Due to this afternoon’s storms, there are numerous reports of stopped traffic, signals out, wires down and live wires on vehicles. Additionally, a semi-truck lost a load of corn, closing the Beltline between Fish Hatchery Road and Park Street.
Cars are reported covered in water up to their windshields in the Randall-Monroe street area.
Yikes, no place is safe from the vagaries of Weather. D writes from the University of Wisconsin Division of Information Technology, “Our platform is flooding and we have to shutdown our servers, this is bad, I will most likely be offline in a little bit. I’ll call you tonight and give you the details.”
All I can think of is Ashley’s reaction to this, “They should have known better than to live there.” I’m sorry you’re getting rained on so badly. However, “when I tell people in the US that I live in New Orleans, that’s the kind of thing they tell me.”
The UW is probably smart enough to have backup data in another geographic location and the backbone will be up and running in no time. Once every last drop of water has been sucked out of the platform location. Hope you have a lot of blow dryers, wet-vacs and generators handy.
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Speaking of wet neighborhoods, I am miffed that almost no one knows about the New Orleans Community Support Foundation’s meeting and its vital importance to neighborhood associations who need LRA and Rockefeller money to plan community revitalization. I’ve written about it at NO Metroblogs in the hope that it will get more advertising:
The upshot of this post is that if you don’t make it to the New Orleans Community Support Foundation meeting this Sunday, your neighborhood will have a planner picked for you. The abject lack of advertising for this very crucial meeting doesn’t sit well with me. You may ask, “So what if a planner is picked for my neighborhood?” Your input was not actively solicited, it’s supposedly a city-wide meeting and where’s the democracy in the process if it isn’t advertised far and wide.
… This is something that should be blared from the TP, nola.com, TV and radio stations and flyers all over the city and evacuation centers. As a friend remarked today, “So much for democracy.”
If the NOCSF truly supports communities and acts on their behalf, the least they can do is better advertising. City-wide means exactly that and not “some people.” I hope a lot of individuals show up as well as nascent and well-established neighborhood associations. Sunday – July 30th – 12-4pm – Pavilion of Two Sisters in City Park – drop whatever it is you have planned and assist in your neighborhood’s planning and recovery process.
Also see:
- Unified Planning Process at ThinkNOLA Wiki
- Bayou Buzz: New Orleans Citizens, Planners Question Neighborhood Rebuild Process
- New Orleans Rebuilding Plan Essay Contest
- Becky Houtman’s Post On The UNOP Meetings
- Mark Folse’s Flowchart Of The Plan
And now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s going to rain in New Orleans. Again.
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The southern Wisconsin – southern Louisiana connection grows: 2 Millionth has a degree from UW-Madison! Also, don’t forget that City Councilman Arnie Fielkow hails from Appleton, WI and has a JD from the fabulous UW as well. (His wife, Susan, is a sweetheart and very generous hostess.) We’re everywhere!
The street I grew up on in Madison flooded pretty badly several years ago. And people have basements there too…
I don’t know about the Fish-Hatch/Beltline or Randall/Monroe area, but my old neighborhood (and yours) is built on filled-in marsh, as is much of Madison that borders on any of the lakes. I think about that and all the other cities all over the country (and world) that are built on waterways because of the access they offer to both transportation and drinking water every time I get that “people should’ve known better” remark too.
Really? The Tenney Park / Elizabeth & Few area of the isthmus is built on filled-in marsh? I thought it was a natural glacial high.
Hmmm …
When I was really young, we had a neighbor who grew up about a block away uphill, between E. Johnson and Gorham I think. She said when she was a girl the kitty-corner from ours on Few was a general store they got to on a boardwalk. The Tenney “Lagoon” was a lot bigger and swampier back then.
I have pics at First Draft of the flooding.
Oh, yes. Everyone had some story to tell last night about the terrible flood that hit Madison. While, granted, there were some serious issues all around town, it all seemed kind of comical to me, so I bit my tongue. My favorite thing that I’ve heard so far (and seen, thanks to a picture on a local Flickr pool) was a pair of knuckleheads kayaking down East Johnson, near the strange three-street, lighted intersection by Pinkus McBride deli. I couldn’t/can’t help but think, though, it was a rain that lasted maybe an hour, tops, and while water levels rose in some locations during the heavy part of it, the “flooding” turned out to be nothing but a few inches of nuisance in the basement. While Madisonians have the right to complain about it, I just kept thinking, “You guys have no idea…”
Geez…you bring back memories mentioning the Pinkus McBride deli…or, as I used to call it, the dog store (Pinkus was the deli owner’scanine). I lived just up the street from that store about ten years ago (in the limestone building with the round turret on one corner)…
Maitri–in response to your question at First-Draft, I can’t speak for others re: the Madison/NOLA (or, for me, the sticks…or maybe the Red Stick) connection, but my own reasons were both personal and political. I have fond memories–and a UW degree–but I sure don’t miss the deep freeze. In comparison, heat and humidity are relatively easy to deal with…
http://community.livejournal.com/madisonwi/915542.html
http://community.livejournal.com/madisonwi/915215.html
That intersection by Pinkus is horrible for flooding – I had to ford it a few times when I lived on Blount and tried walking home from work/school along E. Johnson.
God I miss Madison so much.
p.s. even my Slidell born-and-raised work partner was impressed by the photos.