Posted on 08/28/2005 3:53:54 PM PDT by BJungNan
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The mayor ordered an immediate evacuation Sunday for all of New Orleans, a city sitting below sea level with 485,000 inhabitants, as Hurricane Katrina bore down with wind revving up to nearly 175 mph and threats of a massive storm surge.
Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave before the eye of the storm strikes land sometime Monday morning, the city set up 10 places of last resort including the Superdome.
``This is a once in a lifetime event,'' Mayor Ray Nagin said. ``The city of New Orleans has never seen a hurricane of this magnitude hit it directly.''
The mayor said a direct hit by Katrina's storm surge would likely top the levees that protect the city from the surrounding water of Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River and marshes. The bowl-shaped city must pump water out even during normal times, and the hurricane threatened electricity that runs the pumps.
``We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared,'' Nagin said.
President Bush urged people living in the path of Katrina to take the storm extremely seriously and follow orders to evacuate to higher ground. A day after declaring an emergency for Louisiana, Bush declared an emergency for the state of Mississippi and pledged federal support.
``We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities,'' Bush told reporters on his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Thats what they do here in South Carolina. During an evacuation, both lanes of I-26 from Charleston carry traffic north, all the way to Columbia. I think this started after Hugo.
Old River Control3/4 down this page: www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/bro/misstrib.htmOne of the most important modifications to the project was made in 1954 when Congress authorized the feature for the control of flow at Old River to prevent the capture of the Mississippi by the Atchafalaya River.
The first two features completed were the low-sill and overbank structures, the former to pass low and medium flows from the Mississippi to the Atchafalaya River in a controlled manner, and the latter to pass flood flows to the Atchafalaya in conformance with the flood control plan. Inflow and outflow channels were constructed connecting the low-sill structure with the Mississippi and Red-Atchafalaya rivers. A third facility -- called the Auxillary Structure -- was placed in service late in 1986.
As the closure of Old River would cut off an important shallow-draft navigation artery, a navigation lock was constructed just south of the junction of the Old and Mississippi rivers. This navigation lock is one of the most modern in the nation's inland waterway system. Channels were dredged connecting the lock to the Mississippi and Old rivers, and this feature was opened to navigation in 1963.
Large map.
All the "plans" say 72 hours.
I would have at LEAST started talking about it before yesterday afternoon.
In fact, they could have held a big old press conference at ANY of these times:
To: Howlin
For future reference, this repeated line by the mayor and governor that "We went to bed Friday night being told it was a Florida storm, and woke up Saturday to find us threatened" to excuse why they waited so long to start the evacuation plan is total bullshit. (excuse my French)
Friday 4pm NO time report from the NWS, warns of a significant shift west, Mississippi landfall (88.5 on the grid, NO is 90), and possible more movement expected (post #388):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1471043/posts?page=388#388
By at least Friday 6pm computer models were converging on LA (post #478):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1471043/posts?page=478#478
Turns out those computer models had been run at 2pm (post #526):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1471043/posts?page=526#526
In fact some computer models run at 7am NO time Friday had predicted a NO hit(post #224):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1471043/posts?page=224#224
So unless the gov and mayor went to bed Friday afternoon, they knew then that it likely was headed their way.
But wait, lookee here, Blanco declares a state of emergency about 8pm Friday night. Why do that if they were told it was going to be a Florida hurricane? (post #585)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1471043/posts?page=585#585
2,374 posted on 08/28/2005 5:30:44 PM EDT by Diddle E. Squat
Do you think we don't have those up here?
Please; if the mayor of a town doesn't have CONTROL over his town, he's useless.
A once in a lifetime event that could happen again in two weeks.
Thanks for the link. It shows that at 11am eastern Friday the predicted track was for east of Pensacola, but the 5pm track had shifted far to the west, to Pascagoula, MS. That's just 90 miles east of New Orleans, and in their bulletin they mentioned that it could shift further west. That was at 4pm NO time on Friday.
Without reading any of the posts so far, here is the answer as it was stated on Foxnews early this morning. I was absolutely flabbergasted by the reason! Here it is: The mayor of New Orleans does not or did not have the power to demand the emergency and immediate evacuation. It had to come from a higher power. I guess it had to come from the governor. What idiocy! Pray for the folks in New Orleans and the gulf coast states.
Keep staring at it till you see the nipple pop out at you.
;-)
I realize that most people with cars would rather evacuate with their own cars packed with their belongings (even if it means being stuck for 12 hours in a 5 mph traffic jam), but there are thousands of people (including tourists) that are now trapped in New Orleans with no way to get out.
Choctaw language meaning "Long River". For the volume of water it carries, it is one of the shortest rivers in the world. As the largest outlet of the Mississippi, from 30 to 50 per cent of the water flowing down the Mississippi is diverted into the Atchafalaya.
The Atchafalaya is controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This control is accomplished by movable structures at the river's head and a series of levees running roughly parallel with the center channel of the river.
The minimum distance between the east and west protection levees is about 15 miles. On an annual basis the water elevation between these levees can change as much as 15 feet. The area within these confines is know as the Spillway or the Basin. It is in fact America's greatest river basin swamp, a magnificent wilderness, home to abundant wildlife, oil fields, endangered species, superb recreational and commercial fishing, trapping, and hunting. It is also the home of controversy, politics, and legal disputes.
Following the disastrous flood of 1927, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to develop the Basin as a diversion route for high water headed for Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
In the desert and not in the path of a hurricane thankfully.
Thank you. I think that is what FoxNews said also. I did not think I had this wrong. It may not be exactly 12 hours - but with a 24 hour traffic jam what is the difference.
They started doing that yesterday.
Mandatory evac from Nagin was this morning.
Montell?
I thought I saw it before you labeled the parts. Now it just looks like a close up of a mole or something.
The mayor spent yesterday suggesting that people evacuate but resisting a mandatory order because he said he needed to consult his lawyers. He finally called for mandatory evacuation Sunday morning, under pressure.
Idiot. Just a figurehead, not a leader.
My dear dem mother asked me today why the President did not send the National Guard in with buses to get people out of there. Already, it's "Bushs fault" to her.
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