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A hurricane, which is a Caribbean Indian word for "evil spirit and big wind", is a large rotating system of oceanic tropical origin with sustained surface winds of at least 74 mph somewhere in the storm. Due to the earth's rotation, these storms spin counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere; both types of hemispheric spins are referred to as cyclonic rotation. These storms occur worldwide, and are called different names in different locations (Holland 1993). In the Northwest Pacific across 180 degrees E, they are called typhoons. In the Philippines, they are called chubasco. Around Australia, they are called severe tropical cyclones, while India calls them severe cyclonic storms. In deference to United States readers, storms in this 74-mph or faster category will be called hurricanes in this book.
A hurricane does not form instantaneously, but reaches this status in an incremental process. Initially such a tropical system begins as a tropical disturbance when a mass of organized, oceanic thunderstorms persists for 24 hours (NHC 1998). Sometimes partial rotation is observed, but this is not required for a system to be designated a tropical disturbance. The tropical disturbance becomes classified as a tropical depression when a closed circulation is first observed and sustained winds are less than 39 mph everywhere in the storm. When these sustained winds increase to 39 mph somewhere in the storm, it is then classified as a tropical storm and given a name.
cached source
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The hurricane year is broken up into two seasons. They are referred to as early season and late season. The early season starts June first and runs to September 10. The late season starts on September 10 and runs to the end of November. The date of September 10 is the midway point between the two seasons. This is the date that separates early season from late season. This leads me to what my research was about. I am writing about the differences between early season and late season hurricanes and how they effect the variable that were mentioned earlier in the paper. I feel that late season hurricanes cause more economic loss than early season hurricanes. - ESSAY SAMPLE ON "AN OVERVIEW OF HURRICANES AND STORMS IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN"
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| Flashback September 11th article in Popular Mechanics
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NEW ORLEANS IS SINKING
BY JIM WILSON Published on: September 11, 2001
The surge of a Category 5 storm could put New Orleans under 18 ft. of water.
They don't bury the dead in New Orleans. The highest point in the city is only 6 ft. above sea level, which makes for watery graves. Fearful that rotting corpses caused epidemics, the city limited ground burials in 1830. Mausoleums built on soggy cemetery grounds became the final resting place for generations. Beyond providing a macabre tourist attraction, these "cities of the dead" serve as a reminder of the Big Easy's vulnerability to flooding. The reason water rushes into graves is because New Orleans sits atop a delta made of unconsolidated material that has washed down the Mississippi River.
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Think of the city as a chin jutting out, waiting for a one-two punch from Mother Nature. The first blow comes from the sky. Hurricanes plying the Gulf of Mexico push massive domes of water (storm surges) ahead of their swirling winds. After the surges hit, the second blow strikes from below. The same swampy delta ground that necessitates above-ground burials leaves water from the storm surge with no place to go but up.
The fact that New Orleans has not already sunk is a matter of luck. If slightly different paths had been followed by Hurricanes Camille, which struck in August 1969, Andrew in August 1992 or George in September 1998, today we might need scuba gear to tour the French Quarter.
"In New Orleans, you never get above sea level, so you're always going to be isolated during a strong hurricane," says Kay Wilkins of the southeast Louisiana chapter of the American Red Cross.
During a strong hurricane, the city could be inundated with water blocking all streets in and out for days, leaving people stranded without electricity and access to clean drinking water. Many also could die because the city has few buildings that could withstand the sustained 96- to 100-mph winds and 6- to 8-ft. storm surges of a Category 2 hurricane. Moving to higher elevations would be just as dangerous as staying on low ground. Had Camille, a Category 5 storm, made landfall at New Orleans, instead of losing her punch before arriving, her winds would have blown twice as hard and her storm surge would have been three times as high.
Yet knowing all this, area residents have made their potential problem worse. "Over the past 30 years, the coastal region impacted by Camille has changed dramatically. Coastal erosion combined with soaring commercial and residential development in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have all combined to significantly increase the vulnerability of the area," says Sandy Ward Eslinger, of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's Coastal Services Center in Charleston, S.C.
Early Warning
Emergency planners believe that it is a foregone conclusion that the Big Easy someday will be hit by a scouring storm surge. And, given the tremendous amount of coastal-area development, this watery "big one" will produce a staggering amount of damage. Yet, this doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a massive loss of lives.
The key is a new emergency warning system developed by Gregory Stone, a professor at Louisiana State University (LSU). It is called WAVCIS, which stands for wave-current surge information system. Within 30 minutes to an hour after raw data is collected from monitoring stations in the Gulf, an assessment of storm-surge damage would be available to emergency planners. Disaster relief agencies then would be able to mobilize resources--rescue personnel, the Red Cross, and so forth.
The $4.5 million WAVCIS project, which is now coming on line, will fill a major void in the Louisiana storm warning system, which was practically nonexistent compared to those of other Gulf Coast states. A system of 20 "weather buoys" along the U.S. coastline serves as a warning system for the Gulf of Mexico. However, the buoys are not distributed evenly and Louisiana falls into one of the gaps. From the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Louisiana-Texas border, there are no buoys. Only one buoy serves Louisiana, and it is 62 miles east of the Mississippi River and more than 300 miles to the south. So it's a bit like predicting the weather in Boston when your thermometer is in Philadelphia. The other buoys are near the coastlines of Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, and several hundred miles out into the Gulf.
Stable Platforms
One reason that WAVCIS will be more accurate is that its sensors are attached to offshore oil platforms. The older, floating buoys ride up and down with the waves and often can't give accurate pictures of wave heights and storm surges. Stable platforms mean that the sensors can be placed above and below the water, allowing more precise measurements. Data from each of the 13 stations, five of which are now on line, is transmitted to LSU, where it'll be interpreted and sent to emergency planners centers, via the Internet.
"With this new system [WAVCIS], we get to see real information on storm surge and we can feed that into our models and come up with real data," says Mike Brown, assistant director of the New Orleans emergency management office.
Because large areas would have to be evacuated, false alarms could be harmful to the economy. Stone sees it as a reasonable tradeoff. "It's better to have that frustration than the loss of life. The potential loss of life in Louisiana could be catastrophic because there is just nowhere to go."
popular mechanics
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FEMA exercise in 2004?
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Hurricane Pam Exercise
Release Date: July 23, 2004 Release number: R6-04-093
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Hurricane Pam brought sustained winds of 120 mph, up to 20 inches of rain in parts of southeast Louisiana and storm surge that topped levees in the New Orleans area. More than one million residents evacuated and Hurricane Pam destroyed 500,000-600,000 buildings. Emergency officials from 50 parish, state, federal and volunteer organizations faced this scenario during a five-day exercise held this week at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge.
The exercise used realistic weather and damage information developed by the National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the LSU Hurricane Center and other state and federal agencies to help officials develop joint response plans for a catastrophic hurricane in Louisiana.
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"We made great progress this week in our preparedness efforts," said Ron Castleman, FEMA Regional Director. "Disaster response teams developed action plans in critical areas such as search and rescue, medical care, sheltering, temporary housing, school restoration and debris management. These plans are essential for quick response to a hurricane but will also help in other emergencies."
"Hurricane planning in Louisiana will continue," said Colonel Michael L. Brown, Deputy Director for Emergency Preparedness, Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. "Over the next 60 days, we will polish the action plans developed during the Hurricane Pam exercise. We have also determined where to focus our efforts in the future."
The Hurricane Pam scenario focused on 13 parishes in southeast Louisiana-Ascension, Assumption, Jefferson, Lafourche, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. James, St. John, St. Tammany Tangipahoa, Terrebonne. Representatives from outside the primary parishes participated since hurricane evacuation and sheltering involve communities throughout the state and into Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas.
On March 1, 2003, FEMA became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. FEMA's continuing mission within the new department is to lead the effort to prepare the nation for all hazards and effectively manage federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates proactive mitigation activities, trains first responders, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration.
more details at fema.gov
Questions pouring through floodgates
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KATRINA PUTS END TO LULL
STORM'S WESTWARD PATH PUTS N.O. ON EDGE
Saturday, August 27, 2005 - By Mark Schleifstein Staff writer
Hurricane Katrina gained strength and took aim at the Gulf Coast on Friday night, with a path forecast to hit southeast Louisiana on Monday as a Category 4 storm with top winds of 132 mph. National Hurricane Center forecasters were predicting landfall in lower Plaquemines Parish.. Gov. Kathleen Blanco declared a state of emergency late Friday, making it easier to implement emergency procedures, including evacuations, if necessary.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he will make a decision about evacuations and other emergency procedures today about noon. "If it continues to shift to the west, then we know we'll have to take action," Nagin said Friday night.
The Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness already had mobilized its crisis action team and has plans to activate its Baton Rouge emergency operations center today at 7:30 a.m., spokesman Mark Smith said. State officials convened a conference call with emergency preparedness directors from southeastern Louisiana parishes Friday at 5 p.m. to update officials on the forecast and state plans, Smith said. "But we're in a state of flux," he said. "Nobody's real sure exactly what Katrina is going to do."
On Friday at 10 p.m., Katrina had strengthened to a Category 2 hurricane with top winds of 105 mph as it moved west-southwest away from the Florida Keys at 8 mph. It is expected to take a westward turn today and eventually adopt a more northward heading.
National Hurricane Center forecaster Lixion Avila said as the storm continues to move west, there is a greater chance that it will hit the New Orleans area."The last suite of model runs we had today, most of the reliable computer models all have the storm tracking farther west than the earlier runs and have the track closer to New Orleans," he said.
Several of the models showed the storm path crossing the city.
Forecast factors
Forecasters weigh the model results with their understanding of other meteorological conditions in forecasting a storm path. In this case, they believe that a high-pressure system sitting over New Orleans and the Gulf Coast will lift and that a trough of low pressure that is moving southeast out of the Plains states will dip deep enough into the Gulf of Mexico to capture the hurricane and direct it northeast toward the Alabama-Mississippi state line.
Avila said forecasters are having trouble predicting just how strong the storm will be when it makes landfall. Katrina is expected to pass over the "loop current," a doughnut-shaped circle of warm water that extends down 200 feet that has broken off the Gulf Stream and is floating in the Gulf. In his 10 p.m. update, Avila described the movement over the current akin to "adding high octane fuel to the fire." Such loop currents are believed to be capable of causing the intensity of a hurricane to jump as much as a category or two. So Avila said he would not be surprised if Katrina reached Category 4 strength before going ashore.
"But we don't have good skills in predicting such changes in intensity," he said. "It could intensify rapidly or weaken rapidly right afterward, or right at landfall."
Winds, tides
If the storm stays east of New Orleans, some increased winds and a combination of tide and surge could raise water levels as much as 4 feet in Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes, and a bit less in Lake Pontchartrain, said Paul Trotter, meteorologist in charge of the Slidell office of the National Weather Service.
If the storm moves across New Orleans, though, a Category 4 hurricane could mean a storm surge of 18 to 22 feet, Trotter said. That would be topped by several feet more of waves that would be generated by winds greater than 131 mph.
On Friday night, Nagin said he was alarmed about the storm's potential path and the lack of time to fully prepare for such a large storm.
"This storm really scares me," he said. He said city officials would not be able to make a decision about evacuations and other emergency measures until today, giving residents scant time to prepare. The state plan calls for evacuation plans to be put in place 50 hours before a storm hits. "That's why I'm trying to stress to everyone now to get prepared," Nagin said.
Meanwhile, on Grand Isle, a Police Department dispatcher said late Friday afternoon that no special preparations had begun on the island. "The roads are open, and everything's normal right now," she said.
Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Director Walter Maestri encouraged people to pay close attention to news reports in the light of Katrina's rapidly changing track. "Everybody needs to get their plan and be prepared," he said.
In St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, emergency officials warned residents to stay alert. "We have notified our essential personnel that they may have to report back to work as early as Sunday," St. Bernard Chief Administrative Officer Danny Menesses said.
In St. Tammany Parish, public works employees cleaned storm drains and ditches Friday to prevent clogging in heavy rains. Crews in the parish Emergency Operations Center in Covington were on standby.
"We are as prepared as we can be at this point," Dexter Accardo, director of the St. Tammany Office of Emergency Preparedness, said in a news release. "We will continue to monitor the storm closely and will take other actions as needed."
source
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Storm Expert's Prediction of Major Catastrophe Proves True
(PRWEB) September 3, 2005 -- In 2002 severe weather expert Warren Faidley, a renowned journalist who specializes in the coverage of severe weather, predicted an epic hurricane disaster. On August 29, 2005 his predictions came true when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast.
Faidley's severe weather survival handbook, entitled "How to Survive Any Storm," warned of a similar "unprecedented hurricane disaster." The following is an exeprt from his book:
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"Preparing for the 'Big One'" October 2002
It is my belief that an unprecedented storm disaster is drawing near for the United States. Studies conduced in several coastal cities concluded that tens of thousands of people could be in "extreme risk" if a serious hurricane hit before high-density coastal areas could be evacuated.
Statistically, we are quite overdue for an epic disaster. In recent years, several intense and potentially devastating hurricanes have formed and approached the U.S. coastline. Fortunately, they diminished right before landfall."
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Faidley says the most frustrating part is that no publisher ever picked up his safety guide. "Everyone thought I was crying wolf," Faidley says. During his national lecture series, Faidley continued to stress the need for better preparation - noting the "big one" was only a matter of time -- especially with changing weather patterns.
Faidley is best known as one of the world's top hands-on extreme weather experts and as an award-winning storm photographer. He often serves as an on-air severe weather expert for the media including Fox News. He is a corporate safety advisor and spokesperson for several Fortune 500 companies.
Faidley covered Hurricane Katrina as it made landfall in Mobile, Alabama and in Biloxi, Mississippi. He is a veteran of over 15 major Hurricanes and is one of the few individuals who have survived both a Category 5 hurricane (Andrew 1992) and an F-5 tornado.
Faidley encourages everyone to support the relief efforts.
prweb.com
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Katrina went from a Category 1 to a 5 in a matter of just two days
AFTER passing over some Florida land. That is NOT normal.
so...when did they downgrade the storm???
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Hurricanes of biblical proportions?
from Category 5 to 4 to 3 where next?
Hurricane could leave 1 million homeless
Experts warn of 'incredible environmental disaster' of biblical proportions
Updated: 7:21 a.m. ET Aug. 29, 2005
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.
Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm.
Katrina reached Category 5 level Sunday before weakening just slightly to a strong Category 4 storm early Monday. But with top winds of 150 mph and the power to lift sea level by as much as 28 feet above normal, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1 million people homeless.
- - msnbc.msn.com
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downgraded to a Category 3 storm
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Katrina now category 3, pounds Gulf Coast
Aug 29, 2005, 15:51 GMT NEW ORLEANS, LA, United States (UPI) -- Hurricane Katrina was downgraded to a Category 3 storm Monday as it pounded the Louisiana and Mississippi coastal areas.
Heavy rain and sustained winds up to 124 mph buffeted the area between New Orleans and Gulfport, Miss., where substantial flooding was forecast by the National Hurricane Center over the next few hours.
New Orleans could still get storm surge flooding up to 20 feet above normal tides, as could other areas near and to the east of the hurricane`s center, forecasters said.
At 11 a.m. EDT, the eye of Hurricane Katrina was about 35 miles east-northeast of New Orleans and about 45 miles west southwest of Biloxi, Miss.
Rainfall totals of 5 to 10 inches were expected with isolated reports of 15 inches expected in the hurricane`s path in the Gulf Coast and the Tennessee Valley.
- monsters and critics
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Bush give FEMA powers on the 27th
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 27, 2005
Statement on Federal Emergency Assistance for Louisiana
The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.
The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.
Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding.
Representing FEMA, Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response, Department of Homeland Security, named William Lokey as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: FEMA (202) 646-4600.
whitehouse.gov/
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these are the areas The Whitehouse refers to
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Bush orders FEMA to protect Upsidedownland
I checked the parish map against the White House's own press release, posted on their own site. I have tried to figure out how this is my own mistake, but I can't find it. And the results are frankly so bizarre I had to make the graphic in order to properly show you.
Welcome to upside-down-land: the areas at risk for Katrina were quite remarkably the areas not included in Bush's declaration of emergency.
What the hell?
Compare and contrast with the full and specific statewide list of parishes and the services they will receive issued after the storm hit.
Is this really what Bush authorized before the storm hit? Are they really that incompetent?
Bob Harris
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We are throw-away people
One in five individuals and one in seven families in New Orleans live under the poverty line, which in 2004 was $18,850 for a family of four. If Sept. 11 showed the power of a nation united in response to a devastating attack, Hurricane Katrina reveals the fault lines of a region and a nation, rent by profound social divisions, wrote Mark Naison, a professor of African American studies at Fordham University, in a piece quoted by The New York Times. (Kanye West was a bit less diplomatic in his choice of words.)
Has New Orleans been ignored by the nations leaders? Mayor Ray Nagin thinks so. Democrats (and some Republicans) have harshly criticized the federal government for its handling of the disaster. Some have complained that the Bush administration diverted funds that could have gone to levee building and reinforcement to the war in Iraq and tax cuts for the wealthy. Matthew Barge of FactCheck.org provides an even-handed assessment of this charge, concluding that, yes, the president drastically underfunded an Army Corps of Engineers project to enhance the levee system protecting New Orleans: Bushs budget allocated $3 million of the $11 million the Corps requested for the project in fiscal year 2004, and $3.9 million of the $22.5 million requested in 2005 (Congress subsequently raised the funding to $5.5 million in both years). That said, its unclear whether the money cut would have made a difference. The Army Corps of Engineers which is under the President's command and has its own reputation to defend insists that Katrina was just too strong, Barge writes, and that even if the levee project had been completed it was only designed to withstand a category 3 hurricane.
What is clear is that local officials had been complaining as early as four years ago that not enough funds were being devoted to hurricane protection. Federal officials knew of the danger, but little was done. The last paragraph of the FactCheck.org analysis is especially chilling:
Whether or not a "breach" was "anticipated," the fact is that many individuals have been warning for decades about the threat of flooding that a hurricane could pose to a set below sea level and sandwiched between major waterways. A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) report from before September 11, 2001 detailed the three most likely catastrophic disasters that could happen in the United States: a terrorist attack in New York, a strong earthquake in San Francisco, and a hurricane strike in New Orleans. In 2002, New Orleans officials held the simulation of what would happen in a category 5 storm. Walter Maestri, the emergency coordinator of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans, recounted the outcome to PBS NOW With Bill Moyers:
Maestri, September 2002: Well, when the exercise was completed it was evidence that we were going to lose a lot of people. We changed the name of the [simulated] storm from Delaney to K-Y-A-G-B... kiss your ass goodbye... because anybody who was here as that category five storm came across... was gone.
A terrorist strike in New York, a hurricane in New Orleans, and an earthquake in San Francisco is our government trying to win the Triple Crown of disasters? This time, an entire American city was turned into a war zone. An entire urban population was thrown onto the trash heap. Do we have to wait for a third catastrophe for the people in charge to get the message?
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| Hurricane Katrina
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The poorest 20% (you can argue with the number -- 10%? 18%? no one knows) of the city was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious bullshit about the bullheaded people who wouldn't leave. The evacuation plan was strictly laissez-faire. It depended on privately owned vehicles, and on having ready cash to fund an evacuation. The planners knew full well that the poor, who in new orleans are overwhelmingly black, wouldn't be able to get out. The resources -- meaning, the political will -- weren't there to get them out. White per capita income in Orleans parish, 2000 census: $31,971. Black per capita: $11,332. Median *household* income in B.W. Cooper (Calliope) Housing Projects, 2000: $13,263.
Email attributed to NOLA rescue worker; economics of disaster
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| a picture tells a thousand words:
Leonard Thomas, 23, cries after a SWAT team burst into the flooded home he and his family were living in on Monday, Sept. 5, 2005. Neighbors had reported that they were squatting in the house in the wake of Hurricane Katrina but the authorities left after his family proved they owned the house. Some rescuers are not taking any more food and water to those who have decided to stay in an effort to force them out. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
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- Lockdown in New Orleans / Louisiana as usual the power crazy get their priorities wrong, as people searching for fresh liquids, diapers and other necessities are labelled 'looters', martial law is declared... New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has pulled 15-hundred cops off their search-and-rescue mission reassigned them to go after the looters.[round up]
How much warning did Bush Have? Hurricane Katrina swept through southern Florida last week as a minimal hurricane, killing at least nine people and cutting out power to more than a million homes. Both the mayors of New Orleans & Louisiana are said to have received 24 hrs notice...
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Reduced protection for New Orleans / Louisiana
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I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction, said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. I think part of the problem is it's not so much the reduction, it's the drastic reduction in one fiscal year. It's the immediacy of the reduction that I think is the hardest thing to adapt to.
There is an economic ripple effect, too. The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.
[snip]
One of the hardest-hit areas of the New Orleans district's budget is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes. SELA's budget is being drained from $36.5 million awarded in 2005 to $10.4 million suggested for 2006 by the House of Representatives and the president.
findarticles.com
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left to rot...The whole area was unprotected:
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Where Did All the Money Go? Federal Flood Protection Works
Posted July 25 1997 The US Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) is responsible for keeping much of America dry, including some large cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans. The cost of this work has been enormous.
Unfortunately, the ACE failed to apply a basin-wide model to flood water prediction. Long stretches of rivers such as the Mississippi have been diked, leaving floodwaters nowhere to pond. Dikes, supposedly high enough to protect during 500-year floods, have been overtopped every few decades, with enormous losses. The long dikes between the cities serve no purpose other than to allow farming of lands that would otherwise be subject to periodic flooding. In theory, the ACE has authority to dynamite these dikes during major floods, but it almost never does.
A realistic assessment of flood dynamics and the interaction of all the dikes along a river basin are essential to the development of a workable flood management policy. Thousands of miles of dikes should be cut open, which will reduce ACE maintenance costs dramatically and improve protection for the big cities.
http://www.jhcrawford.com/hot/1997-07-25_x.htm
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Deliberate Water & Power cut???
9:30PM Thurs Sept 1. Update: Please help spread this message:
There are supplies sitting in Baton Rouge for the folks in New Orleans, but the National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out. They are turning away people with s[QUOTE]upplies, claiming it is too dangerous. If we have planes that can drop bombs on people in Iraq, certianly we can air drop supplies into the city. Our goverment is KILLING the people of New Orleans. This is the message I am now sending to all major media sources, national and worldwide, as well as posting to email lists, blogs, etc. The story is getting out that the people there are not getting supplies, but the truth of WHY is not. Please help spread the word, we must get this story out. Please so not let any more of my friends die.
I can be reached at 254.640.8441 - feel free to call me or give my number to any media that needs a contact person to talk to.
Here is my message:
I am a resident of the Bywater in New Orleans (9th Ward). I am one of the lucky ones that was able to evacuate before the storm.
I have recently managed to speak to some friends stranded in New Orleans. They are starving and dehydrating and there is no news of when they will be receiving food and water. I have spoken to relief efforts and understand that there are plenty of supplies waiting for these people, BUT THEY ARE NOT BEING ALLOWED INTO THE CITY.
The National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out, except the buses being evacuated. The excuse that they can not bring supplies into New Orleans because of the looting and gun fire is not a valid excuse - if they are too afraid to enter the streets of New Orleans, they need to be air dropping supplies into the city. If the United States is capable of sending planes that can withstand enemy fire to drop bombs in Iraq, certainly they are capable of air dropping supplies into a city where the worst of the gunfire they could encouter would be from semi-automatics.
Our government is killing the people of New Orleans. By witholding supplies, they are ensuring more deaths, and I hold them complicit.
Please bring this matter to the attention of the people of the United States. They need to know that New Orleans is deliberatly being denied food and water. Perhaps if the people there had food and water, they might not be shooting off guns.
Please feel free to call me for further information or with any questions. I appreciate your attention to this most serious matter.
I fear for my friends.
Sincerely, Andrea Garland
Get Your Act On! (getyouracton.com)
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Relief workers confront 'urban warfare'
September 2 2005 - NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Violence disrupted relief efforts Thursday in New Orleans as authorities rescued desperate residents still trapped in the flooded city and tried to evacuate thousands of others living among corpses and human waste. Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown said his agency was attempting to work "under conditions of urban warfare." Police snipers were stationed on the roof of their precinct, trying to protect it from armed miscreants roaming seemingly at will. Officers warned a CNN crew to stay off the streets because of escalating danger, and cautioned others about attempted shootings and rapes by groups of young men.
"This is a desperate SOS," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said in a statement Thursday afternoon, with thousands of people stranded at the city's convention center with no food, water or electricity -- and fading hope.
Residents expressed growing frustration with the disorder evident on the streets, raising questions about the coordination and timeliness of relief efforts. "Why is no one in charge?" asked one frustrated evacuee at the convention center. "I find it hard to believe."
Government officials insisted they were putting forth their best efforts and pleaded for patience, saying further help was on the way.
One displaced resident at the Louisiana Superdome issued a warning to authorities who may be headed to the stadium, where up to 30,000 people sought refuge after Monday's Hurricane Katrina and now await evacuation to Texas by bus. "Please don't send the National Guard," Raymond Cooper told CNN by telephone. "Send someone with a bullhorn outside the place that can talk to these people first." He described scenes of lawlessness and desperation, with people simply dragging corpses into corners. "They have quite a few people running around here with guns," he said. "You got these young teenage boys running around up here raping these girls."
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Elsewhere, groups of armed men wandered the streets, buildings smoldered and people picked through stores for what they could find. Charity Hospital, one of several facilities attempting to evacuate patients, was forced to halt the effort after coming under sniper fire. Recovery efforts also continued Thursday in Mississippi, where Katrina smashed entire neighborhoods and killed at least 185 people. "We got hit by the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told CNN Thursday.
'Thousands' dead
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco gave the grim news that "thousands" of people died in the hurricane and its aftermath in New Orleans and surrounding parishes, though she said no official count had been compiled. Brown said those who ignored the city's mandatory evacuation order bore some responsibility. "I think the death toll may go into the thousands and, unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," he told CNN.
Stranded people remained in buildings, on roofs, in the backs of trucks or gathered in large groups on higher ground, with little knowledge of when -- or if -- help would come. Despite the deteriorating conditions in the city, hurricane survivors from neighboring Plaquemines Parish have started streaming into the city, according to Nagin. "We are overwhelmed and out of resources, but we welcome them with open arms and will figure this out together," the mayor said in a written statement.
Police officers told CNN that some of their fellow officers had simply stopped showing up for duty, cutting manpower by 20 percent or more in some precincts. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday that 4,200 National Guard troops trained as military police will be deployed in New Orleans over the next three days, which he said would quadruple the law enforcement presence in the city. Pentagon officials said the first contingent of 100 military police officers would arrive at Louis Armstrong International Airport at 10 p.m. (11 p.m. ET) -- combat-ready for immediate deployment in New Orleans.
'Unsanitary and unsafe'
Blanco said Thursday she has requested the mobilization of 40,000 National Guard troops to restore order and assist in relief efforts.
A humanitarian catastrophe unfolded at the convention center, where thousands of increasingly frustrated people waited for help amid dead bodies, feces and garbage. Numerous bodies could be seen, both inside and outside the facility, and one man died of a seizure while a CNN crew was at the scene. A National Guard helicopter dropped food and water Thursday afternoon, although the amount was far short of enough to meet the needs of the throngs that had gathered. Nagin advised those gathered at the center to march over the Crescent City Connection bridge to the west bank of the Mississippi River to find relief in neighboring Jefferson Parish.
"The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies," said Nagin, adding that officials did not expect to have enough buses for evacuations.
Brown told CNN Thursday evening that federal officials only found out about the convention center crisis earlier in the day, and that he had since directed that "all available resources" be made available there.
Boat rescue teams looking for Katrina survivors told CNN they had been ordered to stand down Thursday by FEMA officials concerned about security.
However, FEMA issued a statement from Washington denying it had suspended operations, though the agency conceded there had been "isolated incidents where security has become an issue."
Homeland Security Secretary MichaelChertoff said that the Coast Guard has rescued about 3,000 people from flooded areas in New Orleans and the surrounding parishes. At the city's airport, a field hospital set up by FEMA was "overwhelmed" with patients, a medical team commander said. Equipment normally used to move luggage was instead ferrying patients to a treatment center and to planes and buses for evacuation.
"I do not have the words in my vocabulary to describe what is happening here," said Ozro Henderson. "
'Catastrophe' and 'disaster' don't explain it."
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Rows of cots line the floor of the Astrodome, where 15,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees have been given shelter in Houston, Friday, Sept. 2, 2005. A steady stream of evacuees bused in from New Orleans continued to arrive at the Astrodome site long after the facility had reached capacity late Thursday, leaving many to wait out the night in the parking lot before more shelters could be made available. (AP Photo/The Advocate, Liz Condo)
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Outside the Superdome, throngs of people waiting for a bus ride to Texas completely covered an outside plaza, where they waited in the heat and rain. Buses ferried displaced residents to Houston's Astrodome, which will serve as a shelter until FEMA can come up with more permanent housing.
"We're finding more and more people coming out of the woodwork," Brown said. "They're appearing in places we didn't know they existed." Blanco said more school buses would be brought in from across Louisiana to increase the pace of the evacuation. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it expected to complete the sealing off of the 17th Street Canal, where a flood-control levee breached. (Recovery efforts)
Other developments
In Washington, the Senate convened in special session Thursday night and approved a $10.5 billion disaster relief request from the Bush administration. The House is expected to do the same when it takes up the matter Friday. (Full story)
Gasoline prices spiked as high as $5 a gallon in some areas Thursday as consumers fearing a gas shortage raced to the pumps. The runup in prices prompted Bush to warn against gouging and to encourage Americans to conserve.
- CNN
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"There's no drinking water. The toilets are backed up. There's no power, no electricity and there's no telling when help will arrive," ..."If you're not from the South, you don't understand that once that levee breaks, you've got snakes, you've got alligators, you've got everything going through the city."
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