Merry Christmas
Posted on 12/21/2006 3:11:07 PM PST by RDTF
Heavy rain swamped New Orleans' streets Thursday, backing up traffic as pumping stations struggled to keep up. "Unbelievable," said Pamela Borne, who waded in knee-high water with her daughter on her back to get to her house. "It's very disappointing, that just with an overnight rain of this magnitude, that the city is so ill-prepared."
Most of her home was above the water level, but its ground-level basement, where she had stashed Christmas presents, had 4 inches of water in it before noon, Borne said.
Pumping stations, closely watched since the catastrophic flooding after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, were working, officials said. But the rain lasted so long, they couldn't keep up, said public works director Jose Gonzalez of Jefferson Parish.
"The rest of the day, we will continue to pump," Gonzalez said. "Hopefully, it's not going to rain as much as it did this morning. ... The amount of rain, that's what hurt us."
The same storm that dumped snow across the West brought about 6.6 inches of rain to the New Orleans area through midday Thursday. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch until noon Friday for parts of east-central and southeastern Louisiana.
The community of Larose, about 60 miles south of New Orleans, got an estimated 10 to 12 inches of rain, said meteorologist Fred Zeigler said. Parts of southeastern Louisiana, leading up to New Orleans, had 6 to 8 inches, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
So Bush was at fault. Blanco secured upwards of a hundred billion to rebuild New Orleans.
And this happens. Well, it can't be Bush's fault this time.
Merry Christmas
LOL
or maybe she doesn't have a basement but invented one full of Christmas presents just in time.
Typical media post-New Orleans hype.
Spent all afternoon around the city and didn't see or experience any abnormalities.
Flooding during rain is old news for New Orleans, always was. And what the heck is a "ground level basement"? No one has a basement in NOLA, and if it's ground level, it ain't a basement.
The reporters story was supposed to make us feel sorry for this poor woman. Unfortunately I don't give a wit about this woman or anyone like her.
They choose to live below sea level where it floods during heavy rain. Note to woman and reporter: Move or deal with it and quit whining.
"They need a whole lot of little Dutch boys to put their fingers in the dike."
I really don't think Rosie O'Donuts would let a bunch of little males get close enough.
It sounds like her house *was* built "up", with the main floor eight feet or so above ground. Many older New Orleans houses are like that; the area underneath *can* be enclosed as living space (sometimes it's turned into a rental unit) or used as a garage/carport/basement. See where the entrance stairs lead? Sometimes you'll see a driveway on either side of the central stairs, leading to the garage.
The following is devoted to anyone who believes that a city positioned below sea-level is not prone to flooding.
"Unbelievable," said Pamela Borne, who waded in knee-high water with her daughter on her back to get to her house. "It's very disappointing, that just with an overnight rain of this magnitude, that the city is so ill-prepared."
Sorry to hear about your misfortune, hopefully you have flood insurance. As far as any complaints that the city was unprepared:
1. I believe you, it's not surprising, you re-elected Ray Nagin to lead your city.
2. Why on earth did you re-elact Ray Nagin?
3. Since you re-elected Ray Nagin, who exactly do you think cares about your flooding problem? I hope you aren't expecting the rest of us to bail you out again.
An Asian immigrant who was pining for the fjords of China?
Not even the cemeteries bury people underground.
We should further explore this strange phenomenon of water seeking the lowest places to accumulate. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here.
Just want to put the basement issue to rest.
To the "basement" meanies, there is an style of house here called the raised cottage. It became common in the early 1900's when large parts of the city were drained and development began in the low areas. The raised cottage has a first floor called a basement. They built in this style because they knew there would be periodic flooding, so typically this "basement" was not finished in but used for storage or whatnot. I grew up in one of these houses. On rainy days we would have all the neighborhood kids to play down there and never bother the folks. We kept a ping-pong table in there and it was a great place to work on projects, etc. The living part of the house was on the 2nd and 3rd stories.
I don't care if it really was a basement or not, it was where it was so the rest of the house didn't flood.
Yes here they are called basements, maybe because they are closed off. People here say "under the house" for the old peer and beam houses that are typically only raised about 3-4 feet. A basement house has a full-fledged 1st floor with 8-10 ft. ceilings.
The media always over-does everything. I hate it too, and chances are that ladies house has flooded many times over the years and will flood again. The media is just playing on everybodies jittery-ness over the situation here.
I lived in the New Orleans area for over 30 years and *never* heard a ground-level storage room referred to as a "basement". Sounds like yankee-speak is sifting into the area (as if New Orleans hasn't got enough problems... ;^D.)
They want to make sure they get an accurate count of the casualties in a hurricane.
I grew up here and many of houses had basements. It was not a storage room per se, it was the base of the house. It might have many rooms or it might be one big open space. But everyone called them basements.
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