroom at the museum, the NOAA officials spread out several full-color posters of the hurricane's track and five replicas of the posters used to brief President Bush during his visits to New Orleans in the two weeks after the storm. The posters showed the road closures, oil-spill status, hospital status and estimated flood depths. All the aerial photographs that NOAA collected of the Katrina-ravaged areas also are being donated.

Since September, David Shayt, associate curator in the museum's division of work and industry, has been leading discussions of how to record the tragedy.

"Very soon after the storms hit the Gulf Coast, we took the initiative to collect a range of items," said Brent Glass, the museum's director. The museum has more than 60, including pieces of the levees; a kitchen wall clock that stopped at 9:27 a.m., the time the storm hit Waveland, Miss., on Aug. 29; a pair of curtains with water marks; and a hurricane evacuation sign.

Officials at the museum, which in September closes for nearly two years of renovation, are not planning an exhibition on Katrina. The artifacts probably will find their way into shows on presidents or a timeline of major events in the United States. "This adds to our strong collection on technology," said Glass, adding that Ricks's rosary "also helps our commitment to telling the human story."