As Hurricane Katrina howls toward New Orleans, Dr. Corbin Thibodeaux, a firebrand climatologist, preaches the gospel of evacuation, weighed down by the spectacularly false alarm he raised a year earlier. Meanwhile, journalist Shay Hoovestahl is tracking a con artist who uses storm-related chaos as cover for identity theft and murder. She drags Corbin into her plan, which goes horribly awry as the city's infrastructure crumbles, a media circus spins...