Looks like New Orleans is going to get hit hard:
Emergency officials along the Gulf Coast urged residents to move to safer ground as powerful Hurricane Katrina churned toward shore with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said low-lying areas along the Gulf Coast could expect storm surges of up to 25 feet as the Category 5 storm makes landfall early Monday.
Florida- I couldn’t care less about. New Orleans, on the other hand, is a national treasure.
capelza
Aside from having friends there, I also agree completely with you John Cole. Have known about N.O.’s potential future loss, like in the next century…but to maybe see it right in front of my eyes almost makes me cry. This is most definitely a case where I hope the media is really pushing something that might not actually happen for sensationalism.
Jessica
New Orleans is already below sea level–uh-oh. I just hope the area can be cleaned up before the next Mardi Gras. I am planning to visit for the first time this year.
ppGaz
Hmm. I promised myself a day off today, but then I see this, and ……
Look, New Orleans has two problems that are permanent and are never going away: One is its geography and position relative to sea level. The other is its location in the tropical storm track for North America.
These two facts guarantee — not threaten, but guarantee — that at regular, infrequent but unavoidable intervals, New Orleans will be under water.
This could happen this week, or it could happen two weeks from now, or next year, or five years from now, or every summer for the next three years. There is no way to predict these events. There is also no way to prevent them. There is also no way to avoid recognizing that they are inevitable.
Wishful thinking and hand-wringing are really not helpful in the face of such realities. If New Orleans is going to survive as a great historical city in this country, it is going to have to be prepared to deal forthrightly and realistically with these realities, and to do so over and over again. Otherwise, nature is going to take the land back from the foolish people who have built a city there and “hoped” that something like tomorrow’s potential catastrophe doesn’t happen.
Your thoughts?
capelza
Actually, ppgaz, N.O and others have been working on ways to alleviate some of the problems. Off the top of my head, I know that engineers are trying to rebuild the earth forming delta that has been waylaid by the levee system (don’t you just love the Army Corp. of Engineers…but that’s another story). N.O., sitting at the bottom of said delta has paid the price for the soils that have been lost by shooting straight out to sea through these canals that bypassed the normal route. “Nature” had nothing to do with that.
It’s not like they have been ignoring the problem.
As I said before, whatever the politics or “head in the sand” mistakes..losing N.O. would a tragedy to me.
ppGaz
Indeed. When the worst-case “hit” happens, whether it be tomorrow morning or fifty years from now, it’s going to be a great tragedy for a great number of people. Especially for people who live there, or nearby.
Proper planning and preparation will determine the extent to which the city comes back from that event, and how quickly.
Let’s hope that Katrina doesn’t make the worst-case hit, and that the event spurs more and better planning and preparation.
demimondian
capelza…
There’s truth to both sides here. We could have (and should have, but didn’t, thank you Army Corps of Damn-builders) made N.O. safe from a weak S-S category 3 storm. There is nothing we can do to protect the city from a Category 5 storm with a 25 ft. storm surge. Currently, we’re looking at the second of these, not the first. We can only hope that the storm jobs just before making landfall and misses the city.
That is what happened what Andrew came ashore in 1992 — the storm jogged, and so N.O. was spared.
But, ultimately, we know that a Cat 5 will hit the city periodically. Maybe once every two centuries, maybce every hundred years…either way, N.O. is going to be regularly devastated.
BumperStickerist
James Wolcott must be beside himself with anticipation.
srv
It’s sad, but New Orleans shouldn’t be there. Like Florida, it is a disaster area waiting to happen. And we’re are going to be paying for it. Again and again. And then again.
Stormy70
Heh. Indeed.
CaseyL
BP & Stormy: Thanks for crossing the line from “merely irritating” to “not worthy of being spit on.”
Everyone else: DarkSyde over at dKos is doing an outstanding job liveblogging coverage of the hurricane, including updates from the NWS.
neil
Since I know how much John Cole hates it when people blame things that are not Bush’s fault on Bush, I thought this thread would be a good opportunity to point out that the damage done by Katrina to New Orleans is directly traceable back to the war in Iraq.
At least, one will be forced to wonder how much less the damage would have been if the Louisiana National Guard had been present and able to fulfill their mission of disaster prevention and cleanup, instead of being bogged down in Bush’s mission of disaster creation and permanent military bases in Iraq.
jobiuspublius
When will we finally learn to build ABOVE sea level?
yet another jeff
I agree with John on the Florida thing…hell, I even live in the big bend of florida and really only care if NO is hit….
StupidityRules
This is obviously God’s answer to Pat Robertson’s promise that the oil wouldn’t stop flowing if Chavez got assasinated.
CaseyL
When we decide we don’t want to live in low-lying coastal areas like NO – or South Florida, or Holland, or most of SE Asia. In other words: never.
DougJ
I hope that some of those anti-war protesters realize that if they really love the country as they profess to, their energies would be better spent volunteering to help with the clean-up and rescue efforts in the areas hit by the hurricane.
yet another jeff
Ya know, if any of those anti-anti-war protesters really loved the country as they profess to, their energies would be better spent volunteering to help with the clean-up and rescue efforts in the areas hit by the hurricane….
DougJ, that was almost as brilliant in logic as the “Why aren’t Jenna and not-Jenna signing up to fight in their daddy’s war?”.