Sci/Fi and the Hurricane no one could predict

Remember Hurricane Katrina? I just finished listening to the Recorded Book version of Kim Stanley Robinson's Green Mars and was struck by this account of Frank Chalmers, one of the characters who had died somewhere before this volume of the Mars Trilogy even starts.

The Florida panhandle was one of the poorest areas of the nation at the beginning of the twenty-first century, with Caribbean immigration, the closure of the local military bases, and Hurricane Dale combining to cause great misery. "You felt like you were working in Africa," one National Service Corps worker said. In his three years there we get our fullest view of Chalmers as a social creature, as he secured grants to expand a job program that made an immense impact on the entire coast, helping thousands who had moved into shelters after Dale.

You'll notice he got one thing wrong: with the discovery of the War on Terrorism the military bases remain open. Yet there it is - a hurricane on the Gulf coast so devastating that its aftermath causes national political changes. Sci/Fi may, or may not, be literature, but it sure is fascinating.