Posted on 08/30/2005 9:00:31 PM PDT by Lessismore
It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.
But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.
The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.
Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.
.... continued at link
Well the Bush/Cheney/Haliburton/neo-Cons caused it you know. (sarcasm, sarcasm, sarcasm) seriously we need to pray for those folks.
Didn't quite happen this time. But had Katrina veered 40 miles to the west, it would have. As with the Big One earthquake in Frisco, it's only a matter of time.
It WILL happen.
Not to mention, Halliburton..
Man, talk about pyschic....
The field of "future studies" is an interesting one. Lot's of times predictions are radically wrong, as a book "Megamistakes" enumerated (it was published after the more famous "Megatrends").
However, there are many things that can be predicted with virtual certainty, like how many people aged 65 to 70 there will be in 2020.
Disasters like this fall in the category of being very predictable in how they will occur, and what at least some of the consequences will be. What is uncertain is when the will occur.
It is striking that the number of displaced people is about right. However, the actual flooding took much longer, and the death toll is consequently much lower, at least as reported so far. I think that with a little more thought that could have been predicted as well, since the levees would break in localized spots and the flow would result in a fairly low rate of rise in the city.
BTT
See the last issue of National Geographic (August, 2005), entitled "In Hot Water" about the Atlantic Ocean Surface Temperature CYCLES.....These Cycles are Documented and we are in the Middle of a "WARM" Cycle....or Very Active Hurricane Cycle....it should last at least another 10 years.
Global Warming...YES.....a Natural Global Cycle!
For More, go to:
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0508/feature4/
A year later with corrupt, incompetent and derelict liberal local and state heads of government it came to pass!
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