Katrina Live Thread, Part X

Various ^ | 30 August 2005

[NautiNurse]

Catastrophic damage occurred to Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Major bridges are destroyed. Mobile AL suffered its worst flooding in 90 years. In New Orleans, a large section of concrete levee broke last night. Water continues to rise, threatening, among many things, Tulane Hospital with 1000 patients. New Orleans officials: Do not attempt to return to the city at this time if you evacuated. It is too dangerous.

Sun-Herald Gulfport MS

WLOX TV Biloxi, Gulfport, Pascagula

Gulfport News via Topix.net WAFB Baton Rouge

Slidell, Mandeville, and Covington Updates Warning: website is overloaded due to heavy traffic

Mobile Register via al.com

Mississippi updates via Jackson Ledger

Lafayette LA Daily Advertiser

Pensacola News Journal

[BurbankKarl]

They will start shooting each other....more fires tonight as people use candles for light...

[the Deejay]

Any ships there or on their way yet?

[SE Mom]

This morning the president ordered a two-star to take over the military effort in the disaster...re-deployments, rescue coordination, equipment movement etc.

There is a lot going on behind the scenes...we need to remember that.

CNN is excellent right now- Jean Meserve is LIVE ...

[ican'tbelieveit]

What if they didn't have a way to evacuate? Maybe they didn't have cars, or not reliable enough to make that long of a drive. Maybe they didn't have enough money to go to a motel room for days on end.

Part of the problem for many of those who didn't leave is the government fostered reliance on the government, then essentially abandoned them when this threat surfaced.

[tomkat]

Thanks DC, but would much rather have the youth/resources to be down there actually helping pull people off roofs, ya know ?

[NautiNurse]

I will not be surprised if there is a complete media blackout within the next 24 hours.

[dirtboy]

This was in an AP article, not sure of the time stamp:

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/12508263.htm

"Officials planned to use helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach, and expressed confidence the problem could be solved within hours."

Has anyone heard of ANY effort to even start this undertaking? This sounds like more bluster.

[JohnBovenmyer]

If this is remotely accurate, then this may approach Galveston.

About the only glint of silver in that dark cloud is it would stop Hillary from shilling more pork for NYC. Pork will instead be going to red states, especially to Newer Orleans.

[DouglasKC]

Note the area in the first photo indicates the area of breach. The 2nd shows it.

Is that Lake Ponchatrain at the bottom? Is the lake draining into the city?

[Spiff]

I have a friend who lives in NO and thank heavens evacuated, and he says even the locals all it "Bienville's Mistake". You can't protect a city built 6-8 feet below sea level forever. I used to inspect levee like structures and small earthen dams, and the worst case scenario is that once one goes the others get undercut and start to fail. If there is a 200 foot section missing somewhere I would expect a much larger failure is a possibility. This is going to be a catastrophe of monumental proportions for that area and a monetary disaster for all of us.

The Mississippi has a new course in that area and Lake Pontchartrain has a new sister lake called Lake New Orleans.

[backhoe]

Popping in and out, so forgive if a duplicate question. Has this been confirmed - martial law, I mean? I am not hearing it on the radio news I have been hearing.

Martial Law Declared in New Orleans

[r9etb]

The levee is very close to the Superdome. They could just pull some barges up the river ....

Well, there's the sticky point... I don't know what conditions are like there, but it may not be feasible to move the barges. Let's hope they can, and do, though.

[tiredoflaundry]

These rescues are amazing.

[SoothingDave]

You can call me cruel if you'd like, but as far as I'm concerned someone who refuses to evacuate a disaster area and then climbs on a roof expecting to be picked up by a helicopter is not a "victim" in any sense of the word -- he/she is a public menace who is putting other lives at risk through their own ignorance, stupidity, arrogance, etc.

As another said more better than me can, that is not the way Americans operate. We have compassion even for those who are in dilemmas of their own making.

Your analysis requires a prejudging of people. I know many tried to evacuate but returned when the highways were impassible. Others may have medical conditions that made travel difficult. Still others might have stayed intending to be a help to others, only to find themselves a burden.

We can't simply dismiss all as arrogant or ignorant.

SD

[gumboyaya]

If they start to loot Royal St that would be tragic. The antiques are priceless, with friends owning several shops, they spent a lifetime to collect. This is one of my worst days.

[jeffers]

Lake P. is clearly more than a few inches high per those pics, but not by too much. Looks like 3 to 4 feet higher than normal, tops. The key is the two buildings still standing immed to the lower left of the red roof marina.

I still think that bridge could be the key to damming up that hole. You'd have to airdrop a fill cofferdam into the canal on the other side of the 200' breach though, and the assets necessary to do so may not come online early enough to prevent levels from equalizing. Still, that's a chokepoint, in more ways than one.

[BurbankKarl]

The MSM was reporting a 3 star general was being put in charge of the operations...

what a cluster...

[bwteim]

Quite possible, it will be left to local folks, ham operators, us, bloggers, etc. to fill in the details