Margie
Senior Storm Chaser
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Posts: 1191
Loc: Twin Cities
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Re: Rita Nearing Landfall at the Texas / Louisiana Border
Mon Sep 26 2005 04:11 PM
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No I don't agree. NOLA most definitely did not get the brunt of Katrina. Didn't you look at any of the images in the link I provided?
The situation in NOLA was that there was no evac plan for a very large number of people, and there was also as assumption that the levees wouldn't break. NOLA actually did not receive a great deal of damage from the storm; the afternoon when Katrina had passed NOLA, national news media were saying NOLA had "dodged the bullet," because of that very reason -- the lack of destruction from the hurricane. At that point it truly had. At that moment there was total destruction along a separate 200 miles of coastline that was being ignored.
One levee did actually get destroyed but it was not in NOLA - it was in St Bernard Parish to the east. Four breaks then developed in three canals in NOLA (these have been referred to as levees by the media, but all were actually failures of concrete walls along the edges of the canals, like the sides of a tub, that buckled). Following the breaks to the canals, extensive flooding of NOLA did occur. Then, loss of life occured because there was no plan to get food and water to the people that remained in the two large shelters because there had been no evac plan originally to get them out, and those that had remained in their homes in flooded areas were trapped in their attics or on roofs. NOLA did not have an evacuation plan. Now Houston on the other hand had a successful plan and a successful evacuation, even if it did not end up taking a direct hit from Rita. Houston has many more residents than NOLA.
In other words, NOLA's failure to address evac issues was what caused the loss of life, not damage from the hurricane storm surge and winds.
However storm surge and winds from Katrina wiped out about 200 miles of coastline, and that is not a trivial amount of damage. That is actually where the damage from the hurricane occured - along the coastline in LA, MS, and AL.
The MS Gulf Coast has been through the hurricane drill a number of times. All three coastal counties not only have a comprehensive plan, they spend money just on hurricane preparations. Jackson County purchased two ATV from the National Guard when they were upgrading, for the express purpose of rescuing people from the western and eastern sides of the county during a hurricane (that county is completely divided by water when storm surge occurs). Most people will leave the low-lying coastal areas. That did not leave thousands of people in the direct area of the storm surge, only because they moved out of the way. But most of these people did not move very far inland, only a couple of miles, until the surge had passed. Afterwards, there were and are thousands more in MS, than in the NOLA area, that are homeless -- not because their homes were flooded, but because their homes are gone. Gone. For instance, Biloxi is home to over 50,000 residents. In Pascagoula, somewhere between 90 and 95 % of homes were destroyed, and all those people are now homeless, as there are still no FEMA trailers a month later. In Hancock County, the cities of Waveland, Bay St Louis, and Pass Christain were almost completely wiped off the map. Virutally no buildings were left standing in Waveland, and in Pass Christian I believe less than 30% were left (it may be much less). Even inland communities in Hancock county were destroyed: Diamondhead, Kiln, Pearlington. Extensive damage was done to the cities of Long Beach and Gulfport because unlike Biloxi they were mostly right along the coastline. Ocean Springs, Gulf Hills, D'Iberville - areas that are all pretty much destroyed, where very few buildings remain on the coastline.
A comment from someone just a couple of posts back on this forum: she had just returned from Ocean Springs where she said it looked like "a bomb had gone off" from Katrina.
The type of damage you might be seeing from Rita in Holly Beach, in Cameron -- that is what happened along 200 miles of coastline with Katrina, to approximately 100 communities! Most definitely NOLA was not the primary point of impact for Katrina. Simply because they were able and willing to evacuate, and were not killed, does not mean that they don't suffer more hardship. Plus, 1/4 of the deaths from Katrina were in these areas, not NOLA, and there are many more missing from these areas, where bodies were washed out to sea, that have not yet been added to the total, and will not be added for many more months. This includes over 50 people from Hancock County alone. Once the total toll of life is determined, especially from places like St Bernard and Plaquemines Parish, the number of dead from the areas hit hardest by the storm will most certainly rise to a more significant percentage of the total.
Here are specific images from many of the coastal communities that were wiped out by Katrina. You look at all of these, in detail, then come back and say whether you think canal breaks in NOLA that caused flooding, compares. There is no question that he media coverage was not balanced and not appropriate, and they know it, and that is why they are bending over backwards now with Rita to make an effort to cover the actual damage, rather than focus on Houston and Galveston.
Plaquemine Parish:
Orchard
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24730161.jpg
Venice
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24730156.jpg
Dubic
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24727112.jpg
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24727088.jpg
Boothville
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24727074.jpg
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24726646.jpg
Fort Jackson
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24727046.jpg
Triumph
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24729669.jpg
Gulftown
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24729674.jpg
Buras
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24729683.jpg
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24729709.jpg
Sunrise
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24729722.jpg
Empire
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24729757.jpg
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24729766.jpg
Tropical Blend
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24729775.jpg
Hesperides
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24730577.jpg
Bremond
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24737412.jpg
Port Sulfur
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24737445.jpg
Happy Jack
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24737483.jpg
Point A La Heche
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24727834.jpg
St. Bernard Parish
Chalmette
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24425452.jpg
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24425441.jpg
Venitian Isles
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24724436.jpg
Two small coastal LA towns, on a peninsula between two large lakes, nothing left except slabs and mud, not even a debris field:
Pike Fort
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24715253.jpg
Greens Ditch
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24738260.jpg
St Tammany Parish
I-10 bridge spans missing over the lake, at Slidell LA (observe the boat on the interstate bridge)
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24431127.jpg
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24431089.jpg
Wind and water damage at Slidell LA:
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24615646.jpg
Slidell and areas just east got nailed by a particularly virulent piece of the eyewall as it rotated from N to SW when it was right over the city. That area, and to the east, has quite a bit of wind damage in the forest where there are large swaths of trees just snapped off and laying down.
Extensive flooding in Slidell:
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24618502.jpg
Hancock County
Surge and high wind damage in Pearlington MS (east of Slidell)
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24615646.jpg
Part of Lakeshore, MS (nothing left except slabs; no debris field)
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24331584.jpg
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24331589.jpg
Clermont Harbor, MS
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24331220.jpg
Waveland, MS
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24334523.jpg
Bay St. Louis, MS
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24431539.jpg
Diamondhead (BSL area)
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24439874.jpg
Hwy 90 bridge between BSL and Pass Christian
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24334580.jpg
Harrison County
Henderson Point (Pass Christian)
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24331100.jpg
Pass Christian
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24331067.jpg
Long Beach
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24330940.jpg
Gulfport
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24330924.jpg
Gulfport, going east
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24330907.jpg
Western Biloxi
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24333396.jpg
East Biloxi
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24332305.jpg
East Biloxi, Back Bay side
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24334981.jpg
East Biloxi, Back Bay, mud on rooftops!
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24335004.jpg
Hwy 90 Biloxi – Ocean Springs bridge
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24833615.jpg
D’Iberville
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24806826.jpg
Jackson County
Ocean Springs
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24411679.jpg
Gulf Hills area, Ocean Springs
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24807869.jpg
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24807879.jpg
Gautier
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24332498.jpg
Pascagoula
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24329662.jpg
Mobile County
Bayou La Batre, AL
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24529686.jpg
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Katrina's Surge: http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/Katrinas_surge_contents.asp
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