In between Our Lady’s August 2nd message and September 2nd message on the day for non-believers, Hurricane Katrina hit the southern coastline of the United States on August 28, 2005. It was the costliest natural disaster and one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the nation. Approximately 1,800 people died in the disaster and the total cost of damage was over $108 billion. New Orleans was devastated with flooding when the levies broke, which was responsible for the vast majority of the deaths. The name “Katrina†means “to cleanse or to purge.†Eerily, Our Lady used this same word in both Her July 2nd and August 2nd, 2005, messages. On August 2nd, She said:
One month later, on September 2nd, Our Lady laments:
New Orleans is a very Catholic city and there are many Medjugorje believers who have remained faithful to the apparitions. Yet, it is also a city where black magic takes place, where gambling is legal and is responsible for destroying lives and families, and where abomination is practiced openly, most prominently on the eve of Ash Wednesday, to mock the Church as it enters into the holy and penitential season of Lent. Our Lady is here to bring purification, first of all, to the Church. A message Our Lady gave 15 years earlier helps to relate the reason for this purification on March 25, 1990:
Katrina was only the beginning of the disasters that would begin taking place not only in the United States, but around the world.
