Real-world events partly anticipated by the film - The events of Hurricane Katrina, its economic impact and the ensuing price increases nearly parallel some of the events in the movie. However, the damage to US oil infrastructure was less severe than in the film, and the lack of the compounding events (shutdown of Port of Houston, loss of some of Saudi Arabia's supply) means the consequences of Katrina are much less than of the fictional Julia. However, especially given the coincidence of dates (in the film, Julia strikes in early September 2005), the similarity of the early impact of the two storms has been noted.
On August 28, 2005, Hurricane Katrina was on a direct path to hit Port Fourchon and New Orleans. Many of the initial scenes of Hurricane Julia were playing out in real life with Hurricane Katrina, such as the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, the opening of the Superdome as shelter, and the changing of traffic to contraflow. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina did not directly hit Port Fourchon but across Barataria Bay at Buras, but nonetheless some oil rigs were damaged. Saudi Arabia agreed to increase oil production to help.
On August 30, 2005, many gas stations raised prices by a considerable amount putting most of America over $3.00/gallon, as shown in the movie. [2] On September 1, 2005, gas stations throughout the country began to run out of fuel due to worries of mass shortages. Some stations in Atlanta, Georgia sold gas at nearly $6/gallon. Most of this was due to panic buying, as noted in the film, rather than physical shortage. Subsequently, as the extent of the damage became clearer, prices eased.
The casualty numbers shown for New Orleans is also startlingly close to the casualties of Katrina. The Movies shows a little more than 1700 while the official number for Katrina is a little more than 1500.
