The destruction of New Orleans?

“Major disaster for New Orleans if it takes a direct hit from Katrina.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/28/hurricane.katrina/index.html”

“That makes three hurricane/Katrina threads ...”

“This is a New Orleans thread.”

“Katrina now has a lower barometric pressure than Camille or Andrew.”

“I remember New Orleans flooding when I was a kid passing through in '64. A major pipe broke in the Jax Brewery and beer was pooring up into the street and didn't have anywhere to go. Beer flood.

My prayers are with them!”

“Crap, cutting oil production. I understand it needs to be done, but geez, lets watch those gas prices soar even more!

Our country could have done a lot better in planning it cities and communities. A whole city below sea level? doh...

Yes, I pray for them.”

“Not for nothing, but $3/gallon, here we come.

Good luck with that storm, btw...”

“DESTROY! DESTROY!”

“I worked offshore with a guy who went through Camille ... He said when the water finally went back down, the streets were full of drowned winos.

He got home from Vietnam just in time for the hurricane.”

“seriously, dont destroy. i hope as little damage is done and as few lives are lost as is possible”

“I have been watching the news about the people who are sheltering in the Dome...hundreds if not thousands, standing in line to get in...and outside...the news commentators saying it has not been determined if the facility will withstand a catagory five...if it gives way or the city floods, we will not have to search for the dead, they'll be in the bowl....”

“I just drove from my parents house near Huntsville to Nashville and passed several people from Lousiana heading northbound and probably thousands of power trucks heading southbound. I felt so sorry for all the people I passed from Lousiana. I just couldn't imagine leaving my home not knowing what I was going to return home to. My thoughts and prayers are out to all of them.”

“ST I hope you are seriously wrong :(. Let us hope for the best eh?”

“I just don't understand why they can't bus all the people that don't have transportation to a shelter outside of New Orleans. I also can't believe that there are 100,000 people in New Orleans that are too poor to leave or don't have a way to leave.”

“I dont understand why they havent left already- huricans just dont appear out of nowhere...isnt there a big warning long in advance of hitting? Surely there was time for them to be moved out of there?”

“sc, have you seen the traffic getting out? what a mess. I saw a couple who are vacationing there. No flights out, no rental cars available. They are stuck.”

“Thats too bad :( My thoughts are with them all.”

“My parents evacuated once from N. FL. After that they decided to stay home. They were on the "Bay side" not the gulf side of Santa Rosa Island. They thought it was more dangerous trying to get out across the Bay Bridge.”

“2005-08-29 7:00 AM CDT 2.54 feet High Tide in Biloxi. That's about the same time as expected landfall. Bad combination.”

“I was in New Orleans about 4 years ago with my brother-in-law and a bunch of his friends for his bachelor party. We stayed in the French Quarter that weekend and what a weekend it was. I was in graduate school at the time, my first semested actually. I remember waking up early Friday morning after a somewhat late night of drinking very early and not being able to get back to sleep. I took my pack with papers I needed to get graded that weekend (I was a graduate teaching assistant) down to Cafe Du Monde.

It was 5 in the morning and I was one of the only people there. It was so peaceful and it was something I will never forget.

I hope this #&%!$ doesn't destroy that much of the city. I also pray for the safety of the thousands of people that remain.

God be with you all!”

“I saw a couple who are vacationing there. No flights out, no rental cars available. They are stuck. - isn't this just the type of thing the national guard is designed for?”

“Evacuating people I mean.”

“People in hurricane zones don't leave until about 24 hours out, that's just the way it is. Those things are able to make pretty dramatic turns. Evacuations suck and frankly are more traumatic than actually riding out the storm.

I'm very close to the beach and I won't leave for a mild (HA! mild he says!) tropical storm but I'm gone if a hurricane rolls up.

City planning? I agree wholeheartedly with that statement but in regards to Nawlins that's a joke right? That city predates our nation and it wasn't built below sea level it just settled there.

This hurricane ain't gonna do nothing to oil prices that the market isn't already going to do.

Wow, a triple negative. I'm impressed.”

“With the ice caps melting, New Orleans will become drowned soon anyways as sea level slowly rises.

But DANG does that hurricane look intimidating...
”

“I was thinking about the roamers and homeless in the City. I hope they have someone to take them somewhere safe. Most of all I hope the hurricane changes course.

I understand that much of the problem with New Orleans is the dams in the Mississippi River. No more silt (or not as much) washes out into the gulf to replace the land the ocean washes away (and always has). The deltas are disapeering.”

“If you are poor or homeless you are pretty much screwed and have no choice but to ride it out in a shelter.

Problem is the safety of most shelters is in question.”

“whoops, didn't see this thread when I started mine a second ago. sorry. I just made 4 of them.
last edited: 8/28/05 10:43:48 PM”

“arent they gathering up the homeless and tourists and taking them to the Dome instead of shelters?”

“Dunno CB, but the dome is a shelter as far as I know.”

“oh. i thought you meant shelter as in homeless shelter”

“i read something somewhere sometime somehow that a category 3 hit and caused 7 feet of flooding in nawlins. this sucker is a cat 5. holy shnikes!”

“Anyone remember Katrina and the Waves?”

“Acording to the powers that be, we will possibly receive winds of 75 to 110 mph here in lower Alabama. Hey, somebody print up some "I survived Katrina" T-shirts and we'll make out like bandits. FEMA will pay for everything.”

“nobody in nawlins is walkin on sunshine, thats for damn sure”

“I do not think that it is going to be as bad as people think... But I like to hope for the best anyways....”

“Buddur, I've had that song stuck in my head for days now. Luckily it's a song I like.


The hurricane is coming ashore east of New ORleans, meaning the La./ Mississippi border is getting the brunt.”

“The biggest news story in decades may be happening the next few days:

The attempt to rescue those tens of thousands stranded at the Superdome surrounded by a lake of burning toxic soup!”

“Yikes, good point.”

“Buddur, unfortunately I do remember Katrina And The Waves.”

“This thread needs to be Sarged.”

“You mean to tell me that if you build a city 10' below sea level between the Mighty Miss, the Gulf and a big-ass lake that you run a risk of being flooded out? Say it ain't so! They deserve what they get.

[there Mutt, I've held down the fort until S-rge gets here]”

“You're a national treasure, Nigal.”

“Excellent, Nigal!

Stratfor:

The Geopolitics of Katrina
August 28, 2005 18 57 GMT


A Category 5 hurricane, the most severe type measured, Katrina has been
reported heading directly toward the city of New Orleans. This would be
a human catastrophe, since New Orleans sits in a bowl below sea level.
However, Katrina is not only moving on New Orleans. It also is moving
on the Port of Southern Louisiana. Were it to strike directly and
furiously, Katrina would not only take a massive human toll, but also
an enormous geopolitical one.

The Port of Southern Louisiana is the fifth-largest port in the world
in terms of tonnage, and the largest port in the United States. The
only global ports larger are Singapore, Rotterdam, Shanghai and Hong
Kong. It is bigger than Houston, Chiba and Nagoya, Antwerp and New
York/New Jersey. It is a key link in U.S. imports and exports and
critical to the global economy.

The Port of Southern Louisiana stretches up and down the Mississippi
River for about 50 miles, running north and south of New Orleans from
St. James to St. Charles Parish. It is the key port for the export of
grains to the rest of the world -- corn, soybeans, wheat and animal
feed. Midwestern farmers and global consumers depend on those exports.
The United States imports crude oil, petrochemicals, steel, fertilizers
and ores through the port. Fifteen percent of all U.S. exports by value
go through the port. Nearly half of the exports go to Europe.

The Port of Southern Louisiana is a river port. It depends on the
navigability of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi is notorious for
changing its course, and in southern Louisiana -- indeed along much of
its length -- levees both protect the land from its water and maintain
its course and navigability. Dredging and other maintenance are
constant and necessary to maintain its navigability. It is fragile.

If New Orleans is hit, the Port of Southern Louisiana, by definition,
also will be hit. No one can predict the precise course of the storm or
its consequences. However, if we speculate on worse-case scenarios the
following consequences jump out:

• The port might become in whole or part unusable if levees burst. If
the damage to the river and port facilities could not be repaired
within 30 days when the U.S. harvests are at their peak, the effect on
global agricultural prices could be substantial.
• There is a large refinery at Belle Chasse. It is the only refinery
that is seriously threatened by the storm, but if it were to be
inundated, 250,000 barrels per day would go off line. Moreover, the
threat of environmental danger would be substantial.
• About 2 percent of world crude production and roughly 25 percent of
U.S.-produced crude comes from the Gulf of Mexico and already is
affected by Katrina. Platforms in the path of Katrina have been
evacuated but others continue pumping. If this follows normal patterns,
most production will be back on line within hours or days. However, if
a Category 5 hurricane (of which there have only been three others in
history) has a different effect, the damage could be longer lasting.
Depending on the effect on the Port of Southern Louisiana, the ability
to ship could be affected.
• A narrow, two-lane highway that handles approximately 10,000 vehicles
a day, is used for transport of cargo and petroleum products and
provides port access for thousands of employees is threatened with
closure. A closure of as long as two weeks could rapidly push gasoline
prices higher.

At a time when oil prices are in the mid-60-dollar range and starting
to hurt, the hurricane has an obvious effect. However, it must be borne
in mind that the Mississippi remains a key American shipping route,
particularly for the export and import of a variety of primary
commodities from grain to oil, as well as steel and rubber. Andrew
Jackson fought hard to keep the British from taking New Orleans because
he knew it was the main artery for U.S. trade with the world. He was
right and its role has not changed since then.

This is not a prediction. We do not know the path of the storm and we
cannot predict its effects. It is a warning that if a Category 5
hurricane hits the Port of Southern Louisiana and causes the damage
that is merely at the outer reach of the probable, the effect on the
global system will be substantial.”

“More:

Geopolitical Diary: Monday, Aug. 29, 2005
August 29, 2005 06 17 GMT


Things are proceeding as expected in Iraq: the Sunnis have not signed
off on the constitution yet. There was a suicide bombing in Israel.
Jesse Jackson has offered his support to Hugo Chavez. However, these
are not the main geopolitical stories at the moment. Hurricane Katrina
is. We normally do not deal with natural disasters, but this one has
massive geopolitical implications that must be considered carefully
because New Orleans is one of the key points in North America.

The importance of New Orleans isn't Bourbon Street; rather, it is the
river complex that drains the United States between the Appalachians
and the Rockies. These rivers all eventually flow into the Mississippi,
and the last major city on the way to the Gulf and Europe and Asia is
New Orleans. If the Mississippi became impossible to navigate for any
extended period of time, the consequences for the U.S. economy would be
incalculable.

The Port of South Louisiana, which runs along the river north and south
from New Orleans, handles more cargo than any other port in the United
States. It is the fifth-largest port in the world, larger than Nagoya.
Much of the port and river are protected by huge levees. If those
levees fail, one potential outcome is that the Mississippi, which is
notorious for rerouting itself, could do so again -- and do so in such
a way that it becomes impassable without massive engineering.

Now, the consensus is that the levees on the river will hold, even if
the levees on Lake Pontchartrain do not. In other words, New Orleans
might be devastated, but the river will remain open. But there are two
dangers. The first is cross-currents, which the levees are not built to
contain; however, water levels are low enough that this probably won't
happen. The second is the possibility that a large ship -- and there
are some big ones on the river -- could hit a levee, breaking through
it. Katrina will be ripping ships from their moorings, and this is a
real threat.

There is a danger south of the city, near the mouth of the Mississippi.
Those exits could shift or silt up quickly. It is assumed that if that
were to happen, equipment would rapidly clear up the problem. But
consider: If the hurricane hits hard, what will be the condition of the
equipment and its operators? What would take a matter of days in normal
circumstances could become a matter of weeks or longer.

There is also the issue of Louisiana's oil industry. The offshore
platforms are shut down, and most will ride out the storm without
problems. But Louisiana has a vulnerable point -- the Louisiana
Offshore Oil Port, or LOOP. It is the only facility in the United
States where supertankers can dock. There is a real threat, if there
are 30-foot surges in that area, that the LOOP could be damaged
significantly. That, along with a refinery in Louisiana and one in
Mississippi that are both vulnerable to major flooding, could seriously
affect global oil markets.

There is a final consideration. If New Orleans is underwater for weeks
or months, and most of its people are evacuated or killed or hurt, who
will man the ports, warehouses and refineries -- assuming these
facilities are functioning? New Orleans is home for the work force that
runs these facilities. Grain flows down the Mississippi on barges. It
is offloaded into giant storage facilities and loaded onto ships for
the world markets. Even assuming that the river can be navigated, those
storage facilities may not be available -- and if they are, their
employees will be unable to return for work.

These are all speculations at this moment, but they are not outrageous
ones. Consider just two. The harvest is just starting in the Midwest.
Much of the produce goes down the Mississippi to Europe, Asia and Latin
America. If the river is blocked, it isn't going anywhere. Consider the
consequences to the food industry supply chain globally. Or consider
this: If the United States involuntarily cuts oil purchases, the price
of oil will surge in the United States, but globally it will decline.
You wind up with almost two markets. Some of this oil can be shuffled
around from one port to another, but not for weeks on end.

The consequences of a breakdown in the Port of South Louisiana and the
LOOP would have economic consequences far in excess of those from the
Sept. 11 attacks, which hit pretty hard. This would affect global food
and oil markets. The problems could be solved in days, or could take
months to fix. The unknowns at this point are enormous. Katrina might
have no effect whatever on trade -- but if its only effect is to
displace the population of New Orleans for a few weeks, that will be
effect enough on the global economy.”

“I can't prove it but I think Bush is somehow behind this. Cindy Sheehan, New Orleans needs you!!”

“Hugo Chavez will come to save us!”

“They are now evaculating the Superdome because the roof is leaking and they fear it may collapse.

The dome has been with out power and AIR CONDITIONING for a few hours now.”

“Good: Worst-case scenario for people in the Superdome.”

“Nice”

“Well, I suppose having the roof crash in on them is the absolute worst-case scenario, but having to bake inside the Superdome while waiting for rescue is still pretty bad.”