Must see for all folks in New Orleans in path of Katrina

[Horse with no Name]

Get Out Now! Please! (another DU'er gave me this link and it scares the crap out of me for y'all down there--especially since they are saying this is "THE BIG ONE".)

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_neworleans.html

WALTER MAESTRI: The hurricane is spinning counter-clockwise. It's been pushing in front of it water from the Gulf of Mexico for days. It's now got a wall of water in front of it some 30, 40 feet high. As it approaches the levies of the-- the-- that surround the city, it tops those levees. As the storm continues to pass over. Now Lake Ponchetrain, that water from Lake Ponchartrain is now pushed on to that - those population which has been fleeing from the western side and everybody's caught in the middle. The bowl now completely fills. And we've now got the entire community underwater some 20, 30 feet underwater. Everything is lost.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: Remember the levees which the Army built, to hold smaller floods out of the bowl? Maestri says now those levees would doom the city. Because they'd trap the water in.

WALTER MAESTRI: It's going to look like a massive shipwreck. There's going to be-- there's going to be, you know-- everything that that the water has carried in is going to be there. Alligators, moccasins, you know every kind of rodent that you could think of.

All of your sewage treatment plants are under water. And of course the material is flowing free in the community. Disease becomes a distinct possibility now. The petrochemicals that are produced all up and down the Mississippi River --much of that has floated into this bowl. I mean this has become, you know, the biggest toxic waste dump in the world now. Is the city of New Orleans because of what has happened.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: Federal officials say that nobody in America has confronted these conditions before. Not across an entire city. Not after an earthquake. Not after floods. Not even after September 11th:

So they've gone to the US Army Corps of Engineers, and they've asked them to figure out — How would the city even begin to function? Jay Combe has spent the last few years assembling a doomsday manual.

JAY COMBE: Street signs will be gone. The things that you normally think, "Well, I'm going 'round the corner of Broadway and St. Charles," and that place won't be there.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: So Combe's been mapping crucial structures with longitude and latitude, because he says emergency crews will have to use navigation devices just to find out where they are.

And Combe says, how will they get the water out of the city? For the past hundred years, New Orleans has operated one of the biggest pumping systems in the world. Every time there's a major rain, colossal turbines suck up the water and pump it out of "The Bowl." Combe says that won't work after a big hurricane.

JAY COMBE: The problem is that the city's been under water, the pumps are flooded. They don't operate now. We have to get the pumps back in operation and in order to get the pumps back in operation, we have to get the water out of the city.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: Catch-22

JAY COMBE: That's correct.

[halobeam]

1. My response to this pbs link (from your post in a different thread):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4478514&mesg_id=4478973

[Horse with no Name]

2. I knew it would be bad if a hurricane hit NO

But I had NO IDEA how bad!
I'm lighting a candle as well and I hope to God this thing turns.
Any other city could take a beating and still come out of it okay...but NO would be a death trap. Prayers to all along the Gulf Coast.

[Pithy Cherub]

3. Ironically, fire would become a threat with all of those chemicals.

I don't want to see this nightmare...:cry:

[geomon666]

4. I know what that's like

JAY COMBE: Street signs will be gone. The things that you normally think, "Well, I'm going 'round the corner of Broadway and St. Charles," and that place won't be there.


You feel like you've awoken in hell and you don't know where you are. All of your familiar sights, landmarks...they're gone. Everything is alien to you. It's very hard to cope with and it takes weeks to get used to.

[Corgigal]

5. I never thought about how they would have to seal

the city in. Poor person who has to make that decision.

[Horse with no Name]

6. Could you do it?

I don't think I could.:cry:

[Corgigal]

7. If I didn't see the people

then yes I could. If I don't in a timely manner then I would lose everyone. If I saw the people, with kids and pets. I don't really know.

Thankfully it's not up to me or you.

[Child_Of_Isis]

8. What about the senior citizens

in nursing homes? The sick in hospitals? The poor without transportation? What are they doing with them? :scared:

[Horse with no Name]

9. Hopefully they will airlift them out tomorrow

If Katrina hasn't changed her course.
That would probably only apply to the hospitals and nursing homes. If nothing else, I doubt the staff would want to endanger their lives.
I think the homeless are supposed to go to the superdome--although if the city is underwater I couldn't imagine what good that would do.

[Horse with no Name]

10. New information:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he may call for the first-ever mandatory evacuation in city history after talking with the head of the Hurricane Center who said a storm surge of 20-25 feet could be expected with major hurricane Katrina.

Nagin said he would consider ordering evacuations by Sunday morning and may employ buses and trains to help get people out of the city.

In an interview on Eyewitness News, Nagin said his Saturday night dinner was interrupted by an urgent call from Governor Kathleen Blanco who asked Nagin to call the Hurricane Center.

Nagin said the Hurricane Center Chief told the mayor that if it was possible at all, he should order an evacuation due to winds that could reach 145 miles per hour sustained and 170 mile per hour gusts.

Nagin said he would put his wife and family on a plane and he urged everyone to do anything they could to get out.

“All models say this storm will land right on top of New Orleans,” he said.

Nagin said he would call churches and urge them to have their congregations adopt seniors or someone who doesn’t have transportation and get them out.

“I don’t want to wake up one day and not have done all I could do with a catastrophe on top of us.”

Nagin said anyone trying to stay in a city hotel or hoping for an opening of the Superdome might want to think again.

According to Nagin, if 18 to 20 feet of water came into the city it could be six or seven weeks to restore power and the Superdome and hotels would grow uncomfortable.

http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWL082705nagin.b7724856.html

[Horse with no Name]

11. Kick.

Everyone needs to read this.