The CDC's disease prevention efforts include educating the public on how to recognize and avoid contracting common infectious diseases, such as the flu and strep throat.
DISASTERS Hurricane Katrina approaches landfall on the Gulf coast. Very little on land or water was spared by the storm when it struck in 2005. (Image from NOAA) Hurricane Katrina caused devastating personal, social, economic, and cultural losses. This image shows homes destroyed by the storm in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. (Image from
The storm that would become Hurricane Gordon forms in the Gulf of Mexico east of Costa Rica on this day in 1994. Although it spent far more time as a tropical storm than as a hurricane, Gordon went on to kill as many as a thousand people in Central America, the Caribbean and South Florida. Immediately after forming over the western part of the Gulf of Mexico, the stormâs heavy rainfall caused flash flooding in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.