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Post by deb on Aug 28, 2005 17:57:32 GMT -5
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Post by gilmourfan on Aug 28, 2005 18:14:06 GMT -5
That's the website we use at work for the newspaper. They keep saying New Orleans. This monster is going to slam into a lot more than just New Orleans. You Texans and us Floridians lucked out this time.
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Post by xElleNx on Aug 28, 2005 20:34:02 GMT -5
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Post by deb on Aug 28, 2005 22:01:06 GMT -5
And New Orleans is below sea level...it could be all under water when it's all said and done....
Just have to put it in the Lord's hands....it's all we can do...
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Post by deb on Aug 28, 2005 23:31:04 GMT -5
By ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 6 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS - A monstrous Hurricane Katrina barreled toward New Orleans on Sunday with 160-mph wind and a threat of a 28-foot storm surge, forcing a mandatory evacuation of the below-sea-level city and prayers for those who remained to face a doomsday scenario.
ADVERTISEMENT "Have God on your side, definitely have God on your side," Nancy Noble said as she sat with her puppy and three friends in six lanes of one-way traffic on gridlocked Interstate 10. "It's very frightening."
Katrina intensified into a Category 5 giant over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico, reaching top winds of 175 mph before weakening slightly on a path to hit New Orleans around sunrise Monday. That would make it the city's first direct hit in 40 years and the most powerful storm ever to slam the city.
Forecasters warned that Mississippi and Alabama were also in danger because Katrina was such a big storm, with hurricane-force winds extending up to 105 miles from the center. In addition to the winds, the storm packed the potential for a surge of 18 to 28 feet, 30-foot waves and as much as 15 inches of rain.
"The conditions have to be absolutely perfect to have a hurricane become this strong," National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield, noting that Katrina may yet be more powerful than the last Category 5 storm, 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which at 165 mph leveled parts of South Florida, killed 43 people and caused $31 billion in damage.
"It's capable of causing catastrophic damage," Mayfield said. "Even well-built structures will have tremendous damage. Of course, what we're really worried about is the loss of lives.
"New Orleans may never be the same."
By evening, the first squalls, driving rains and lightning began hitting New Orleans. A grim Mayor C. Ray Nagin earlier ordered the mandatory evacuation for his city of 485,000, conceding Katrina's storm surge pushing up the Mississippi River would swamp the city's system of levees, flooding the bowl-shaped city and causing potentially months of misery.
"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," he said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime event."
As many as 100,000 inner-city residents didn't have the means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the closing of the airport, so the city arranged buses to take people to 10 last-resort shelters, including the Superdome.
For years, forecasters have warned of the nightmare flooding a big storm could bring to New Orleans, a bowl-shaped city bounded by the half-mile-wide Mississippi River and massive Lake Pontchartrain.
As much as 10 feet below sea level in spots, the city is as the mercy of a network of levees, canals and pumps to keep dry.
Scientists predicted Katrina could easily overtake that levee system, swamping the city under a 30-feet cesspool of toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins 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.
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard said some who have ridden out previous storms in the New Orleans area may not be so lucky this time.
"I'm expecting that some people who are die-hards will die hard," he said.
Katrina was a Category 1 storm with 80-mph wind when it hit South Florida with a soggy punch Thursday that flooded neighborhoods and left nine people dead. It strengthened rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico as it headed for New Orleans.
By 11 p.m. EDT, Katrina's eye was about 105 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River and 170 miles south-southeast of New Orleans. The storm was moving toward the north-northwest at about 10 mph and was expected to turn toward the north. A hurricane warning was in effect for the north-central Gulf Coast from Morgan City, La., to the Alabama-Florida line.
Despite the dire predictions, a group of residents in a poor neighborhood of central New Orleans sat on a porch with no car, no way out and, surprisingly, no fear.
"We're not evacuating," said Julie Paul, 57. "None of us have any place to go. We're counting on the Superdome. That's our lifesaver."
The 70,000-seat Superdome, the home of football's Saints, opened at daybreak Sunday, giving first priority to frail, elderly people on walkers, some with oxygen tanks. They were told to bring enough food, water and medicine to last up to five days.
"They told us not to stay in our houses because it wasn't safe," said Victoria Young, 76, who sat amid plastic bags and a metal walker. "It's not safe anywhere when you're in the shape we're in."
Fitter residents waited for hours in the muggy heat and then pouring rain to get in, clutching meager belongings and crying children. By nightfall, at least 8,000 refugees were safely inside, seated in the stands because of fears the field could flood.
In the French Quarter, most bars that stayed open through the threat of past hurricanes were boarded up and the few people on the streets were battening down their businesses and getting out. But a few stragglers remained.
Tony Peterson leaned over a balcony above Bourbon Street, festooned with gold, purple and green wreathes as Katrina's first rains pelted his shaved head.
"I was going to the Superdome and then I saw the two-mile line," the 42-year-old musician said. "I figure if I'm going to die, I'm going to die with cold beer and my best buds."
Airport Holiday Inn manager Joyce Tillis spent the morning calling her 140 guests to tell them about the evacuation order. Tillis, who lives inside the flood zone, also called her three daughters to tell them to get out.
"If I'm stuck, I'm stuck," Tillis said. "I'd rather save my second generation if I can."
But the evacuation was slow going. Highways in Louisiana and Mississippi were jammed all day as people headed away from Katrina's expected landfall. All lanes were limited to northbound traffic on Interstates 55 and 59, and westbound on I-10. At the peak, 18,000 vehicles an hour were streaming out of southeastern Louisiana.
"I'm expecting to come back to a slab," said Robert Friday, who didn't bother boarding up his home in suburban Slidell, La., before driving north to Mississippi. "We may not be coming back to anything, but at least we'll be coming back."
By Sunday night, most major highways were cleared out and state police warned that late escapes would be impossible after high winds hit elevated expressways over the surrounding swamps.
Hotels filled up quickly as evacuees headed away from the coast. In Orange, Texas, more than 90 people who couldn't find hotel rooms settled in at the First Baptist Church, where activities were set up for children. The First Presbyterian Church was set to open once that reached 100, and veterinarian clinics prepared to take in pets.
Evacuation orders were also posted along the Mississippi and Alabama coast, and in barrier islands of the Florida Panhandle, where crashing waves swamped some coastal roads.
Mississippi's floating casinos packed up their chips and closed. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the Waterford nuclear plant about 20 miles west of New Orleans had also been shut down as a precaution.
New Orleans has not taken a major direct hit from a hurricane since Betsy blasted the Gulf Coast in 1965. Flood waters approached 20 feet in some areas, fishing villages were flattened, and the storm surge left almost half of New Orleans under water and 60,000 residents homeless. Seventy-four people died in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.
Tourists stranded by the shutdown of New Orleans' Louis Armstrong Airport and the lack of rental cars packed the lobbies of high-rise hotels, which were exempt from the evacuation order to give people a place for "vertical evacuation."
Tina and Bryan Steven, of Forest Lake, Minn., sat glumly on the sidewalk outside their hotel in the French Quarter.
"We're choosing the best of two evils," said Bryan Steven. "It's either be stuck in the hotel or stuck on the road. ... We'll make it through it."
His wife, wearing a Bourbon Street T-shirt with a lewd message, interjected: "I just don't want to die in this shirt."
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Post by deb on Aug 29, 2005 0:03:21 GMT -5
By MATT CRENSON, AP National Writer 1 hour, 38 minutes ago
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.
ADVERTISEMENT I'm a WomanMan seeking a ManWoman Age: to ZIP: 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 160 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 herself out at the mouth of the Mississippi in 2002. And last year's Hurricane Ivan obligingly curved to the east as it came ashore, barely grazing a grateful city
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Post by deb on Aug 29, 2005 0:09:49 GMT -5
I mean could you imagine, coffins coming out of the ground?
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Post by deb on Aug 29, 2005 7:46:11 GMT -5
Hurricane Katrina makes landfall near Grand Isle
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration infrared satellite image shows the center of Hurricane Katrina. By The Associated Press (8/29/05 - NEW ORLEANS, LA) — Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore early Monday and charged toward this low-lying city with 145-mph winds and the threat of a catastrophic storm surge.
Report from Louisiana Report from Mississippi Report from Alabama Images of damage Katrina location Katrina path Katrina satellite 2005 Hurricane Guide
Katrina edged slightly to the east shortly before making landfall near Grand Isle, providing some hope that the worst of the storm's wrath might not be directed at the vulnerable city.
Martin Nelson, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center, said the northern part of the eyewall came ashore at about 5 a.m. It was moving northward at 15 mph. Katrina's fury was quickly felt at the Louisiana Superdome, normally home of professional football's Saints, which became the shelter of last resort Sunday for about 9,000 of the area's poor, homeless and frail.
Electrical power at the Superdome failed at 5:02 a.m., triggering groans from the crowd. Emergency generators kicked in, but the backup power runs only reduced lighting and is not strong enough to run the air conditioning.
Katrina, which weakened slightly overnight to a strong Category 4 storm, turned slightly eastward before hitting land, which would put the western eyewall -- the weaker side of the strongest winds -- over New Orleans.
"It's not as bad as the eastern side. It'll be plenty bad enough," said Eric Blake of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Mayor Ray Nagin said he believed 80 percent of the city's 480,000 residents had heeded an unprecedented mandatory evacuation as Katrina threatened to become the most powerful storm ever to slam the city.
"It's capable of causing catastrophic damage," said National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield. "Even well-built structures will have tremendous damage. Of course, what we're really worried about is the loss of lives.
"New Orleans may never be the same."
Crude oil futures spiked to more than $70 a barrel in Singapore for the first time Monday as Katrina targeted an area crucial to the country's energy infrastructure, but the price had slipped back to $68.95 by midday in Europe. The storm already forced the shutdown of an estimated 1 million barrels of refining capacity.
Terry Ebbert, New Orleans director of homeland security, said more than 4,000 National Guardsmen were mobilizing in Memphis and will help police New Orleans streets.
The head of Jefferson Parish, which includes major suburbs and juts all the way to the storm-vulnerable coast, said some residents who stayed would be fortunate to survive.
"I'm expecting that some people who are die-hards will die hard," said parish council President Aaron Broussard.
v The evacuation itself claimed lives. Three New Orleans nursing home residents died Sunday after being taken by bus to a Baton Rouge church. Don Moreau, of the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner's Office, said the cause was likely dehydration.
Katrina, which cut across Florida last week, had intensified into a colossal Category 5 over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico, reaching top winds of 175 mph before weakening as it neared the coast.
The storm held a potential surge of 18 to 28 feet that would easily top New Orleans' hurricane protection levees, as well as bigger waves and as much as 15 inches of rain.
A hurricane warning was in effect for the north-central Gulf Coast from Morgan City, La., to the Alabama-Florida line. Tornado warnings were posted for Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
For years, forecasters have warned of the nightmare scenario a big storm could bring to New Orleans, a bowl of a city that's up to 10 feet below sea level in spots and dependent on a network of levees, canals and pumps to keep dry from the Mississippi River on one side, Lake Pontchartrain on the other.
The fear is that flooding could overrun the levees and turn New Orleans into a toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, as well as waste from ruined septic systems.
Nagin said he expected the pumping system to fail during the height of the storm. The mayor said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was standing by to get the system running, but water levels must fall first.
"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," he said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime event."
Major highways in New Orleans cleared out late Sunday after more than 24 hours of jammed traffic as people headed inland. At the peak of the evacuation, 18,000 people an hour were streaming out of southeastern Louisiana, state police said.
On inland highways in Louisiana and Mississippi, heavy traffic remained the rule into the night as the last evacuees tried to reach safety. In Orange, Texas, Janie Johnson of the American Red Cross described it as a "river of headlights."
In Washington, D.C., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it has been advised that the Waterford nuclear plant about 20 miles west of New Orleans has been shut down as a precautionary measure. New Orleans has not taken a direct hit from a hurricane since Betsy in 1965, when an 8- to 10-foot storm surge submerged parts of the city in seven feet of water. Betsy, a Category 3 storm, was blamed for 74 deaths in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.
Evacuation orders also were posted all along the Mississippi coast, and the area's casinos, built on barges, were closed early Saturday. Bands of wind-whipped rain increased Sunday night and roads in some low areas were beginning to flood.
"Hopefully it will take a turn and we'll be spared the brunt of it, but it just don't look like that," said James Bosco, who was packing up a final few items from his beachfront apartment in Gulfport. "I just hope everybody makes it all right. We can always rebuild."
Alabama officials issued mandatory evacuation orders for low-lying coastal areas. Mobile Mayor Michael C. Dow said flooding could be worse than the 9-foot surge that soaked downtown during Hurricane Georges in 1998. Residents of several barrier islands in the western Florida Panhandle were also urged to evacuate.
Katrina hit the southern tip of Florida as a much weaker storm Thursday and was blamed for nine deaths. It left miles of streets and homes flooded and knocked out power to about 1.45 million customers. It was the sixth hurricane to hit Florida in just over a
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Post by Felicia on Aug 29, 2005 7:47:44 GMT -5
as for the coffins, that happens with every really heavy rain that comes with hurricanes...it's creepy...you'll see soon enough though.
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