In 2001, when bush was warned of Osama striking on our shores he continued on vacation... Allowing 9-11 to develop. Now that a threat looms, that he has no control of, he thrusts out his pathetic chest, and mounts his horse, ready to play hero.. As the storm approaches, he will bellow, I am here to save the day. Overlooking the fact that the National(wink wink) Guard is off in the ME, trying to save his sorry ass. Watch as MSM paints him as the hero in shining armor, as the storm approaches. Bush is one sorry excuse for a human being. When the first shot at Sheehan will be taken, saying she is distracting for the doomsday unfolding in New Orleans. When will robertson, join in the circus. What a distraction unfolding for boy bush and his murderous regime. Do keep our troops and the innocent victims of the ME in mind, when saying your prayers.

I was in Homestead, Fl. two days after Andrew leveled it because my wife had family living there. We caravanned down, three pickups full of EVERYTHING we could think of, or so we thought. When we were approaching the center of the devastation, it became sickeningly clear that we didn't have half of what those poor people needed. The first night there, I remember sitting on the roof, watching Marines march in columns down the street with the thumping of Huey helicopters breaking the thick blanket of silence that hung over that town. It was a surreal sight to behold, and I was forever changed by what I witnessed of the fury of a Cat 5 hurricane.

Katrina is apparently a much more powerful hurricane and I sure do hope that those in her path understand that it is madness to try to ride out a storm like that. My thoughts are with all of them.

Green Grass and High Tides Forever

PBS (American public television) did a bit a while back about the threat posed by a hurricane approaching the city from the south the exact scenario we are seing played out now.

PETER STANDRING (scienceNOW Correspondent): When most people think of New Orleans, they think of the French Quarter, Mardi Gras, jazz, gumbo. But according to federal officials one of the most dire threats facing the nation would be a massive hurricane striking New Orleans. They say that if a major storm had a direct hit here, the effect would be devastating. They're talking perhaps as many as 50,000 dead, up to a million homeless and a city under water. And that disaster nearly happened this past hurricane season.
......

PETER STANDRING: Luckily for New Orleans, Ivan veered east at the eleventh hour, and the Big Easy dodged a bullet.

To get a sense of the damage a hurricane like Ivan would have caused if it made a direct hit on the city of New Orleans, I met with emergency manager, Walter Maestri.

What have we got here?

WALTER MAESTRI: Well, this is a surveyor's rod. And this can extend up to 25 feet, and it shows us just how deep the water would be here if Ivan came through.

PETER STANDRING: And you're getting pretty high there, Walter.

WALTER MAESTRI: Notice we're probably about the second level, right? There we go now. Watch. We're getting close. We're there.

PETER STANDRING: What are we at?

WALTER MAESTRI: Twenty two feet is what they tell us could be right here in the French Quarter.

PETER STANDRING: You're saying that this street, French Quarter, under 22 feet of water?

WALTER MAESTRI: If Ivan made that direct hit, this is what we'd be looking at. We're swimming here. We're like fish, if we're alive.

PETER STANDRING: Not good.

WALTER MAESTRI: Not good.

PETER STANDRING: Just 50 miles from Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans is at such great risk because most of the city lies below sea level. Settled in 1718, it's sandwiched between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain.

IVOR VAN HEERDEN (Louisiana State University): New Orleans was built on a swamp. And in order to build it, they had to put a wall, a levee, around the swamp, and then pump all the water out. As you pump the water out, you allow oxygen to then get into the soils, the oxygen breaks down the organic matter in the soils and they lose bulk and they sink.

PETER STANDRING: To keep the river and lake from flooding this ever-deepening bowl, which is more than 12 feet below sea level in some places, hundreds of miles of giant levees like this one now surround New Orleans.

To get rid of rainwater that collects in the bowl, 22 pump stations were installed throughout the city. These pumps are so powerful that they can suck up 29 billion gallons of water a day from the city and push it all back into the lake. Now, that's enough water to fill the stadium here in New Orleans, the Superdome, in about 35 minutes.

But in a strong hurricane, these pumps would be overwhelmed and the very same levees that protect New Orleans from floods could be its demise.

Hurricanes are whirling dynamos, generating enormous winds. These winds create a gigantic swell of water called a storm surge. And in New Orleans, a storm surge could deliver a fatal one-two punch.

Approaching from the Gulf of Mexico, the storm surge would push water into Lake Pontchartrain and up the Mississippi River. As the water level rises, it would overflow the levees on the lake, inundating the city from the north. A strong enough hurricane would push water over the higher levees along the Mississippi River, flooding the city from the south.

In this doomsday scenario, levees intended to keep water out trap it inside New Orleans.

WALTER MAESTRI: If that bowl fills up, we have no way, necessarily, to get that water out of here; in essence, Lake Pontchartrain, which surrounds us, is transferred and becomes Lake New Orleans.

PETER STANDRING: If anything, the situation is getting even more dangerous. That's because wetlands that provide a natural defense against storm surges are disappearing.

To see how, University of New Orleans geologist Shea Penland takes me for a swamp buggy ride into the bayous just a few miles south of the city. Here, between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico, is the largest area of coastal wetlands anywhere in the United States.

So, Shea, why did we stop here?

SHEA PENLAND (University of New Orleans): We stopped here because this is an area that was solid land 50 years ago and today is open water.

PETER STANDRING: Healthy wetlands weaken a hurricane by starving it of warm ocean water, its fuel. But in the last 70 years, nearly 2,000 square miles of this protective buffer have eroded due to manmade and natural causes.

What does all this land loss mean to the city of New Orleans?

SHEA PENLAND: The wetlands are our natural speed bump; they're our first line of defense. We have a slow disaster that's kind of eating its way towards the city, and all of a sudden, here comes the hurricane. And that major hurricane could be the one on the right track, the right trajectory that puts the storm right down in the city, people can't get out, and we have the ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand dead. And that's the worst case scenario; that's what we're gambling with right now.

Join the European Tribune, Booman Tribune's European cousin.
In the long term, we're all dead. John Keynes

Booman, using Doomsday in the title makes a lot of people think this isn't a serious problem. It is.

People need to leave for higher ground now, and that doesn't mean the upper stories of a French Quarter building! If you want to see a good idea of how older NO buildings will look after a hurricane, google the Galveston Hurricane, and look at the pictures.

Any reader left in New Orleans now should be getting to higher ground by whatever means quickly. (I'm really wanting to use capital letters, barely restraining the urge to shout out loud as I write.)

If you have lived in the Mississippi River Delta most of your life, as I have, you tend to be pretty sanguine about hurricanes, tornados, and floods. Yep, pretty messy. No power for a while, icky, and messy.But life goes on and we survive. We are tough!

This is different. If  you live in NO and stay, you are asking to risk your life. This is not just toughing out some high winds and rain in a nice upper story room, and having life return to normal in a few hours.  

My dad was a "storm trooper". He specialized in going into areas devastated by hurricanes and other natural disasters, to deal with the damage done. Nothing as bad as seeing a bare slab in place of a home, he'd say, showing us pictures of homesites in Pass Christiane, MS, after Hurricane Camille in 1969. Katrina is as strong or stronger than Camille.

Old wooden structures will mostly collapse. Building left standing will be in a sea of water, and it won't drain, as NO is mostly below sea level.(Forgive me for the panicky voice, I just don't like to see people drowned.)

If I were still living up the River, you could come to my place, but I'm stuck in yankee-land far, far away. There will be shelters set up,likely places such as schools within a few hours to a day's drive north of NO. The sooner you leave, the safer you will be. I-10 has bee converted into one-way North. Evacuation of the city has been ordered - though far too many people have no transportation.Just GO.

A stepfather and his family are heading to Texas, or so he says.  Gulfport and Biloxi are already filled up.  People were leaving as early as last Thursday.  The airport is filled up, too.

My aging aunt and her family are still there, about to ride out what may be a catastrophe.  They are, however, too poor to get out, and do not have a car.  The SuperDome, however, is going to be a haven for many Nawlins poor.

Authorities and scientists have been predicting this scenario for decades, seeing New Orleans as Venice underwater.  I blame authorities and internal corruption for letting things go on as they did.  There is only one pump, I understand, for the entire city: there should be at least ten.  And that pump dates from the New Deal.  That's why there is going to be a lot of water for a number of days.

They also said that by 2050, New Orleans may indeed be underwater.  With global warming, it may be guaranteed.  

An untypical Negro

http://thisblksistaspage.wordpress.com

Katrina has 175 MPH winds and the damn thing is HUGE. Even if it hits to the east there will be significant circulation to the west of the city. But the direction of the circulation is critical here and the east-west part makes all the difference in the world. Whether Katrina is powerful enough and big enough for that not to matter anyhow is still a question though.

This thing makes me think of the stories about the Galveston storm of 1900. The only difference being we know this one is coming so hopefully not as many people will die. The devastation will probably be similar however.

The 10,000 Things

You can forget road, rail, and air transportation to/from New Orleans.  The first two are bridged through miles (I'm not kidding) of swamps and the last will be under water.

So when they talk of the time to do the repair work figure an additional 2 weeks AT LEAST to move the personnel and equipment to the area and establish the required infrastructures to start clean-up.

Och nu den svenska kocken bakar en Alaskan älg jägare. Bork! Bork! Bork!

This is starting to look really bad for NO- my favorite city. I could tell some tales,but I won't.If anyone needs to evac and can get here to VA- I have a 3 BR house that is vacant.

One note of optimism: the worst case scenario involves a hurricane hitting to the west of New Orleans.

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be working out for New Orleans either.  With each update, the weather experts are still waiting for the storm to start tracking due north (which would put it east of the city at landfall).  The storm is not cooperating and continues on its north-northwest track.  If it does not start tracking north soon, New Orleans will get either a direct hit or a devastating western hit.

Anyone know how many people are stuck there? I am so worried about all of the people going into the SuperDome -- will they really be safe there? Could it turn into a death trap?

Why don't we have evacuation plans in place for things like this? Don't we have resources that can be mobilzed BEFORE people die?

Where is Homland Security? What the hell are they doing? yes, there will be a mess afterwards, but how do we get those people OUT of harm's way??

This is so fucking frustrating.

I want something else, to get me through this, semi-charmed kinda life..
Third Eye Blind

National weather service  LINK

HURRICANE KATRINA
A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED
STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE
BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME
WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A
FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN
AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY
THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW
CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE
KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR
HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE
CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE
OUTSIDE!

My Website

I can't even imagine the catastrophe this could turn into--and not only the city but for 350 miles around? It's all low lying-even if it isn't
on the lake or the river.
Somebody over at the Other Place referenced John McPhee's book- 'The End of Nature'- it is an excellent book about man and his (mostly useless) fight against mother nature. A main section is about the levees and how eventually it would all be lost in one big storm.Is this it? I hope not,but I fear it is inevitable.

They're calling it "once in a lifetime," but that's probably wishful thinking. Global warming. . .

My Website

the Altantic ain't done....

13 will most likely be hurricaine Lee in 48 hours....

I want something else, to get me through this, semi-charmed kinda life..
Third Eye Blind

http://tinyurl.com/8hgju

Be sure to click "play."

Here's another image if Katrina 225 miles SSE away from New Orleans, at 4:27 pm EDT


To thine own self be true. W.S.

forgot:  if the track stays on course, you're going to get REAL wet up in the North country.....

The remnants of Camille and Agnes made it up to New York State if I recall correctly.  This one no doubt will as well.

Does anyone else watch too many SciFi Channel movies??

The worst-case scenario here ... could submerge much of this historic city treetop-deep in a stew of sewage, industrial chemicals and fire ants

Sorry, don't mean to be flip, but it did conjure up some scary mental images involving giant fire ants, entymologists, and Special Forces troops.

Back to hoping for the best....

I'd rather own books that I don't read than clothes I don't wear." -- Jonathan Safran Foer

This is reminding me of the movie FX showed earlier this summer. In their scenario, a hurricane hit Galveston and wiped out the port and oil refineries there. The result: $7/gal gas within two weeks. The Port of New Orleans processes 25% to 1/3 of our oil imports and is surrounded by gas refineries and petrochemical plants.

I am horrified by the idea that beautiful New Orleans may be devastated and the potential loss of life has me scared. But, I am terrified about the economic impact this storm may have on ALL of us.

because I'm not in a position to do much.  We couldn't get in to get anybody out.  I think everybody needs to brace for a very large loss of life from Katrina.  If the roadways continue to stay choked when she hits....that is the worst thing that could happen.  I really think people are going to die though, I'm thinking a Ground Zero type loss........bigger numbers.  The whole city will be flooded with sewage and chemicals also from the factories and refineries.  If you are stuck there and survive Katrina, trying to stay alive after that is going to be one hell of a chore I think.  And the cemeteries will be afloat also......we will have corpses in the streets and we may not be sure who was dead before and died during.  This is going to be really really horrible.

PMS Purchase More Shoes

OH yeah- it will get very ugly-- add some cholera to that equation.....

I wish to gawwd I was closer- and I am not a believer.But y'all know how to find me,right??? Right??painebillAThotmail