Posted on 08/30/2005 4:35:54 PM PDT by Flavius
New Orleans is apt to stay awash for days under oily, filthy water infested with mosquitoes, even if failed levees can be fixed quickly, according to experts assessing the flooding left by Hurricane Katrina. ADVERTISEMENT
An initial sense of relief that the city escaped the storm's worst dissolved Tuesday, as an estimated 80 percent of the 180-square-mile city gradually turned into an urban swamp.
"While everyone knew this could happen, I don't think anyone was really prepared for it," said oceanographer Paul Kemp, at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center. "There are some disasters beyond comprehension, and I think this is one of them."
Murky water, laced with junk and pollutants, coursed through the city, including many downtown streets. Residents and rescuers came across floating bodies, though the city's death toll was still unknown late Tuesday.
Flooding specialists predicted that conditions could worsen as authorities focused first on saving people trapped in buildings.
Some flood-control pumps were broken, choked by excess water or storm debris. Others were lacking power needed to run. Roofs were reported collapsed on at least two major pumping stations. Without the pumps, much of the flood water will have nowhere to drain in this city cradled within a bowl, at an average of six feet below sea level.
In a frustrating catch-22, it will be hard to fix the pumps and restore their power while they are under water, but it's hard to drain the water without the pumps, the flood experts warned.
"It's going to be days before they get all that water out," said marine scientist Ivor van Heerden, also of LSU, who developed flooding models for the city. He was out with a boat inspecting water levels Tuesday.
When the hurricane's eye veered away from the city Monday morning, the fiercest winds and storm surge bashed into the coast east of New Orleans. Though some neighborhoods flooded, most of the city was spared severe flooding in the immediate aftermath. By early Tuesday, however, waters were creeping into large parts of the mostly evacuated city, which is normally home to about 484,000 people.
This flood water apparently came from at least two levee breaks — at the Industrial Canal and the 17th Street Canal, according to the LSU specialists.
Helicopters were dumping 3,000-pound sandbags onto the levees, beginning the task of trying to plug them.
The experts warned of potential dangers ahead. Louisiana's frequent summer rains — or even another hurricane — could add to flooding in coming days or weeks, they said. The sitting water could collect more contaminants from homes and industries, and mosquitoes could amplify the danger of disease.
"Because it doesn't drain, there's a chance for things to concentrate," said Marc Levitan, another flooding expert at LSU.
"Only an idiot would build in a swamp."
We'll idiots were put in charge of the pumps and backup systems and roofs that fly off pump buildings, etc.
There's no way anyone with intelligence managed this area. Keeping water out of NO was responsibility number one. NUMBER ONE. Maybe we need military in charge of this in the future.
New Orleans is the geographical version of the "perfect storm" of hurricanes. No other city is built in the proximity to water that it is on all sides. The levees are just not strong enough for such a hurricane like Katrina. The mayor knew Saturday that this is the one
big one that all native New Orleans citizens suspected would come sooner or later. Now they have to deal with the devastation, and I fear that the "evacuation" is too little too late.
I forgot all about that! I'll bet some parts could be raised, IF the government could just possibly do it without jerks running the show.
I'm going to try and find pictures of this.
Building it there to begin with was..
Yes, it has actually all been sinking EVEN MORE over the years... and yet they still want to rebuild there?
Incredible.
I've been watching the coverage and hearing some of the personal stories of survival, and loss of life and more than once have just broke down crying. It's awful.
George, if I'm not mistaken, I think the Army Corps of Engineers is in charge of the levees. It certainly is in charge of making sure the Mississippi stays in it's current course. Building the city there was stupid. But it happened 300 years ago and the builders were French. Because of its location at the mouth of the Mississippi, its growth into a huge population and commerce center was inevitable, unless some government agency forceably prevented its growth.
Once a major population center was located 6-10 feet below sea level and that pop center was located right between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain (both of which are much higher than the city), and subject to periodic hurricanes, this disaster was inevitable. Folks have been writing about it for 50 years. It was only a question of when. Building higher levees would just put the disaster off for a while. The only really naive thing was thinking that we could make everything work out just fine there if we were just smart enough.
Agreed. Evaporation from the sun is about the only thing that could dissipate the water. Not even 1,000 looters told to bail water at gunpoint is going to help.
Build replicas....we're Americans, remember?
Ugh! Replicas? Haven't the historical sites weathered flooding before? After all the city was founded about 250 yrs ago. I'll keep my fingers crossed that they can be saved, and also for the residents.
Sorry, but logic does not apply. You, me and the federal govt. subsidize insurance for ocean front vacation homes, allowing these risky ventures to be built more economically than can be rationally justified.
It will take a few months, but they can get the water out to the point it previously was and build there as they have in the past.
I would also hope that the codes there will be changed and that you would see a new type of architecture emerge that can better withstand events of this type. I think the insurance companies will force the changes.
They need to evacuate the city and move those people as far inland as possible before the next storm moves in. Next month is the peak of the hurricane season and the water temps in the gulf are still around 90. God help us all if those people are there through another one with so much of the infrastructure compromised.
As an aside, someone in their post before the storm said something to the effect that the mayor of the city formerly known as New Orleans did not want to order an evacuation and did so only after the President called him to do it. Is that true or bunk?
"Perhaps they should do like Chicago did in the mid 19th century - raise the city!"
I believe Galveston did the same thing after the 1900 storm.
That may be an oversimplification but Mayor Nagin was saying before the President spoke on Saturday that he didn't have the authority to order an evacuation. Once Bush publicly stated the area needed to be evacuated, Nagin somehow found the authority.
I think, in all honesty, that nobody wanted to take the political risk of calling for an evacuation if the storm happened to turn like Ivan did.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.