Hurricane Katrina

Will the water recede though if the levee breaks?I'm not so sure this couldn't wipe out much of the city permanently.

I guess they'll rebuild even if gets that bad, but that's an awful lot of damage, 15-20' water covering New Orleans.I read somewhere that there is evidence south Louisiana and parts of Texas are sinking due not just to erosion and the levees but subduction or something like that.

Ok, the following link is pretty far-out, but here's the thing. I saw last year right before all the hurricanes hit down here in Florida a cloud pattern, like spikes, that I had never seen before, and then wound up reading on the Net about this guy that pointed out such a pattern as a signature of weather engineering.I mentioned it to my wife, kind of laughing it off, but it was a very odd weather pattern, and mentioned how this guy says these are the signatures to look for in massive weather engineering. The same guy pretty much predicted this year a massive Cat 5 would be steered directly at our Gulf oil production centers.Now, I still don't really believe in this conspiracy angle, but these have been some strange coincidences. Let me add that I don't see what this guy is talking about in some of the cloud patterns he links to, but still thought the link might be of interest.Site not found · DreamHostThis message has been edited by randman, 08-28-2005 05:43 PMThis message has been edited by randman, 08-28-2005 05:44 PM

I cannot believe it, but according to Nightline, they didn't get aircraft in to begin flying sandbags in until tonight. With that sort of level of investment on the line, it is hard to imagine we didn't have aircraft dropping sandbags within 2-3 hours of the levee breaking.Anyone know if they can repair it before the city is totally flooded out?

I think I finally found an article talking about the issue more precisely.
Geography Complicates Levee Repair - The New York TimesApparently, they have been working "feverishly" but they have to make sure they have a continuous drop going, or do the scenario you are discussing and just wait for it to settle.I suppose starting at the slack high tide and then working on the outgoing tide would be the way to go so that, hopefully, the water is not really pushing in (or out), and then try to cram it full as fast as possible, and hope by the low tide we've gained the upper hand for the incoming.Of course, maybe the Gulf has lower tides than some places.This seems to me about as worst-case as you can get.If they rebuild, they should build levees that can stand anything. Moving dirt is not nearly as expensive as losing a city.This message has been edited by randman, 08-31-2005 01:39 AM

You can build mountains around the city if you have to. If you are going to have a city there, you have to do what it takes to protect it. Build bigger and more massive levees, and it won't be flooded this way again.It CAN BE DONE.If New Orleans sinks 10' lower, it can still be protected from the Gulf.Of course, the issue may become whether rebuilding is all that viable.

somebody seems to have messed up bigtime WdsuHow could they not have a couple of hundred blackhawks at their disposal?I cannot believe this. Apparently, they did not try to stop the leveee break. This is just incredible because this is like writing off most of the city.I voted for Bush, but New Orleans is bigger than the Twin Towers. This is way bigger than 911 in some respects, if you ask me, but maybe not in lost lives (we don't know). Just what the heck is going on?This message has been edited by randman, 08-31-2005 03:17 AM

THe US military has a lot of blackhawks. The port of New Orleans is a vital part of our economic infrastructure. Everyone saw the levee was broken yesterday morning, but it seems we didn't mount an operation to stop the breach due to a lack of equipment.Considering the importance of the city, that is hard to imagine.We should have had blackhawks and the Navy in the area immediately afterwards, once we knew a Cat 4-5 was going to hit.I don't want to complain and be a 2nd-guesser. I am just saying this is potentially a bigger disaster than 911 and needs to be treated as such.

Sounds like they could use the assistance of maybe a few thousand regular people with small boats. Ferry out there and pick up a few people each, and then bring them back to load up on buses, and we could get the job done.I've seriously thought about driving down there with a friend I fish with and a small boat in tow, but I'm not sure they will let private citizens just come in and help like that.

I'm going to look into it and talk to my fishing friend (it's his boat). But it strikes me that some people could die if they don't start getting freshwater, mosquito repellant and food, and just get them off the island that is now New Orleans and into some air conditioning.

Thanks, Monk.

That's horrible, almost unfathomable.This message has been edited by randman, 08-31-2005 05:03 PM

If that's true, it's terrible.Bush was never my first choice although I tend to agree with Paglia that it's not so much Bush but his unwillingness to fire subordinates who give him bad advice.My hope next election is that Guiliani gets in there. He can say some absolutely stupid things, but I think he'd get the job done better.I am somewhat shocked they didn't bulk up the levee system although it might not have done any good if they were just concentrating on the levees for Lake Pontchartrain and not the canals.The thing is this could have been prevented, and highlights a big issue I have with government. We tend to do things at times in the most expensive manner. We wage war in the most expensive manner at times, lobbing million dollar missiles are thousand dollar buildings. We allow something like this to happen so we can create a new federal agency of baggage handlers.It's the idiocy of government that gets to me at times.It doesn't take rocket science to figure out some of the things that need to be done to protect ourselves as much as we can from natural disasters.We should bury all power lines so that falling trees do not knock out power, and invest in technology to decentralize the power system anyway and get us off fossil fuels.We have no business allowing a major city like New Orleans not to have levees that can withstand a Cat 5 hurricane with 200 plus mpr winds. It's cheaper to pay for prevention that what we will pay now.Of course, we can't do much to protect barrier islands.This message has been edited by randman, 08-31-2005 07:05 PM

Chris, it's not global warming. It's cyclical. Remember Camille and Hazel and Betsy? Plus, there's been a lot of Cat 5s. They just don't tend to hit land as Cat 5s.Before the 50s and 60s cycle of devastation, we had some terrible ones in the 30s, and then terrible ones before that.Heck, one of the worst hurricanes ever hit Rhode Island and buried some of the barrier islands up there under water.We had a break in the 70s and 80s, and we're in the bad cycle now, but by the 2010s, we should be back in the lower cycle again.This message has been edited by randman, 08-31-2005 07:11 PM

Global warming might be the cause if we start seeing something like Cat6 storms, but honestly, these types of storms have occured in the past. It's not unexpected even. They just didn't prepare for it correctly.Now, the south American hurricane. That might be evidence of global warming, but let's just be honest. This is not the first time a Cat4-5 storm came this way.As far as New Orleans, had they properly fortified the levees, it would not be near as disastrous. It's be the worst hurricane disaster ever probably, but mainly due to more population along the Gulf.It's THE WORST disaster ever though due to faulty preparation and maintenance.Also, I haven't seen too many conservatives in Congress or elsewhere against infrastructure spending. One could argue that the liberals are at fault due to too many regs as well. The truth is no ideology is at fault here. The fault lies in the lack of leadership, and that has a lot to do with us as a people getting what we vote for.