[Vision2020] Hurricane Katrina

[Tom Hansen]

Katrina has been a Level 5 hurricane since late Saturday night when Mayor
Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city.

Concerning the Superdome - Although a majority of the dome rests at 30 feet
above sea level, there is a portion that drops below sea level.  I am
certain that if/when the Superdome is threatened with flood, it will be
evacuated.  Another concern brought up by the Weather Channel is that, if
they haven't already, they will cut off electricity to the dome.  

Can you imagine the potential problems raised by over 30,000+ people cramped
into a non-airconditioned dome in New Orleans in August?  New Orleans ranks
as one of the nation's cities with the highest humidity. 

Let's hope that this passes by without incident.  New Orleans (and its
people) are too beautiful.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"If not us, who?
If not now, when?"

- Unknown
 

-----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Donovan Arnold
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2005 12:15 AM
To: Joan Opyr; Vision2020 Moscow
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Hurricane Katrina

My fear is that there are over 20,000 people in the
Superdome. The bottom of the Superdome, the entrance,
is below sea level. What happens if they get stuck in
the dome if all the doors, or most of them are
underwater? They would run out of air before they
could all get out. 

I guess we can just pray everyone comes out OK.

Donovan J Arnold 

--- Joan Opyr <joanopyr at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Dear Visionaries:
> 
> Hurricane Katrina is now a Category 5, with winds
> topping 175 mph and 
> gusts above 200.  As a North Carolinian, I've seen
> my fair share of 
> hurricanes; there's nothing like them.  They spawn
> tornados, flooding 
> -- they are disasters of Biblical (whatever
> translation you may use) 
> proportion.  Hurricane Hugo blew Charlotte, NC, to
> bits, and that city 
> is more than five hours inland from the coast.  New
> Orleans, as many of 
> you may know, is below sea level, situated in the
> midst of the 
> Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico, and Lake
> Pontchartrain.  Water, 
> water everywhere, and a vast pumping system that
> doesn't stand a hope 
> in hell of keeping the city dry.
> 
> For decades, disaster preparedness experts have
> feared what would 
> happen if a Category 5 ever hit New Orleans.  The
> levees are designed 
> to keep the water out of the city, but in a storm
> like this, they'll 
> more likely serve to keep the storm surge in.  To
> put things in 
> perspective, nearly 3000 people were killed on 9/11.
>  If Katrina hits 
> New Orleans full force tomorrow, it could kill as
> many as 44,000.  Let 
> us hope and pray that it does not.
> 
> Joan
> 
> Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
> www.auntie-establishment.com
> 
>  From the Associated Press:
> 
> Hurricane Could Leave 1 Million Homeless
> 
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
> 
> By MATT CRENSON AP National Writer
> 
> August 28,2005 | -- When Hurricane Katrina hits New
> Orleans on Monday, 
> it could turn one of America's most charming cities
> into a vast 
> cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste
> and even coffins 
> released by floodwaters from the city's legendary
> cemeteries.
> 
> Experts have warned for years that the levees and
> pumps that usually 
> keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct
> hit by a Category 
> 5 storm.
> 
> That's exactly what Katrina was as it churned toward
> the city. With top 
> winds of 165 mph and the power to lift sea level by
> as much as 28 feet 
> above normal, the storm threatened an environmental
> disaster of 
> biblical proportions, one that could leave more than
> 1 million people 
> homeless.
> 
> "All indications are that this is absolutely
> worst-case scenario," Ivor 
> van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State
> University 
> Hurricane Center, said Sunday afternoon.
> 
> The center's latest computer simulations indicate
> that by Tuesday, vast 
> swaths of New Orleans could be under water up to 30
> feet deep. In the 
> French Quarter, the water could reach 20 feet,
> easily submerging the 
> district's iconic cast-iron balconies and bars.
> 
> Estimates predict that 60 percent to 80 percent of
> the city's houses 
> will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage,
> most of the people 
> who live in and around New Orleans could be
> homeless.
> 
> "We're talking about in essence having -- in the
> continental United 
> States -- having a refugee camp of a million
> people," van Heerden said.
> 
> Aside from Hurricane Andrew, which struck Miami in
> 1992, forecasters 
> have no experience with Category 5 hurricanes
> hitting densely populated 
> areas.
> 
> "Hurricanes rarely sustain such extreme winds for
> much time. However we 
> see no obvious large-scale effects to cause a
> substantial weakening the 
> system and it is expected that the hurricane will be
> of Category 4 or 5 
> intensity when it reaches the coast," National
> Hurricane Center 
> meteorologist Richard Pasch said.
> 
> As they raced to put meteorological instruments in
> Katrina's path 
> Sunday, wind engineers had little idea what their
> equipment would 
> record.
> 
> "We haven't seen something this big since we started
> the program," said 
> Kurt Gurley, a University of Florida engineering
> professor. He works 
> for the Florida Coastal Monitoring Program, which is
> in its seventh 
> year of making detailed measurements of hurricane
> wind conditions using 
> a set of mobile weather stations.
> 
> Experts have warned about New Orleans' vulnerability
> for years, chiefly 
> because Louisiana has lost more than a million acres
> of coastal 
> wetlands in the past seven decades. The vast
> patchwork of swamps and 
> bayous south of the city serves as a buffer,
> partially absorbing the 
> surge of water that a hurricane pushes ashore.
> 
> Experts have also warned that the ring of high
> levees around New 
> Orleans, designed to protect the city from
> floodwaters coming down the 
> Mississippi, will only make things worse in a
> powerful hurricane. 
> Katrina is expected to push a 28-foot storm surge
> against the levees. 
> Even if they hold, water will pour over their tops
> and begin filling 
> the city as if it were a sinking canoe.
> 
> After the storm passes, the water will have nowhere
> to go.
> 
> In a few days, van Heerden predicts, emergency
> management officials are 
> going to be wondering how to handle a giant stagnant
> pond contaminated 
> with building debris, coffins, sewage and other
> hazardous materials.
> 
> "We're talking about an incredible environmental
> disaster," van Heerden 
> said.
> 
> He puts much of the blame for New Orleans' dire
> situation on the very 
> levee system that is designed to protect southern
> Louisiana from 
> Mississippi River floods.
> 
> Before the levees were built, the river would top
> its banks during 
> floods and wash through a maze of bayous and swamps,
> dropping 
> fine-grained silt that nourished plants and kept the
> land just above 
> sea level.
> 
> The levees "have literally starved our wetlands to
> death" by directing 
> all of that precious silt out into the Gulf of
> Mexico, van Heerden 
> said.
> 
> It has been 40 years since New Orleans faced a
> hurricane even 
> comparable to Katrina. In 1965, Hurricane Betsy, a
> Category 3 storm, 
> submerged some parts of the city to a depth of seven
> feet.
> 
> Since then, the Big Easy has had nothing but near
> misses. In 1998, 
> Hurricane Georges headed straight for New Orleans,
> then swerved at the 
> last minute to strike Mississippi and Alabama.
> Hurricane Lili blew 
> 
=== message truncated ===>
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