Katrina in LA

aaharvel

yup. i'm giving blood today.

faster100

That quote wasnt personal, Just wanted the quote for my link..

ND13

I've heard several reports from people that had went thru Camille, and they say Katrina was worse. I guess that all depends on their local, but it still puts things into perspective. Mother Nature can be a ****, when she wants to be, huh?

Mike682

I urge everyone to give anything they can.

This page has contact information for a bunch of agencies requesting aid for Katrina relief efforts:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Katrina%20Donations

aaharvel

faster100 wrote:

That quote wasnt personal, Just wanted the quote for my link..

oh no that's cool man. I didn't even mean it like that. The damage was supposed to be Cat.5 Catastrophic AT below sea level- Yeah they got hammered- but it could have been worse with ALOT more deaths.

That's all I meant.

DarqueKnight

Things in Baton Rouge (80 miles west of New Orleans) are rapidly returning to normal. Power was off in 1/3 of the city yesterday. There was a relatively small amount of property damage from trees falling on cars and houses. There were over 300 utility poles in the city that were either snaped in two or blown over. We lost most local and long distance phone service, but that has been mostly restored. No flooding, serious injury or loss of life here that I know of.

Electrical and repair crews worked through the night to restore services. They were unable to begin work until late afternoon because of the winds.

We would have had devastation here if the storm had not turned eastward shortly after making landfall.

New Orleans will be months recovering from this.

polkatese

Glad to hear you are a OK, DK!

MacLeod

DarqueKnight wrote:

Things in Baton Rouge (80 miles west of New Orleans) are rapidly returning to normal. Power was off in 1/3 of the city yesterday. There was a relatively small amount of property damage from trees falling on cars and houses. There were over 300 utility poles in the city that were either snaped in two or blown over. We lost most local and long distance phone service, but that has been mostly restored. No flooding, serious injury or loss of life here that I know of.

Electrical and repair crews worked through the night to restore services. They were unable to begin work until late afternoon because of the winds.

We would have had devastation here if the storm had not turned eastward shortly after making landfall.

New Orleans will be months recovering from this.

I bet the churches in Baton Rouge are full tonight! I know Id be there on my knees thanking God for dodging that bullet.

gshisme

polkatese wrote:

Glad to hear you are a OK, DK!

Ditto!

Amazing how much more damage was to the east than the west.

DarqueKnight

MacLeod wrote:

I bet the churches in Baton Rouge are full tonight!

Nope. As soon as the winds died down around 4pm, people were out jogging, walking their dogs, and going about their business as if nothing had happened.

The only places that were packed to capacity were the restaurants, which resumed operations around 6pm. Restaurants that were in close proximity to hotels had lines around the block. Many restaurants ran out of food and had to turn customers away.

I feel bad about all the people along the gulf coast who have been displaced and suffered injury and loss of life. It is particularly tragic in New Orleans because, unlike most places after a disaster, we just can't immediately go in and repair and rebuild.

It appears that flooding will do more damage than the actual hurricane winds. Since New Orleans is geographically a very low-lying swamp, there is no place for the water to naturally drain off to. The water can't be pumped out because the city is surrounded by water (the Mississippi river and the lakes) that is naturally higher than the city. Pumping water out into the already swollen river and lakes would cause massive failures of the already stressed levee system. One levee (17th Street Canal levee) has already been breached. Waters in that area are expected to rise to 12 to 15 feet. The engineers are saying nothing can be done to repair it.

ND13

DK, good to see you made it out with no major problems there, bro. It's also nice to see that you have power. I have family in the area, Alabama, Missisippi, and Louisiana, that I haven't got news about, yet. I hope they're all okay.

Anyways, good to hear from you .

Noel

dorokusai

Where's Paul!!

wodom1

If I remember right, Paul lived in Luling, LA which is right on the Mississippi River. Hopefully everything is OK.

heiney9

Not to be bringing everybody down, but the mayor of New Orleans has just stated they fear hundreds maybe thousands dead in the city of New Orleans. Apparently over the last 24 hours they have been recovering bodies. Just when I thought at least casualties would be low this news comes in. A very sad tragedy, my heart goes out to all affected.

H9

DarqueKnight

wodom1 wrote:

If I remember right, Paul lived in Luling, LA which is right on the Mississippi River. Hopefully everything is OK.

I have family in Luling. Most of the Luling area is 12 to 15 feet above sea level, which make it 20 to 30 feet above New Orleans. Therefore, they are not flood prone under "normal" circumstances.

Ironically, they moved from the heart of New Orleans five years ago to get away from this sort of thing. Unfortunately, they still commuted to work in the city, so their jobs are in limbo right now.

I have not been able to contact them, but they are not the type of people to try to "ride out" a hurricane, so I assume they are somewhere safe.

DarqueKnight

heiney9 wrote:

Not to be bringing everybody down, but the mayor of New Orleans has just stated they fear hundreds maybe thousands dead in the city of New Orleans.

A frequent question is "why didn't they just leave town or move into shelters?"

The short answer is that many people didn't take the storm seriously.

New Orleans has not taken a direct hit from a hurricane since hurricane Betsy in 1965. Now, you have two generations of people who have experienced yearly hurricane warnings with little, if any, real impact occuring. Since 1965, we have had 40 years of "close calls" where a hurricane has diverted eastward at the last minute and spared New Orleans from serious harm. This hurricane, like many others during the last 40 years, did divert eastward at the last minute. However, this storm was so large that the diversion was not enough to spare the city significant harm.

Ron-P

Read this. A National Geographic article from last October. It gave me goosebumps.

http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/

ND13

Ron-P wrote:

Read this. A National Geographic article from last October. It gave me goosebumps.

http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/

Freaky!!!