Open Thread on Hurricane Katrina
August 31st, 2005This is an open thread discussion for anyone who wants to make a comment about Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, etc.
I talked about it on Paul Finebaum’s news talk radio on WERC AM 960, since Locust Fork Radio will not be on the air until next Wednesday. (More on that later).
I lived in New Orleans for four years and covered all manner of stories for the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Dallas Morning News, Gambit Weekly, etc.
If you look at the coverage below about Katrina coming onshore and look at the satellite image, you will see that the perfect storm came up the Mississippi River, then veared east of New Orleans. The eye wall hit the eastern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, then swept around the lake and the main thrust came in over the lake from the north. The pressure was too much for the levee system to hold back.
Katrina’s power was too great for the Corps of Engineers. And the plan for this occurrence, which many of us have been warning about for years, was totally inadequate.
New Orleans has returned to the swamp.
Tags: Hurricane Season 2005
August 31st, 2005 at 4:39 pm
Thanks for sharing this with me. The things on a normal day that seem so important now have very little meaning. I feel as helpless as I did during 9/11 but with this I have no anger. Mother Nature is a tough lady to stand up against. When you live on the coast you take all that comes with it. Mother Nature has been sending hurricanes into the Gulf of Mexico since there was a gulf. There isn’t much we can do about it except when they say to get the hell out of Dodge you must obey their warnings. Maybe it will be bad, maybe it won’t but you surely cannot afford to take the chance by staying when they say go. For the poverty stricken, the cities must implement an evacuation system for them.
Frustration set in quickly in New Orleans but that frustration doesn’t give you to right to loot. If it is for food to feed your loved ones I can sympathize but to get a “free TV” when you have no electricity and in most cases no home then Marshal Law should be in effect. Mob violence of any kind cannot and will not be tolerated.
As for me, I still have vivid recollection of the horror of Camille. Weather is cyclic. My age and older, we have been through this before. Maybe it is the media that makes it so horrific for us on the outside looking in. When I see the man saying his house split into and he couldn’t hold onto his wife and had no idea where she was or if she made it and her message to him was to take care of the kids and grandkids, I think, it could be anyone of us going through that situation if we lived in the area. I would love for a happy ending to that story being he found his wife alive and well but doubt it will happen.
All I can do is to find the Red Cross address to send money. I hope everyone will. As little as I can send may not be a lot of help but it will help me sleep a little better when I lay my head down on my pillow inside my house with electricity and running water.
August 31st, 2005 at 5:40 pm
Thanks Patsy. It’s pretty busy right now, but here’s the Red Cross link:
http://www.redcross.org/