The bullet that New Orleans REALLY dodged

[Walt Starr]

Heard a report tonight.

The structural integrity of the Superdome has been damaged far worse than it was first believed to have been.

New Orleans did not feel the full brunt of the wnds of Katrina. Had Katrina remained a Category 5 until it made landfall, and had not made the jog to the East, the devestation in New Orleans would have outstripped what we saw initially.

And then, the levees would have topped, and broken.

The immediate death and destruction would have been enormous, and the loss of life in the imemdiate strength of the storm would have been horrific.

But perhaps the biggest bullet of all that New Orleans dodged, the inept response by the federal government in the wake of such a devestating catastrophe would have probably meant that 90% of those who survived the storm would have surely died.

That's the bullet that New Orleans truly dodged. It's sort of like the difference between being hit with a 20mm round and being hit with 155mm artillery shell.

[Rex]

1. Both bullets will kill you.

I guess FEMA should stand for Failure Excuses & Misery Agency.

[FloridaPat]

2. NO would look like the Mississippi coast does now. I still can't

believe how badly they were hit considering they went through Camille

[Silverhair]

4. Katrina was worse than Camille.

The storm surge was what did the damage to the MS Gulf Coast in Camille and in Katrina. I found a very high resolution satellite photo from two days after Katrina, and my old house, one block north of Beach Blvd (Hwy 90)appears to be undamaged. No waterborne debris anywhere around it. But 30 yards away toward the beach is total devastation. And the beachward side of 90 is erased down to the cement foundations. My old house made it because it sits on a rise and was above the water. Many of the destroyed buildings, such as the First Baptist Church in Gulfport had survived Camille.

So one reason was that this storm had a bigger storm surge hitting shore.

Second reason: Lack of respect for hurricanes by newcomers. Camille was 36 years ago. Lots of folks moved in and just didn't understand what a really big hurricane could do. We have had several CAT 2 storms come in and they made people complacent. Lots of beach construction that never should have been built, or at least not engineered the way they were.

[elehhhhna]

3. The Levees DID top, by 9 a.m. Monday:

000
WTUS84 KLIX 291359
HLSLIX
LAZ038-040-050-056>070-MSZ080>082-291600-

HURRICANE KATRINA LOCAL STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
900 AM CDT MON AUG 29 2005

...HURRICANE KATRINA DIRECT HIT FOR NEW ORLEANS AND MISSISSIPPI
COAST...

...LEVEES OVERTOPPED IN ORLEANS AND ST BERNARD PARISHES...


http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/LIX/HLSLIX.0508291359

[Walt Starr]

5. Yep, but with the storm surge of the full brunt, they would have broken

too.

And we would have lost the Superdome immediatley.

And nearly every human being in the Convention Center would have died in the non-response.

[elehhhhna]

6. holy chips.

[moof]

7. Interesting, people were left in a building that was supposed to fail

given the intensity of the expected winds and the most probably
known engineering faults of the structure.
So if the people had all been evacuated and the Dome would have the same damage but now the government will likely end up paying for some if not all the cost of the damage/reconstruction.

But that would never happen right ...

Attention everyone you may return to the WTC 2 now.