AP: “Monstrous Hurricane Katrina barreled toward the Big Easy on Sunday with 175-mph wind and a threat of a 28-foot storm surge, forcing a mandatory evacuation, a last-ditch Superdome shelter and prayers for those left to face the doomsday scenario this below-sea-level city has long dreaded.”
Also from the AP: “When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans on Monday, it could turn one of America’s most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city’s legendary cemeteries.”
The BBC has comments from people in the area.
Then there’s this apocalyptic statement from the National Weather Service in New Orleans:
URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
413 PM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005…EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA…
…DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED…MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL…LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.
THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE…INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.
HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY…A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.
AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD…AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS…PETS…AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.
POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS…AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.
THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING…BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.
I just wrote this in comments, and wanted to add it here:
Yes, the penchant for understatement has been driving me crazy for the last two days. The media has really dropped the ball on this, along with the local government. Sometimes it is necessary to recognize that the normal policy of “let’s try not to spread panic” must give way to a policy of “okay, let’s face it, panic is completely appropriate at this point” so that people realize exactly what they’re dealing with.Barring a last-minute change of intensity or track, which grows more unlikely with each passing moment, this will be the worst hurricane in American history, in terms of the extent of death and destruction that it will cause. There is no use comparing it to previous hurricanes.
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Categories: Hurricane Katrina
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August 28th, 2005 at 7:25:45 pm
And they aren’t kidding with that forecast. We rode out Typhoon Karen on Guam in the early 1960s and that’s *exactly* what we saw. We had (as I recall) 200 knot sustained winds in the eyewall, which went tangent over our home.
(My dad was with the Joint Typhoon Warning Center on Nimitz Hill. We were lucky. We were in the typhoon-proof housing. The higher ranking officers were in frame houses that were completely destroyed.)
August 28th, 2005 at 7:33:52 pm
That statement isn’t kidding a bit. I’ve seen what a Cat 4 can do. I’m very glad I’ve never seen a Cat 5.
August 28th, 2005 at 7:34:14 pm
Why didn’t they issues this statement, like, yesterday? Yeah, yeah, panic prevention, blah blah blah. I am so frustrated, grrrr.
August 28th, 2005 at 7:36:53 pm
We can hope that the Navy can bring an aircraft carrier around soon to provide water and supplies as was done after the tsunami.
I have one friend who’s staying put at the Windsor Court Hotel and others in Houma and Baton Rouge.
I’ll be watching closely.
August 28th, 2005 at 7:39:28 pm
The horrifying images I keep imagining are ones that make New Orleans and SE Louisiana look undistinguishable from Aceh, Indonesia.
Reading the NHC advisory, it appears I am not the only imagining this.
August 28th, 2005 at 7:39:30 pm
Brendan–
Apparently, the NO Mayor is being praised for saying the right things. I’ve heard this from a few natives
We have to remember that NO-folks tend to be “whatever” by nature and have been hardened by years of dire warnings.
The Mayor’s early, serious statements were derided as apocalyptic, so had he gone to mandatory evacuations that early, he might have had a National Guard situation on his hands.
As it is, the evacuation has reportedly been friendly and orderly.
August 28th, 2005 at 7:54:13 pm
I absolutely agree with Brendan’s statements on the “no-panic” mentality. Media coverage has been subdued to the point of being irresponsible. Anchors are maintaining levity even when dealing with very serious storm consequences. “Yes, the city may go underwater. Back to you, Kathy.”
The worst was CNN earlier today. “When people evacuate, they often leave their pets behind. What happens to these pets?” That kind of reporting is utterly ri-god-damn-diculous in a situation like this. I’m sorry, but when 5-year old Timmy is about to be under 20 feet of water, the human interest is already there. You don’t need to talk about cute furry animals when people are facing death.
Oh, by the way — oil up $4 a barrel.
August 28th, 2005 at 8:00:52 pm
Yeah, saw that oil news, and updated my own blog with the story below:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050828/bs_nm/energy_crude_dc_1
Topping $70 a barrel BEFORE the trading day starts. Not good.
August 28th, 2005 at 8:01:51 pm
oil up $4 a barrel
I thought the markets didn’t open until tomorrow?
August 28th, 2005 at 8:04:39 pm
Tom, uhm, orderly and friendly? I have been reading about not so friendly encounters at gas stations. What is so friendly about bumper to bumper traffic hours before the worst hurracane ever hits you? I do not want to die in an “orderly and friendly” evacuation that leaves me stranded on a free way overpass so I can die from tropical winds before the meat of the hurracane even arrives! I hate to think this, but some of these people who did not evacuate earlier were just asking for it. The complacent culture of New Orleans be dammed, if the mayor’s statements where apocaliptic it’s because, this is like the end of times for New Orleans! Argh! Nobody, not even emergency personel, should be required to ride this monster out. But I guess since the mayor did not call for an evac till today, maybe they are going to need some emergency personel there so they can, uhm, I don’t know, die with the irresponsible people who chose to stay and the poor people the local authorities failed to get out in time. Tomorrow and for weeks we will hear about “all we could have done”, etc, and it will be bullshit, “oh, if FEMA had just studied this and that, built a leeve that was three feet higher, or a gigantic pump..” which is a bullshit. What really needs to be said is, oh if the freaking mayor would have evacuated Saturday afternoon and left the dumass people who think they can ride it out to fend for themselves! and been a little more realistic about the logistical nightmare and down right impossibility of evacuationg a metropolitan area that requires 72 hours in less than 24.. grrr.
August 28th, 2005 at 8:06:53 pm
What happens to these pets? What will happen is, they will be swimming in the water with everything else, stubborn humans included. I think a smart dog has a better chance of survival than a stupid human who thinks he can make it on his own. grrr. I am upset. grrr.
August 28th, 2005 at 8:12:16 pm
Bea–
When I said “orderly and friendly,” I was going by what some friends who were in the process of leaving said a few hours ago; maybe it was not representative.
Another problem the Mayor was facing was uncertainty over what mandatory evacuation really means. One of the things it apparently means is that the city is responsible (financially, among other ways) for getting people out.
It seems difficult to believe that with all the prior warning shots and the elaborate doomsday scenarios (not the least being those put together by our blogmaster), NO does not have this drill down.
There’s nothing like the real thing, but I agree with the sentiment that the difference between how most folks are treating this and the seriousness of what’s coming to pass is unconscionable.
August 28th, 2005 at 8:13:54 pm
Continuing on this theme… CNN is reporting that some tourists were unable to get out because their flights were cancelled, they couldn’t get rental cars, etc. If the mayor had gotten things moving Saturday morning, an awful lot of those people might have realized they needed to get out, and they could have caught flights, etc. Also, some sort of quasi-organized rental car car-pool plan might have been nice. The government called up the churches; did they not think of calling the rental car agencies?
It’s unforgivable that they have done such a poor job with this. They’ve known for decades that this was a possibility — indeed, a certainty that it would happen eventually. And if I, a mere law-student blogger and amateur hurricane buff, was worried about this scenario at the very moment it started turning southwest over Florida (which I was), surely the New Orleans government should have gotten their sh*t together much, much earlier.
August 28th, 2005 at 8:36:18 pm
A mandatory evacuation simply means that
if you choose to stay, you are on your own. Emergency personnel will not necessarily answer 911 calls. It doesn’t mean you will be forced to evacuate, and it doesn’t mean you should sit on your butt and wait for an elected offical to tell you when to evacuate. It’s your life. You decide how you want to risk it. Geez.
August 28th, 2005 at 8:38:34 pm
Mike, the mandatory evacuation sends a signal to everyone that they really, really should leave. Lots of people were waiting for the order. The order came too late. Lots of those people will now die. Those are facts.
August 28th, 2005 at 8:40:37 pm
This storm is very very bad news. Although it did hit Florida in a much weakened state, my family is still without power, all our trees are uprooted, and they have to go to the national guard daily for ice and water. If it accomplished all this as a Cat 1 - I pray for those misguided souls who have chosen beyond reason to stay and meet their maker so willingly and irrationally.
August 28th, 2005 at 8:43:18 pm
The local government officials completly failed these people, even the dumbasses who thought they would just ride it out. So the mayor was worried about not having the financial and manpower resources to evacuate the city? SO WHAT?! Do as much as you can, then, not as little as you can, which seems to me is what is happening! I am sure that lots more people would have evacuated if they had enforced to the best of their abilities a mandatory evac since yesterday. Sure, not everyone would leave and live, but I am sure some of those “I am not going anywhere” types would have packed up and left. They shut have down the bars and told people the truth–that shelters will not survive, that the red cross is not coming, that flying washers and driers are going to rip a hole into the Superdome and the hurracane will then tear the dam thing apart–ok, ok, that might be a hyperbolic statement, but sadly, it does not sound too hyperbolic to me right now.
August 28th, 2005 at 8:44:28 pm
Sure it is not a hoax?
August 28th, 2005 at 8:46:51 pm
Well, if all a mandatory evac means is emergency personel will not be required to stay, then why not call it? I mean, how can you require someone to stay and very likely die so that some lazy person who wanted to ride it out will have someone to die with? So, now that this is a mandatory evac, do doctors and policemen and such emergency personel have to stay, or could they have left this morning and stayed voluntarily?
August 28th, 2005 at 8:55:34 pm
Sure it is not a hoax?
WHAT is not a hoax? The NWS statement? Are you kidding? Check the link — it goes to the NWS website.
August 28th, 2005 at 9:08:19 pm
Bea,
Typically, I believe policemen stay, although, obviously, they wouldn’t be riding around at the height of a hurricane. A friend of mine works as an EMT. He stays and works out of an assigned shelter. He does not leave the shelter during a hurricane. If I’m not mistaken, hospitals remain open. (Some folks simply can’t be transported.) Power company employees stay.
In other words, lot of folks have to stay; however, during the height of a hurricane, no one is coming to bail you out. No one in their right mind goes out in the middle of a hurricane.
I agree with you, though. He had nothing to lose by calling for a madatory evacuation sooner.
August 28th, 2005 at 9:26:06 pm
Well, I know emergency personel are not driving around in a storm, my God. What I am thinking is, why on earth do you need emergency personel to stay IN New Orleans when the place is getting flooded! This is not just like, oh, lets go to the safe part of the building while the storm hits and then we can come out and help. Outside emergency crews will have to be airlifted in, or I guess ride in by boat or whatever, to help any survivors, INCLUDING those emergency personel who stayed, no? Having people on hand to come in as soon as it is over is one thing, staying to become part of the problem (part of the survivors that need to be rescued from lake New Orleans) is another. Power company people on hand makes sense, power people INSIDE the city? Why? What can they possibly do to help when the big ass waves start flooding the city into a lake? Maybe there is something they are essential for, that cannot be done remotely, like turning off powerlines or some such thing, but uhm, wont the hurracane do that all on its own? I seriously do not see the need for emergency personal to be mandated to stay, grrr. The hospitals have to remain open, and I understand that, and I understand the need for staff to help all those bed ridden people, etc, but, uhm, can you really REQUIRE me to actively choose to die by staying so that the patient can have someone around to die with them?
August 28th, 2005 at 9:38:40 pm
I don’t know. I suppose you’d have to choose between the risk of losing your job and the potential risk of losing your life.
I’m not that familar with New Orleans. The examples I gave were from situations I am familar with in Mobile. We don’t have the same threat of flooding.