The Associated Press (AP) has issued an alert to its reporters all over the world. The alert is a guidance for the precise wording they must use when writing about Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

The guidance dictates that when reporters write about the catastrophic flooding during the 2005 storm, they must note that levee failures played a major role.

Most noteworthy are these passages (italicized material is the AP’s):

The late August 2005 hurricane was the deadliest storm to strike the U.S. since 1928 with a death toll that far outweighs any other storm during the modern era of weather forecasting. As of 2022, it was also the costliest storm on record to strike the United States with an inflation-adjusted cost of $186 billion in 2022 dollars. Levee failure played a large part in the destruction in New Orleans, while storm surge was a key factor elsewhere….

… When writing about the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, it is important to note that levee failures played a major role in the devastation in New Orleans. In some stories, that can be as simple as including a phrase about Hurricane Katrina’s catastrophic levee failures and flooding. Some stories may require more detail.

Some basics: In New Orleans, flaws in the design and construction of the federally built levee system led to multiple levee breaches and catastrophic flooding….

This change arose from a conversation that Levees.org initiated with the AP in March of 2022. The AP agreed on the need for a change and issued the change in September 2022.

A retired reporter had this to say about the style guide change.

As a retired newspaper reporter I know how important the AP Style Guide is and how difficult it is to get a style guide changed. This is huge and long overdue.
~Kate

Here is the full style guide change.