8- 3 -05
The Times Picayune of New Orleans
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-10/112305323084850.xml
Earlier storm forecast blown away
As many as nine more hurricanes are expected
Wednesday, August 03, 2005 By Mark Schleifstein Staff writer
This year's unusually active hurricane season is about to get even busier, with an additional 11 to 13 named storms projected by Nov. 30, the end of the season, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday.
"Although we have already seen a record-setting seven tropical storms during June and July, much of the season's activity is still to come," said Gerry Bell, lead meteorologist on NOAA's "Atlantic Hurricane Seasonal Outlook," in a news release outlining the update.
The new prediction calls for seven to nine more hurricanes, including three to five hurricanes Category 3 or stronger.
That means the season could end up with 18 to 21 tropical storms, including nine to 11 hurricanes and five to seven major hurricanes.
Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center, said the new forecast "is one of the scariest things I've ever seen."
He said the new prediction places more pressure on the center to provide local, state and federal emergency officials with hurricane storm surge predictions quickly. The center's predictions have been used several times this year to assist planners in determining how high water will rise on the Gulf of Mexico coastline in advance of tropical storms.
Conditions are right
Forecasters blame the increased storm activity on a combination of warm temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico and a lessening of wind conditions that would chop the tops off of the clouds that form hurricanes.
And such busy seasons likely will repeat for at least another 10 years, as part of a cycle of increased hurricane activity in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico that began in 1995. Those conditions also produced a measurable decrease in hurricanes since 1995 in the eastern Pacific hurricane region.
NOAA forecasters said they still don't have enough understanding of hurricane processes to predict the intensity and landfall of storms this far in advance.
Colorado State University climatologist William Gray, who issues a similar forecast, estimates the statistical chances of storms making landfall by region along the Atlantic and Gulf. His August update is expected this week.
Officials urge preparations
New Orleans area emergency preparedness officials said Tuesday that they didn't need to read NOAA's warning in order to know that residents and communities should redouble their efforts to complete personal and business emergency plans, and to identify in advance where to go when an evacuation is recommended.
"This really gives us the opportunity to underscore the importance of having a plan right now, and not letting your guard down," said Kay Wilkins, director of the New Orleans regional office of the American Red Cross.
"People should look to what they need in their emergency supply kit and take time to buy what they need this weekend, and a little more next weekend," she said.
Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Director Walter Maestri said his staff is using the announcement as a tool in an intensified education program aimed at explaining the need to evacuate and the need to make an advance plan for that evacuation.
"We're emphasizing that because of our coast, because of subsidence, we're now looking at a Category 2 rather than a Category 3 hurricane as the prime trigger for an evacuation," he said.
"And because of the state evacuation plan and its evacuation routes, it is absolutely necessary for everybody to revisit their own plans," he said. "If contraflow is implemented, you're not going to be able to go willy-nilly where you wish to go."
Route planning
The state contraflow plan, implemented in phases 50 to 30 hours before a hurricane is projected to make landfall, uses all lanes of interstate highways to move traffic east and west away from New Orleans.
Maestri's staff is working on a more detailed plan to help residents identify the best routes to contraflow lanes if they are on the West Bank to the east and west of the Harvey Canal, and on the east bank to the east and west of Causeway Boulevard.
"There's only one route in the new plan that takes you to Baton Rouge, and that's the contraflow lanes on I-10," he said. "The rest of the lanes take you north on I-55 or I-59."
If many people make the wrong decision on entering the contraflow lanes, it could become a problem, he said, because a majority of Jefferson Parish residents indicated in a recent University of New Orleans poll that they plan on evacuating west to Baton Rouge, Houston or Lake Charles.
Double trouble
One of van Heerden's major worries is two storms hitting the Gulf at one time, complicating the state hurricane center's effort to complete the computations necessary for the surge models for both storms.
That potential double shot also should be planned for by evacuees, van Heerden said.
"There's a real need to get the public to understand that if we have two hurricanes just a week apart, especially if they're coming toward southeast Louisiana, people could be forced to evacuate the area and stay away for more than a week," he said.
"Start planning now, get your cars serviced, keep the gas tanks full, and when you leave, have an idea in advance of where you're going," he said.
Potential evacuees also should gather personal papers, including bank, mortgage and investment records, and put them in watertight plastic containers that can be quickly moved if an evacuation is necessary, he said.
"On the emotional side, it's very important for families to have all their family photograph albums packed in watertight containers, too," van Heerden said. "You can replace a home, but you can never replace a family photograph album."
Wilkins said the Red Cross just printed another 500,000 copies of a map of the state's emergency and contraflow plan, which also includes Red Cross tips on how to prepare family emergency plans and kits. The maps are available at local Lowe's, Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Red Cross offices.
Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3327.
7-22-05
Science Daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/
"In 2002, an American Red Cross estimate found 25,000 to 100,000 people would be killed if a major hurricane hit the New Orleans area."
Many residents won't evacuate New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS, July 22 (UPI) -- A major hurricane, with 130 mph winds and an 18-foot-high storm surge, would not scare 60 percent of southeast Louisiana residents, a survey found.
That would be a dangerous decision, said Jesse St. Amant, emergency preparedness director for Plaquemines Parish, because Louisiana's sinking coastline and levees no longer protect residents from a Category 3 storm.
The University of New Orleans Survey Research Center and the Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Task Force survey, released Thursday, also found many who evacuated during Hurricanes Georges in 1998, Lili in 2002 or last year's Ivan might not have traveled far enough to escape danger, the New Orleans Times-Picayune said Friday.
In 2002, an American Red Cross estimate found 25,000 to 100,000 people would be killed if a major hurricane hit the New Orleans area.
If people don't evacuate when directed by officials the number of casualties would be "beyond comprehension," according to St. Amant.
Related Headlines
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20050722-18422300-bc-us-hurricanes.xml#
I've heard that from other sources. But the libs are screaming that the floods in New Orleans are Bush's fault because funding was cut for the levees. Never mention the corruption that eats large chunks out of budgets for levee maintenance and looks the other way at substandard work by politically-connected contractors.
The libs are screaming that Bush is not reacting quickly enough. Never mention the horrific lack of adequate disaster planning that failed to get those without transport away from NOLA (Texas is having no problems stepping up to the plate on short notice).
In other words, government corruption at all levels of government in Louisiana is the primary reason a natural disaster became a humanitarian one. And like everything else in this sorry day and age, we will emerge from this catastrophe not trying to figure out how to prevent the next one, but instead trying to gain political advantage by pinning blame whether it belongs there or not - just like the 9/11 Commisssion (expect Governor Blanco to be placed on the Commission that looks into failures leading up to Katrina).
Yes, excellent article.
No doubt the media will continue to try to blame Bush for the collapse of the levee, but the main cause was corruption in the city and state governments. The politicians really didn't care if the levees were safe, as long as they got their bribes.
The Army Corps of Engineers may supervise the work, and the feds may pay the larger part of the tab, but they only do so when local government pushes them to do it. New Orleans officials were busy with other things.
March 22, 2002
New program at LSU to mitigate public health impact of hurricanes
"No matter how effective evacuation is, a lot of people will be trapped in New Orleans. Estimates vary, but as many as 400,000 could be trapped there. Even a slow-moving category 3 hurricane like (1992's Hurricane) Andrew could flood New Orleans with 13 to 17 feet of water.” –van Heerden
It’s more than just water.
When the rivers rise and pour over their banks, when the levees don’t hold, when the hurricane winds push Gulf waters inland, or in any case where floodwaters rise and can’t immediately drain, it’s more than just water. It’s gasoline and diesel fuel from car and truck tanks and from gas stations; it’s chemicals from chemical plants, households, hardware stores and dry cleaners; it’s sewage from overwhelmed sewage systems; it’s garbage from landfills and possibly contaminants from Superfund sites; and it’s the bodies of livestock, wildlife and even humans.
These serious aftereffects of major floods were made apparent to LSU’s Ivor van Heerden when he visited flood sites in North Carolina after Hurricane Floyd dumped tons of water on the state in 1999. He had also been in Honduras a year earlier and seen the devastating effects of Hurricane Mitch on that unfortunate country. Being a scientist, he decided to do something about it.
Van Heerden, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center, recently received a $3.7 million grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents’ Health Excellence Fund to tackle these problems. Using New Orleans as a test case, van Heerden and his team will assess risk from all sources and work with Louisiana’s Office of Emergency Preparedness to develop a plan to avoid or mitigate the worst effects of a disaster.
“Coastal loss is one reason for the extent of hurricane impacts,” van Heerden said. “Louisiana has lost 1 million acres since 1930. New Orleans, Houma and Morgan City are much more vulnerable to storms than they were 10 years ago. Hurricane Floyd showed that flood waters can become highly contaminated and lead to severe problems.”
“No matter how effective evacuation is, a lot of people will be trapped in New Orleans. Estimates vary, but as many as 400,000 could be trapped there. Even a slow-moving category 3 hurricane like (1992's Hurricane) Andrew could flood New Orleans with 13 to 17 feet of water.”
Because New Orleans is in a bowl, the water will not drain but just sit there. Van Heerden says estimates are that it will take as much as nine weeks to pump all the water out; meanwhile, it will become a soup of contaminants, possibly even polluting the air above it.
“Getting people out will be very difficult,” he said. “When the water outside the city subsides, boats will have to be dragged over the levee, rescuers will have to find people who have taken refuge on rooftops or in tall buildings and bring them back to and over the levee again. Many of the people who are trapped will be old or invalid or sick. Some of them will have been on rooftops for days, without food or water or medicine. It will be the middle of summer then and the mosquitoes will be out. Rats and mosquitoes carry diseases, and other wildlife, such as snakes and fire ants, will try to take refuge in the same places people are taking refuge. Because New Orleans is a port city, cholera and other diseases from overseas may be present.
“There is also the possibility of civil unrest as people flock to high-rise buildings. The air might be contaminated from the water, and there will be a lot of fires. People don’t realize it but fires do a lot of damage in floods. Natural gas lines rupture, and gasoline and diesel float on water.”
There are other problems associated with extensive flooding too, van Heerden said. “The 700,000 who evacuate will have to go somewhere. That probably means massive tent cities, like refugee camps. But whenever a lot of people congregate, the potential for disease increases enormously. Sanitation, food and shelter will be major problems.
“Then there is the question of disposing of the water. It will be full of toxins, so you don’t want to put it into the Gulf, or the marshes, or Lake Pontchartrain.
“And after the city is drained, experience shows that a very toxic mold develops inside insulation. All buildings that were under water will have to be decontaminated.
“All this could happen three months from now. There is no guarantee, except that it’s going to happen,” van Heerden said.
So how do you handle something like this?
“We have a team of scientists, engineers, medical and mental health experts already
working on it,” he said. “We are developing computer models for this kind of flooding. We have scientists and engineers generating transport and fate models of what chemicals would be in the air and water and where they would go. We have vet school researchers looking at animal profiles, both wild and domestic. We have sociologists looking at how many people are likely not to evacuate and why. They will also look at the effects of stress on those who evacuate, those who don’t, and on the surrounding communities. We have medical researchers from the LSU Medical School in New Orleans looking at potential medical problems and how to deal with them. We are creating a database for the state’s emergency planning program which will be coordinated through a geographical information system.”
He is in the process of hiring support staff and developing a Web page, van Heerden said. Already, 13 principal investigators are in place. By the end of the year he said he will have a better idea of the scenarios that might take place, although it will take five years to fully develop the plan.
Although New Orleans is the target city, it is not the only place that will benefit. Once the pattern is established, van Heerden said, the plan will be fully exportable to other cities across the nation and around the world.
Ron Brown http://www.lsu.edu/lsutoday/020322/pageone.html
This looks like a FR quote.
"It's been 36 years since Hurricane Betsy buried New Orleans 8 feet deep. Since then a deteriorating ecosystem and increased development have left the city in an ever more precarious position.
Yet the problem went unaddressed for decades by a laissez-faire government, experts said.
"...A plan to restore the Florida Everglades attracted $4 billion in federal funding, but the state had to match it dollar for dollar.
In Louisiana, so far, there's only been a willingness to match 15 or 25 cents. "Our state still looks for a 100 percent federal bailout, but that's just not going to happen," said University of New Orleans geologist Shea Penland, a delta expert.
"We have an image and credibility problem.
We have to convince our country that they need to take us seriously, that they can trust us to do a science-based restoration program."
My Democrat stronghold county is a microcosm of New Orleans to a T. I understand this completely.
Thank God. Finally some sanity. Great post
Dr. Heerden said, "I understand that 80% of the people followed the order to evacuate. That means that there were 250,000 to 300,000 people who were left in New Orleans. According to our computer models, 1/3 of those have drowned."
If my figures are correct, that would mean that he estimates the dead in NO to number between 80,000 and 100,000.!!!! WOW!!! Can that be true???
A dyke is a lesbian, a dike is a flood barrier.
A levy is a tax, a levee is a flood barrier.
A breech is found on a firearm, a breach allows water through a levee.
A site is a location, sight pertains to vision - "looters should be shot on sight."
Ah, when will we learn this lesson? Crime breeds poverty. So often we get it backward.