This was weird. Many of you probably knew that New Orleans was under sea level, and some also may have been aware that a direct hit to New Orleans by a higher category hurricane was a disaster just waiting to happpen. I can gauruntee you that everyone who lived in New Orleans knew about this.
I just finished reading an article from National Geographic in October of 2004 about the overall precarious nature of the entire Louisiana Bayou area, which goes in to detail about the effects of draining what is essentially a giant swamp of the natural gas underground. As a petroleum geologist Bob Morton explained, "When you stick a straw in a soda and suck on it, everything goes down," Morton explains. "That's very simplified, but you get the idea." The article does not do much to instill a high level of confidence about the geologic stability of the region for the future -hurricane or no hurricane- so be warned before you read it.
What was truly erie about the article was their description of the potential disaster of a strong hurricane striking New Orleans. It reads like it was ripped from Monday and Tuesdays headlines, yet it was written about a year ago.
It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.
But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.
The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.
Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.
I realize that many had postulated the inevitable effects of a hurricane striking New Orleans, but this article struck me as almost clairvoyant in the details.
People have gone to great lenghts to argue from all sides of this tragedy, from blaming Bush and others for ignoring the problem (ridiculous) to those who inject some reality that this is "the largest natural disaster ever seen in the United States, and somehow, people just expect everything to be fixed".
Me? I'm just sad. It sucks man. People shooting at freaking helicopters trying to rescue them, scores of bodies piling up, po' folks young and old just left to die. No point in trying to point fingers, just get to work and clean up the mess. I've dropped what little I can afford off to the Red Cross because of the bang up job they do during times like these. Hope it helps.
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