CATASTROPHIC STORM SURGE SWAMPS 9TH WARD, ST. BERNARD LAKEVIEW LEVEE BRE

[steve2470]

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/t-p/katrina.ssf?/hurricane/katrina/stories/083005catastrophic.html

By Doug MacCash
and James O.Byrne
Staff writers

A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new .hurricane proof. Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina's fiercest winds were well north. The breach sent a churning sea of water from Lake Pontchartrain coursing across Lakeview and into Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park and neighborhoods farther south and east.

As night fell on a devastated region, the water was still rising in the city, and nobody was willing to predict when it would stop. After the destruction already apparent in the wake of Katrina, the American Red Cross was mobilizing for what regional officials were calling the largest recovery operation in the organization's history.

Police officers, firefighters and private citizens, hampered by a lack of even rudimentary communication capabilities, continued a desperate and impromptu boat-borne rescue operation across Lakeview well after dark. Coast Guard helicopters with searchlights criss-crossed the skies. Officers working on the scene said virtually every home and business between the 17th Street Canal and the Marconi Canal, and between Robert E. Lee Boulevard and City Park Avenue, had water in it. Nobody had confirmed any fatalities as a result of the levee breach, but they conceded that hundreds of homes had not been checked.

As the sun set over a still-roiling Lake Pontchartrain, the smoldering ruins of the Southern Yacht Club were still burning, and smoke streamed out over the lake. Nobody knew the cause of the fire because nobody could get anywhere near it to find out what happened.

<snip>

Yeah, this is really dodging the bullet. More like getting grazed by the bullet. Not fatal but gushing blood.

[rodeodance]

1. chaos. Would the same thing happen if large terrorist attach on this

vital port city?

[wli]

2. CIA/ONI/DIA/etc. wouldn't be interested in attacking New Orleans

Unless, of course, it leaned too heavily to the left.

[DELUSIONAL]

3. Lack of communication problems

Police officers, firefighters and private citizens, hampered by a lack of even rudimentary communication capabilities, continued a desperate and impromptu boat-borne rescue operation across Lakeview well after dark. Coast Guard helicopters with searchlights criss-crossed the skies.

more communications problems (which reminds me of the World Trade center problems with communication between rescue etc. -- this is a major problem and the lesson should have been learned from the World Trade center OR even the Oakland Fires - COMMUNICATION IS ESSENTIAL.0

Firefighters who saved them tried to request an RTA bus to come for the refugees, but realized was no working communications to do so. Ed Gruber, who lives in the 6300 block of Canal Boulevard, said he became desperate when the rising water chased him, his wife, Helen, and their neighbor Mildred K. Harrison to the second floor of their home.

Meanwhile Nero George eats cake.

Thanks for posting this article -- I'm forwarding this to friend who have family in the NO area.

The lack of communication is really something that bugs me -- because simple disaster drill would have shown this to be a problem and in this age of high tech this sort of poor communication is a major glaring problem.

I believe we need to take this to the local level in each of our communities -- what sort of emergency plans and COMMUNICATION are in place if a major disaster hits?

I stormed and raged about the lack of communication several years ago (ok -- ages ago when Mt St. Helens blew). My husband was in a position to shut his wife up -- and he wrote disaster plans-- with emergency plans for inter-agency etc. communications. Others followed his example and our county has disaster plans and has had drills for major disaster events.

At the time there were NO plans in place -- and the major event was the major ash fall which hit Eastern Washington. If the wind had been in a different direction that ash fall could have hit Western Washington.

It seems like one lesson we need to take from this for each place we live in is to check to see IF a communication plan is in place -- between every group (agency, private and public) that need to be in contact with each other. If not start nagging local officials -- county commissioners, mayors -- whatever the structure of your local government -- on up to the State level -- Representatives and Senators.

[Junkdrawer]

4. I think they used levees to do the job of a dam...

Holding back a lake and preventing a river from overflowing are two different jobs.

[expatriate]

5. Levees run along the watercourse, they don't stop it

as is the case with a dam - levees contain a watercourse within its banks, rather than letting it spread out over a floodplain in times of high water. Levees function as artificially high riverbanks, basically. The levees on the Mississippi River and Lake Ponchartrain run along the shorelines, and are some feet higher than the normal level of both bodies of water. In the case of the Mississippi River in New Orleans, the levee is about forty feet above the normal level of the river. The Lake Ponchartrain levee is not that high, and in some cases, is quite low, as it is at the area where it has been breached.

Lake Ponchartrain drains a goodly portion of the area that is receiving flooding rains from Katrina, so it will rise. This is an extremely bad situation. Normally, in times of very high water, the Mississippi River is partially diverted through Lake Ponchartrain to take strain off the Mississippi River levees, but with the Lake Ponchartrain levee breached in at least one place, that will not be possible should the Mississippi rise due to flooding - so stress will also be placed on the Mississippi River levees in the case of a crest in the level of the river.

[Junkdrawer]

6. Without looking, I'd bet the engineers knew it, but didn't have the budget

to do the job right. I'll bet the levees were "feel good" structures that the engineers knew wouldn't hold up if a Cat 5 hit them...

[Tin Man]

9. Very important points - thanks. eom

[tjdee]

7. Two hospitals were evacuating...Tulane University and....

don't remember the name of the other one. One of the administrators was talking to the talking head saying the water was rising at an inch every five minutes. And that was early this morning around 1 or 2.

This is very, very bad.

[Tin Man]

8. photo of levee break - 17th St. Canal near Orpheum and Ash St. in Metarie