Day 1: Katrina Is In New Orleans: News Roundup

Hurricane Katrina | Google Earth – August 28, 2005 | NASA Earth Observatory

From the safety of VatulBlog’s temporary HQ north of Houston (geek alert – txyankee, By The Bayou, D and me with a computer each), the pieces of information coming from various news sources merge into one giant message:

New Orleans Is Getting Walloped Right Now. As of 9:30AM CT, the worst is expected to last another hour.

The following is a breakdown (with personal analysis) of the major factors with respect to NO. Keep checking back for updates. All times are in CDT.

Roads: The I-10 E corridor to Slidell, which we used as the first leg of our evacuation route yesterday, now forms the western edge of the hurricane eye wall. MSNBC just showed portions of the bridges across Lake Pontchartrain as completely submerged. New Orleans is closed for business until all of these bridges are out of harm’s way.

Power: A big portion of New Orleans is without power. In fact, the Superdome lost power at 5AM followed by the entire French Quarter. Mac reported from the Lower Garden District at 8:24AM: “Just woke up – no electric, so keeping phone off often to save battery – house safe, but street starting to flood a bit” The power has been out for 4 hours and the land lines are just beginning to cut out. Time to consider a generator. Cellphone circuits are busy which explains why I can’t get through to anyone with a 504 mobile number and haven’t been receiving phone calls.

Flooding: The dozen or so pumps that keep the river, lake and rain out of the New Orleans fishbowl cannot handle the predicted storm surge. A pump is out because of aforementioned power loss and some homes are flooded to their ceilings. The Industrial Canal levee has just broken in the Ninth Ward way east of the French Quarter. The strongest winds are yet to clear the area, promising to shovel more water into the metro area. The eye wall is to the east of us, but winds out of the north can do a lot of damage. This is worrying considering that Lake Pontchartrain is 26 miles across and 30 feet deep in the center, i.e. a cookie sheet filled with water. The city of New Orleans is under a flash flood warning until 2:15PM today.

Winds: As of 9:50AM, Katrina is a Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 135mph. Maximum sustained winds in NO through the morning were reported as between 75 to 139mph. It appears that New Orleans will not see the worst of the wind damage (that’s for east of the city), but we’re not out of the woods (or the bayous, in our case) yet.

Flying Debris and Structural Damage: Watching a familiar street sign (MLK & Carrollton), bus shelters and store facades flutter away like dead leaves does not provide comfort. Flying stuff crashes into other stuff like homes and their windows. Keep in mind that mere tropical storms have taken down gas station roofs and trees and overturned dumpsters in our area. Yes, people, we have dangerous flying debris in the air (wonder where my hibiscus plant and grill are); let’s hope people stay indoors. Downtown high-rise windows are blowing out (bye-bye, Blade 2000?)

• An apartment building has collapsed in Harvey, which is right across the river from downtown. People are trapped inside and emergency personnel cannot help them yet.
• Never mind the conflicting reports about the Superdome, the final word is that the outer membrane two six-foot panels have come undone and water is raining, not “gushing,” in.
• As of 11:24AM, Eastern New Orleans’ buildings have sustained significant structural damage

Now, after the winds and rain head northeast, we wait and see how much more water percolates into New Orleans over the next couple of days. Threats to home and property from this hurricane symptom include sewage mingling with flood and drinking water, encounters with snakes and bugs, and the danger of downed electrical lines.

Rainfall Log:
August 29 10:53 – 8″ (all major streets within the Crescent are flooded)

Reporting: If you’re following along at home, please do not watch Fox News because the weather reporter on the scene in coastal Mississippi is currently placing himself in harm’s way, undergoing sudden bouts of grief and saying nothing but, “Whoooa, whooooa!” Also, the studio meteorologist irritated the bejeezus out of this audience by standing right in front of the Doppler image while projecting his well-rehearsed Troy McClure. As much as we’re not CNN fans, Soledad O’Brien and Anderson Cooper have done some of the best national-level reporting on this catastrophe so far. Bottom line – don’t toy with us, the victims and news-starved, for your bottom line.

Our hometown paper, the Times Picayune, is doing a tremendous job with online updates on individual neighborhoods’ problems and photos.