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| Home Front: Economy |
| Nawlins Levees breached--again |
| 2005-09-23 |
| Dozens of blocks throughout New Orleans blocks are underwater after rain poured over a patched levee, confirming fears that the city's weakened levees would not be able to handle additional rainfall. Water is waist deep and steadily rising on the street that runs next to the Industrial Canal. The Army Corps repaired the section after Hurricane Katrina flooded the Lower Ninth Ward. The Industrial Canal drains Lake Poncatrain into the Mississippi river. As many as 500,000 people in southwestern Louisiana, many of them already displaced by Hurricane Katrina, were told to evacuate and many jammed roads in a bid to escape. Governor Kathleen Blanco advised those refusing to leave to write their social security numbers on their arms with permanent ink. They voted for a governor and got a comedian. Forecasts call for up to 5-inches of rain in New Orleans over Friday and Saturday. |
| Posted by:GK |
| #5 Sorry for the draining error. I read this The Industrial Canal connects Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. New Orleans was 90% drained. over at the dummocrat blog and apparently misread it. |
| Posted by: GK 2005-09-23 16:13 |
| #4 John's got it. There is no way for authorities to force anyone to leave their home, short of true martial law. So they try to scare people into leaving by telling them if they won't leave, at least put your SSN on you so you won't be hard to identify. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-09-23 15:10 |
| #3 Someone posted an item here last week or so about Virginia Emergency Services handing out the ink markers to those who refuse mandatory evacuations. |
| Posted by: john 2005-09-23 15:01 |
| #2 The Industrial Canal does not 'drain' the Lake into the river, or vice versa. It provides navigational access from the Lake to the river through a lock, which normally drops ships a couple of feet from the river to the lake, which is at sea level. Gov. Blanco is not a comedienne either - she swiped that quip from the mayor of some Texas coastal town southwest of Galveston. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2005-09-23 14:54 |
| #1 The problem is NOT the rainfall (for now). It is the storm surge and high tide. The Gulf is on the canal side of the failing levees, and as the Gulf level rises due to tide, surge, and wind/waves, the water spills over the top of the levees. As water washes over, it erodes the new dirt/sand/gravel/shells the Corps of Engineers placed there, creating a kind of 'canyon' through the levee, allowing ever more water to flow from the Gulf into the below sea-level Lower Ninth Ward (& on into Chalmette). |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2005-09-23 14:50 |