Hold on about that flooding, though. Now I'm reading stuff that says it's underwater, although it was one of the last areas to flood, and one of the first to drain, now that the pumps are operating. I'll try to find a link.
Okay, I don't know my geography, but Old Metairie's million dollar homes got a lot of flooding. Don't know where that is in relation to Metairie.
And, Evan, I'm very glad to hear that you and your family are all safe.
Anyone have an update on the situation in Metairie? I'm too unfamiliar with the area and am not having a lot of success finding out what the situation is there. We have a GS poster down there who no one has yet heard from.
Nobody is in Metairie. At least they're not supposed to be. They did open it Mon. Tue and today for residents to see their place, get insurance papers, etc. I'm guessing it'll be a few more weeks before they are allowed to live there. For the city, it'll be 3-6 months.
It's more nuts here than people "outside" might realize. I have too many stories to tell.
Now that I know how the original levee break happened, I'm curious to see if it ever gets reported.
So sorry for the lost lives...and for so many lives being totally turned upside down...
My nephew in Houston told me yesterday, that you can't go anywhere without seeing Louisianna plates...every bar and every eating place is packed...commercial and residential properties being bought or rented at an unbelievable pace...and reports came in yesterday that even Columbus, Ohio is taking in hundreds of refugees from La...
Looks like a tremendous response from almost everywhere...too bad it took so long for the federal government to respond...George Bush drops the ball again.
What Evan? There was more to the break than rising water?
I have heard one network report that according to a lot of people trapped on some bridges..... that after the hurricane, the area wasn`t badly flooded.....that they then heard a massive exoplosion...and then the water began to rise, completely submerging the houses ..... they speculated that it was dynamited to sacrafice the poorer homes, thus saving the cities nicer neighborhoods....
Evan..PLEASE tell me that these folks were simply mistaken or that this is possibly more of the unsubstantiated rumors and rampant accusations that are flying around .....
Thanks Evan I pray that Gisele is OK and I'm so glad you have made it through.I know unless any of us would be there we can't fathom how rough things are.
New Orleans and the gulf coast has a special place in my heart as I have spent a good deal of time in that area..
I haven't googled, LG, so maybe it has been reported, but certainly not widely.
The initial break was in the 17th St. canal on the Orleans side. That is the break that did the vast majority of the flooding. At one point, there were whitecaps on the waves headed down Canal St. in the CBD. Anybody familiar with N.O. geography knows how amazing this is. The foot of Canal St. is about as far from the levee break that you can be.
There has been a small work barge anchored in the 17th Street canal for the past few years. I've seen it many times. It was used in redoing the levee walls, which are quite new. The work was in conjunction with the building of a huge new pumping station at the interior end of the canal.
This is what happened. The contractor was unable to get a crane in time to remove the barge from the canal before the storm. Apparently they were ordered to do so and were unable to comply. so the barge sat where anchored against the canal levee wall on the Orleans side of the canal. The storm caused the barge to batter the levee wall (which is metal set in concrete) for 6-8 hours of heavy storm. This either weakened the wall or caused a small breach. Problem is, the new pumping station pumps overheated and the canal began to fill up. The water pressure found the weakened section and breached it. By then it was obvious the doomsday scenario was underway and nobody could stop it.
I'm wondering who this contractor is and what the principals are thinking.
All this is according to Corps of Engineers man staying across the street. But I have seen that work barge hundreds of times. My sister in law lived a block and a half from the canal in Lakeview. Her house was adjacent to the original breach. I saw the barge when passing over the canal at the Bucktown bridge. It usually had a piledriver mounted on it, a familiar sight in New Orleans. When not working, it was, without fail, anchored to the Orleans wall of the canal.
so personal observation does square with the story. And it makes sense and fits with the scetchy info we've heard in local and national media.
The original and biggest levee break was in Lakeview. The better neighborhoods were the most affected.
Even more heavily flooded was the lower 9th Ward. Much of the rescue footage you saw was from there. It is a poor neighborhood, very poor. But it was filled from behind through St. Bernard Parish which was simply overwhelmed by the storm surge. It filled so high, water was flowing OUT of the 9th ward over the levee into the Industrial Canal. I could see this clearly on the TV footage. It took army corps another 5 days to figure out. Before, they were saying the Industrial Canal was breached and flooding the lower 9th Ward. I was scratching my head, clearly seeing the water flowing out of the neighborhood, not in. Yesterday, they reported that they broke open a section of that levee to let water out of that neighborhood (!)
The conspiracy mongers will have a field day.
There is precedent, though.
In the fabled 1927 flood, America's biggest natural disaster, (you haven't heard muh of it because of anti-South bias in history books...really) New Orleans was saved from doomsday flooding by dynamiting the levees below the city in Plaquemines Parish. That decision was not made by federal, state, local, military or any other authority. It was made clanndestinely by a group of powerful bankers in the city. It saved the city, but the promises made to Plaquemines Parish farmers & residents to make them whole were lies. They never paid out a penny.
After the flood, the current levee system on the Lower Miss River was constructed, largely by displaced poor blacks. It gave us lots of great blues music..."Levee Camp Moan" for one.
Evan, I remember reading something about the possibility that a barge struck the levee, but it was just a sentence or so, with no details, and seemed like pure speculation. What you said makes sense. If that's really what happened, I think it will probably eventually come out.
But I have seen that work barge hundreds of times. ... it was, without fail, anchored to the Orleans wall of the canal.
I looked at a couple "before & after" pic's but no sign of the barge. If that was the cause, it must be there somewhere, and probably is in some of the footage. I'd think it would have been swept into the neighborhood. I did see a barge tied up by the bridge later, presumably for repairs ... I'm not sure if those fit under the bridge ... i guess they must ... oh, I see you said a crane was needed. Well maybe that was it.
Without some outside damage, it seems strange this recently improved section would be the weak point in the levee. I was considering contractor negligence in the building or design, maybe improper fill material that saved some politically connected contractor some money. But I'm pretty pessimistic. :)-->
Good to see you posting Evan, do you have power now I guess?
...were unable to comply. so the barge sat where anchored against the canal levee wall on the Orleans side of the canal. The storm caused the barge to batter the levee wall (which is metal set in concrete)
Here is an after shot, there is certainly something big in the breach, the reflection makes that clear. i didn't see it at first.
A friend staying with us lives/lived in Algiers. Her son went to get some clothes the other night and he said although their house was okay the stink of all New Orleans was unbearable. The sewer systems are in the standing water, the heat, the dead. What worries me is that this water is supposedly being pumped into Lake Ponchartrain and ultimately into the Gulf. What about the toxins? -->
Well, talking about it is needful for our mental health, I'm sure. If you'll listen, that will be a gift of great value.
I'll go first.
I can't stop listening to the radio. There are several stations broadcasting "all Katrina, all the time". Although the 'casts are originating from Baton Rouge, the personalities are mostly from New Orleans stations. The format is mostly call-in. 24 hours a day of calls. Some are first-hand accounts. Some are real heroes. Many are looking for assistance and information. But the most numerous of calls are from people looking for people. Family & friends mostly. Mostly the callers are hopeful. But you can somehow hear the dread. Nobody has acknowledged the dread concerning the missing. It's like a monkey on our backs and nobody's acknowledging his presence.
"Hello, this is Olive Peters. I'm looking for my father Frank Peters. Last I heard he was riding out the storm. He stays at 1516 Almonaster. Could a rescuer go out and check on him please?"
Call after call like this, around the clock. The pit in the tummy grows harder by the hour.
I know I should turn it off, but I can't stop listening.
Evan, try pulling out some old music and listening to that instead.
Linda, did you mean where's Algiers? It's on the West Bank and it didn't flood and there's probably a golf course there somewhere. Ha. Didn't recognize the names you used.
Until someone decides to give us a death toll we cannot get on with it. No way we will be 201 like Mississippi (last count I heard anyway).
We are facing the "new normal" only we don't know what that is yet.
New Orleans was saved from doomsday flooding by dynamiting the levees below the city in Plaquemines Parish.
OK, I'm confused again :)-->
I guess blasting the levee, even below the city, let the water move quickly enough downstream to relieve the flooding upstream?
I know they can now let it through above the city, where it flows under the interstate into Lake Pontchartrain. It was pretty awesome rapids the year I saw it.
google is so cool ...
As it turned out, the destruction of the Caernarvon levee was unnecessary; several major levee breaks well upstream of New Orleans, including one the day after the dynamiting, made it impossible for flood waters to seriously threaten the city.
Irisheyes: I'm trying to figure out the name of the neighborhood where Emeril lives. Does that help? I have a friend who lives in his neighborhood. I think he lives on Murifield. She lives on Engleish Turn Dr. nearby. I got the impression from a NOLA.com discussion forum that that was the Algiers naighborhood, but maybe not because those streets are southeast of the city. I was just wondering. :)-->
Evan, I know what you mean. Tonight is the first night that I spent only about 30 minutes flipping between all the cable news channels to see what was going on, even though it breaks my heart and makes me very anxious. I can only pray that if there's anyone still trapped who wants to be rescued, that help comes quickly and that all the people who have been separated can be reuinited soon...or at least locate each other.
I wish somebody would combine all these "I'm looking for..."/"I'm safe" sites into one big database, to make it easier for volunteers to help people find their loved ones.
LindaZ, that neighborhood is prestigious English Turn. It fared well.
sister in law arrived by plane yesterday. she's charged with establishing a business office here for her school. (We're scrambling to find her around 400 sq ft...know of anything, irisheyes?). Another evacuee from her school, the IT guy came by to deliver the server & other computer gear he rescued from the school. A school parent is apparently a honcho with DEA, and he got them an escort into the city. He has quite a story to tell. He has managed to rent a house here in BR and they have 13 people staying there. Yesterday's USA Today has a pic. on p2 of his granpa being rescued from the 2nd story of his Lakeview home
He and Christine, both of whom literally lost everything, were energetically solving payroll, banking, communications & other problem. They were full of smiles & laughter & ideas. I can see it's their way of dealin with loss & the unknown.
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Thanks Laleo--I've been hoping that is the reason, too.
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laleo
Hold on about that flooding, though. Now I'm reading stuff that says it's underwater, although it was one of the last areas to flood, and one of the first to drain, now that the pumps are operating. I'll try to find a link.
Okay, I don't know my geography, but Old Metairie's million dollar homes got a lot of flooding. Don't know where that is in relation to Metairie.
And, Evan, I'm very glad to hear that you and your family are all safe.
Anyone have an update on the situation in Metairie? I'm too unfamiliar with the area and am not having a lot of success finding out what the situation is there. We have a GS poster down there who no one has yet heard from.
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TED Ferrell
Do any of you know Gisele Casey from Matairie La. I don't know her well but have been praying for her that she is OK
Ted Ferrell
If any of you know anything and would rather email me ferrellsplace@cs.com
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TheEvan
She posts here, Ted.
Nobody is in Metairie. At least they're not supposed to be. They did open it Mon. Tue and today for residents to see their place, get insurance papers, etc. I'm guessing it'll be a few more weeks before they are allowed to live there. For the city, it'll be 3-6 months.
It's more nuts here than people "outside" might realize. I have too many stories to tell.
Now that I know how the original levee break happened, I'm curious to see if it ever gets reported.
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GrouchoMarxJr
So sorry for the lost lives...and for so many lives being totally turned upside down...
My nephew in Houston told me yesterday, that you can't go anywhere without seeing Louisianna plates...every bar and every eating place is packed...commercial and residential properties being bought or rented at an unbelievable pace...and reports came in yesterday that even Columbus, Ohio is taking in hundreds of refugees from La...
Looks like a tremendous response from almost everywhere...too bad it took so long for the federal government to respond...George Bush drops the ball again.
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rascal
What Evan? There was more to the break than rising water?
I have heard one network report that according to a lot of people trapped on some bridges..... that after the hurricane, the area wasn`t badly flooded.....that they then heard a massive exoplosion...and then the water began to rise, completely submerging the houses ..... they speculated that it was dynamited to sacrafice the poorer homes, thus saving the cities nicer neighborhoods....
Evan..PLEASE tell me that these folks were simply mistaken or that this is possibly more of the unsubstantiated rumors and rampant accusations that are flying around .....
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LG
What do you know that hasn't been reported?
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TED Ferrell
Thanks Evan I pray that Gisele is OK and I'm so glad you have made it through.I know unless any of us would be there we can't fathom how rough things are.
New Orleans and the gulf coast has a special place in my heart as I have spent a good deal of time in that area..
Please keep us posted as best you can.
LOL
Ted
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TheEvan
I haven't googled, LG, so maybe it has been reported, but certainly not widely.
The initial break was in the 17th St. canal on the Orleans side. That is the break that did the vast majority of the flooding. At one point, there were whitecaps on the waves headed down Canal St. in the CBD. Anybody familiar with N.O. geography knows how amazing this is. The foot of Canal St. is about as far from the levee break that you can be.
There has been a small work barge anchored in the 17th Street canal for the past few years. I've seen it many times. It was used in redoing the levee walls, which are quite new. The work was in conjunction with the building of a huge new pumping station at the interior end of the canal.
This is what happened. The contractor was unable to get a crane in time to remove the barge from the canal before the storm. Apparently they were ordered to do so and were unable to comply. so the barge sat where anchored against the canal levee wall on the Orleans side of the canal. The storm caused the barge to batter the levee wall (which is metal set in concrete) for 6-8 hours of heavy storm. This either weakened the wall or caused a small breach. Problem is, the new pumping station pumps overheated and the canal began to fill up. The water pressure found the weakened section and breached it. By then it was obvious the doomsday scenario was underway and nobody could stop it.
I'm wondering who this contractor is and what the principals are thinking.
All this is according to Corps of Engineers man staying across the street. But I have seen that work barge hundreds of times. My sister in law lived a block and a half from the canal in Lakeview. Her house was adjacent to the original breach. I saw the barge when passing over the canal at the Bucktown bridge. It usually had a piledriver mounted on it, a familiar sight in New Orleans. When not working, it was, without fail, anchored to the Orleans wall of the canal.
so personal observation does square with the story. And it makes sense and fits with the scetchy info we've heard in local and national media.
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TheEvan
rascal, those are wild rumours.
The original and biggest levee break was in Lakeview. The better neighborhoods were the most affected.
Even more heavily flooded was the lower 9th Ward. Much of the rescue footage you saw was from there. It is a poor neighborhood, very poor. But it was filled from behind through St. Bernard Parish which was simply overwhelmed by the storm surge. It filled so high, water was flowing OUT of the 9th ward over the levee into the Industrial Canal. I could see this clearly on the TV footage. It took army corps another 5 days to figure out. Before, they were saying the Industrial Canal was breached and flooding the lower 9th Ward. I was scratching my head, clearly seeing the water flowing out of the neighborhood, not in. Yesterday, they reported that they broke open a section of that levee to let water out of that neighborhood (!)
The conspiracy mongers will have a field day.
There is precedent, though.
In the fabled 1927 flood, America's biggest natural disaster, (you haven't heard muh of it because of anti-South bias in history books...really) New Orleans was saved from doomsday flooding by dynamiting the levees below the city in Plaquemines Parish. That decision was not made by federal, state, local, military or any other authority. It was made clanndestinely by a group of powerful bankers in the city. It saved the city, but the promises made to Plaquemines Parish farmers & residents to make them whole were lies. They never paid out a penny.
After the flood, the current levee system on the Lower Miss River was constructed, largely by displaced poor blacks. It gave us lots of great blues music..."Levee Camp Moan" for one.
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LG
Evan, I remember reading something about the possibility that a barge struck the levee, but it was just a sentence or so, with no details, and seemed like pure speculation. What you said makes sense. If that's really what happened, I think it will probably eventually come out.
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rhino
I looked at a couple "before & after" pic's but no sign of the barge. If that was the cause, it must be there somewhere, and probably is in some of the footage. I'd think it would have been swept into the neighborhood. I did see a barge tied up by the bridge later, presumably for repairs ... I'm not sure if those fit under the bridge ... i guess they must ... oh, I see you said a crane was needed. Well maybe that was it.
Without some outside damage, it seems strange this recently improved section would be the weak point in the levee. I was considering contractor negligence in the building or design, maybe improper fill material that saved some politically connected contractor some money. But I'm pretty pessimistic.
:)-->
Good to see you posting Evan, do you have power now I guess?
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rascal
Thanks Ev, I had dismissed it as such untill you said that their was some reason not being reported....thanks for putting the rumor to rest.
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rhino
Here is an after shot, there is certainly something big in the breach, the reflection makes that clear. i didn't see it at first.
http://www.kathryncramer.com/kathryn_crame...rleans_lev.html
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TheEvan
That looks like the right size for the work barge.
T'aint gospel, but seems likely & resonable.
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irisheyes
A friend staying with us lives/lived in Algiers. Her son went to get some clothes the other night and he said although their house was okay the stink of all New Orleans was unbearable. The sewer systems are in the standing water, the heat, the dead. What worries me is that this water is supposedly being pumped into Lake Ponchartrain and ultimately into the Gulf. What about the toxins?
-->
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Linda Z
Irisheyes, is that the area around that golf course...English Turn Dr., Muirfield, etc?
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TheEvan
Well, talking about it is needful for our mental health, I'm sure. If you'll listen, that will be a gift of great value.
I'll go first.
I can't stop listening to the radio. There are several stations broadcasting "all Katrina, all the time". Although the 'casts are originating from Baton Rouge, the personalities are mostly from New Orleans stations. The format is mostly call-in. 24 hours a day of calls. Some are first-hand accounts. Some are real heroes. Many are looking for assistance and information. But the most numerous of calls are from people looking for people. Family & friends mostly. Mostly the callers are hopeful. But you can somehow hear the dread. Nobody has acknowledged the dread concerning the missing. It's like a monkey on our backs and nobody's acknowledging his presence.
"Hello, this is Olive Peters. I'm looking for my father Frank Peters. Last I heard he was riding out the storm. He stays at 1516 Almonaster. Could a rescuer go out and check on him please?"
Call after call like this, around the clock. The pit in the tummy grows harder by the hour.
I know I should turn it off, but I can't stop listening.
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irisheyes
There's something happening here ...
What it is ain't exactly clear ....
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irisheyes
Evan, try pulling out some old music and listening to that instead.
Linda, did you mean where's Algiers? It's on the West Bank and it didn't flood and there's probably a golf course there somewhere. Ha. Didn't recognize the names you used.
Until someone decides to give us a death toll we cannot get on with it. No way we will be 201 like Mississippi (last count I heard anyway).
We are facing the "new normal" only we don't know what that is yet.
Hello, hello, I'm in a place called Vertigo.
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rhino
OK, I'm confused again
:)-->
I guess blasting the levee, even below the city, let the water move quickly enough downstream to relieve the flooding upstream?
I know they can now let it through above the city, where it flows under the interstate into Lake Pontchartrain. It was pretty awesome rapids the year I saw it.
google is so cool ...
As it turned out, the destruction of the Caernarvon levee was unnecessary; several major levee breaks well upstream of New Orleans, including one the day after the dynamiting, made it impossible for flood waters to seriously threaten the city.
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/G...ssissippi-Flood
Thanks for the history, Evan
:)-->
I also am fixated on New Orleans flood news ...
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Linda Z
Irisheyes: I'm trying to figure out the name of the neighborhood where Emeril lives. Does that help? I have a friend who lives in his neighborhood. I think he lives on Murifield. She lives on Engleish Turn Dr. nearby. I got the impression from a NOLA.com discussion forum that that was the Algiers naighborhood, but maybe not because those streets are southeast of the city. I was just wondering.
:)-->
Evan, I know what you mean. Tonight is the first night that I spent only about 30 minutes flipping between all the cable news channels to see what was going on, even though it breaks my heart and makes me very anxious. I can only pray that if there's anyone still trapped who wants to be rescued, that help comes quickly and that all the people who have been separated can be reuinited soon...or at least locate each other.
I wish somebody would combine all these "I'm looking for..."/"I'm safe" sites into one big database, to make it easier for volunteers to help people find their loved ones.
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Kit Sober
Cliff Lott? Anyone know?
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TheEvan
LindaZ, that neighborhood is prestigious English Turn. It fared well.
sister in law arrived by plane yesterday. she's charged with establishing a business office here for her school. (We're scrambling to find her around 400 sq ft...know of anything, irisheyes?). Another evacuee from her school, the IT guy came by to deliver the server & other computer gear he rescued from the school. A school parent is apparently a honcho with DEA, and he got them an escort into the city. He has quite a story to tell. He has managed to rent a house here in BR and they have 13 people staying there. Yesterday's USA Today has a pic. on p2 of his granpa being rescued from the 2nd story of his Lakeview home
He and Christine, both of whom literally lost everything, were energetically solving payroll, banking, communications & other problem. They were full of smiles & laughter & ideas. I can see it's their way of dealin with loss & the unknown.
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