[schu]

The NY Times (ugh) has a good graphic on the canal issue. The way I read it is the Gov and the Mayor ignored or were unaware of the fact that the levees were only good for a Cat 3, and as predicted, they failed catastrophically when the storm force exceeded this rating.

My guess is the original rescue plan made no allowance for the city being 80% flooded, they expected that people would at least have shelter and the police/rescue teams could drive around in trucks dropping off food and water and helping those hurt.

This entire affair was a massive failure on the part of the local and state government, no imagination, no plan, no contingencies, a complete breakdown. There is no other way to look at it.

schu

[Dog Gone]

I haven't heard what the actual sustained winds in New Orleans were on Monday, but I doubt they were Cat 4, since the storm passed to the east of the city by at least a couple dozen miles and the storm was a Cat 3 at landfall in Mississippi.

And I don't think there was any rescue plan in place in advance at all. New Orleans has a "let the good times roll" attitude about everything. As long as it could keep the tourist dollars rolling in, the rest of the city was pretty much left to itself.

I will go look to see if I can find that graphic you're referring to.

[schu]

Hmmm, one has to believe that NOAA or the locals were monitoring the lake level and the levees, they knew at what point the levees would start to leak. So by mid day Monday after the original surge the alarm should/was probably sounded, unless there was a total breakdown in communications where nothing got out, which is unlikely. So they had their meeting where the engineers advised the authorities how bad it was, it would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall at that one!

All this explains why the Gov and the Mayor lost it, because they then knew what a catastrophe they were facing and how badly they had screwed up. They lost all hope at that point, so screaming and crying was all they knew how to do.

schu