Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Sandwich on August 29, 2005, 02:20:52 am
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http://www.weather.com/newscenter/tropical/?from=wxcenter_news
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To quote one guy on DeviantArt, "that blows..."
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Incidentally, a longtime friend of ours (http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Goldenberg/) (he's got some awesome photos from the eye of a hurricane on that page; the images are scaled down, so "View Image" to get the full size) works for the Hurricane Research Division of the NOAA. My dad just forwarded an email to me from him, and I thought I'd post it here for you all to see:
[q]
Storm Warnings: Cat 5 Katrina nearing landfall
I don't need to tell folks much about this storm, except to say for those anywhere near its path (and that includes people well inland) -- please take every precaution. A storm like this will break devastating winds, storm surge (as high as 25 ft or so), torrential rainfall, and some tornadoes -- even 100's of miles from the center. If it maintains its Cat 5 strength, or even at least Cat 3-4, I shudder to think of the devastation we will witness after it has passed. And that could include incredible flooding when it passes over the mountains of Tennessee, etc. We need to keep those that will be affected held up in prayer! Pray that people will HEED the warnings and evacuate where necessary. I write this with a heavy heart. The meteorologist in me is amazed and awed by this storm but the other part of me (having lived through Cat 5 Andrew) has trouble even fathoming what will be the impact of this storm. The pressure, as most of you know, went down to 902 mb -- the 4th lowest pressure ever measured in an Atlantic hurricane. While we were in teh storm today, the pressure dropped ~30mb in just ~6 hr. That is VERY rapid intensification.
I just completed a mission on the NOAA G-IV jet early this morning. Early Monday morning ~3am, I will be on board the NOAA P-3 aircraft which will do a "landfall" mission into Katrina. We try and measure the strength, and changes to the strength as the eye actually hits land. This will be quite a historic flight for a historic (and devastating) landfall. Prayers are appreciated for a safe and a successful mission that can supply useful data to NHC and for later research.
By the way, try and follow Mark Sudduth's activities on his website as he sets up instruments on the ground in the path of Katrina. (See below.)
We now have TD13, and the season is far from over. PLEASE check and improve your preparations. Many in SE FL are STILL without power after Katrina. And there, it was only a Cat 1.
That's all for now. I need to get a bit more rest before our flight.
Regards,
Stan[/q]
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I know a couple of people there, one of whom is still online(hes farther out then the rest), theres tornados touching down and serious rain there, landfall of the eye is in around 3 hours...
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tell ya what... with new orleans being a couple dozen feet below sea level and all, if that hurricane hits, there's going to be nothing left of new orleans
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It looks like New Orleans dodged the bullet this time. It dropped to Category 4 and turned; currently over the mouth of the Mississippi.
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
It looks like New Orleans dodged the bullet this time. It dropped to Category 4 and turned; currently over the mouth of the Mississippi.
Eh I hate to be the bearer of bad news but...
1)A strong CAT4 or a strong CAT5 make no differance, the levee's can only stand a CAT3.
2) It partially dodged the bullet by being in the west side of the hurricane, safer, but that makes the 2nd part worse....
IF the levee's break(one has), then the reverse side of the hurricane switchs wind directions and pumps the entire lake into New Orleans.
3) The superdome, largest shelter currently inhabited, has had its roof partially peeled away and is leaking rain.
So unless that counts as dodging the bullet, we still have more to go.
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yeah it's like saying hells leagens of demons each one more powerful than all the armies of man have been reduced from five trillion to four trillion.
it's like saying you'll get run over and killed by an SUV rather than a semi.
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Lets see... PRE-Katrina hitting NO casulty count was 10, 7 in Florida from the hurricane and 3 from acidents during evacuation(do those count?).
After this,we could be looking at death counts easily triple 9.11 and an ecological disaster unmatched in the U.S by any single oil tanker crash.
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The folks who really need to be worried at the moment are in Davenport, however. They're going to be the ones underwater shortly...
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It's rather scary when you think about the forces mother nature can dish out like this.
Hopefully this will not go as bad as it's been assumed it will.
The way it looks now though suggests otherwise.
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Originally posted by Zuljin
It's rather scary when you think about the forces mother nature can dish out like this.
and what's even funnier (in a sense) is that with all the power and technology mankind has control over... when any natural disaster (be it a flood, hurricane, tornado, storm, earthquake, tsunami, etc. etc. etc.) strikes, man cowers away.
'mother nature' > man
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either way. i'm going to be involved in the relief effort. already got all my stuff together. a couple of you may be glad you won't be seeing me for a few weeks.
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They are soooo ****ed. Balls.
I suppose I should find some way to help out my fellow Americans once this is all over...
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Saw this piccy on the bbc website (boarded house near NO)
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40739000/jpg/_40739740_lisa_levet.jpg)
Nice to see some people can keep a sense of humour :)
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When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.
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*listens to that song*
I'm not trying to say anything here will even compare to NO but we are expecting up to 6 inches of rain in the next two days and only 3 inches did stuff like this:
(http://us.f3.yahoofs.com/users/42593f36z75ebb750/e007/__sr_/6e34.jpg?phIh3EDB_sTBgS43)
(http://us.f3.yahoofs.com/users/42593f36z75ebb750/e007/__sr_/6e34.jpg?phIh3EDB_sTBgS43)
(http://us.f3.yahoofs.com/users/42593f36z75ebb750/e007/__sr_/bef2.jpg?phIh3EDBUEaw7HcN)
(http://us.f3.yahoofs.com/users/42593f36z75ebb750/e007/__sr_/9092.jpg?phIh3EDBI8W_V1GB)
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http://uhohwereintrouble.ytmnd.com/
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Originally posted by Swantz
*listens to that song*
I'm not trying to say anything here will even compare to NO but we are expecting up to 6 inches of rain in the next two days and only 3 inches did stuff like this:
(http://us.f3.yahoofs.com/users/42593f36z75ebb750/e007/__sr_/6e34.jpg?phIh3EDB_sTBgS43)
(http://us.f3.yahoofs.com/users/42593f36z75ebb750/e007/__sr_/6e34.jpg?phIh3EDB_sTBgS43)
(http://us.f3.yahoofs.com/users/42593f36z75ebb750/e007/__sr_/bef2.jpg?phIh3EDBUEaw7HcN)
(http://us.f3.yahoofs.com/users/42593f36z75ebb750/e007/__sr_/9092.jpg?phIh3EDBI8W_V1GB)
Bad gateways all over the place, eh? Yeah, that rain can be really nasty...
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:lol:
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According to the Today Show the water is steadily rising in the French Quarter. The Levey has been breeched, and Lake Ponchetrain is flowing into the city. Gas stations and cars are leaking gasoline into the water and there are multiple natural gas leaks.
Crossposting from another board, that is not good, we could see the loss of an entire city here.
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Originally posted by Ace Pace
Crossposting from another board, that is not good, we could see the loss of an entire city here.
We were going to see the loss of this entire city one way or another. The sea level has been rising quicker and quicker and in 50 years the place is going to be under water no matter what. What this storm has done is still pretty unbelievable.
My personal feeling is, despite the sentimental value of the place, that they do not rebuild in any serious capacity. Good portions of new Orleans is under sea level. Those levys that broke were to keep the rivers and ocean out...but they were designed ages ago. Maybe the Venice Italy approach would work...a city of waterways rather than roads.
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Bad gateways all over the place, eh? Yeah, that rain can be really nasty...
Why do I even try with yahoo?:rolleyes:
These should work
(http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/4346/35801ch.jpg)
(http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/5707/6e341pp.jpg)
(http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1459/90923oo.jpg)
(http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1305/bef23qs.jpg)
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Originally posted by IceFire
We were going to see the loss of this entire city one way or another. The sea level has been rising quicker and quicker and in 50 years the place is going to be under water no matter what. What this storm has done is still pretty unbelievable.
My personal feeling is, despite the sentimental value of the place, that they do not rebuild in any serious capacity. Good portions of new Orleans is under sea level. Those levys that broke were to keep the rivers and ocean out...but they were designed ages ago. Maybe the Venice Italy approach would work...a city of waterways rather than roads.
(http://img171.exs.cx/img171/3572/futurama212atlanta5qt.jpg)
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Was that New Orleans in that ep!?
Good lord, Futurama has been predicting the future for years. :eek:
QUICK! SOMEONE! HEAD OUT TO NEW MEXICO AND DIG FOR BENDER'S HEAD!
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no, that was the lost city of Atlanta
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Originally posted by Swantz
Why do I even try with yahoo?:rolleyes:
These should work
(http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/4346/35801ch.jpg)
(http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/5707/6e341pp.jpg)
(http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1459/90923oo.jpg)
(http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1305/bef23qs.jpg)
Those pics remind me of Florida. Except for the second one, which has hills. :p
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(http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/9991/050829c3550n0825rz.th.jpg) (http://img228.imageshack.us/my.php?image=050829c3550n0825rz.jpg)
Levee is breached, fall back everyone!
(http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/2530/levee0oq.jpg)
Holy itty bitty hell, look at that flooding.
(http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/7006/hurricanekatrinatxdam1070ms.th.jpg) (http://img353.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hurricanekatrinatxdam1070ms.jpg)
(http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/7379/neworleans7is.th.jpg) (http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=neworleans7is.jpg)
That city is completly and utterly gone.
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who builds a city, a coastal city, 20 feet below sea level and is suprised when it gets flooded?
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No one, but I suspect thats irrelevent, atleast it is to me. Whats importent is getting the roughly 100K survivors out of there(lack of sanitation,water,food), rebuilding the surrounding counties and dealing with up to 2 million homeless.
In a way, its ironic, the U.S now has more need for aid money then anything, the richest country in the world and its qualified for aid money. Then again, even if it gets a few paltry billions, since roughly a billion gets squandered elsewhere in the world daily *cough* *cough* the U.S dosn't have any proper ability to rebuild the damn city.
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Americans *clap clap* Americans *clap clap* :D
(Not taking a snipe, NOFX played that song a couple of days ago at Reading and it has kinda stuck in my head).
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Just gets worse every time you see it, really.
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(http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/interactive/weather/0508/gallery.katrina.0830/images/05.ap.jpg)
A bloody OIL RIG got smashed there.
Those things are wedded to the ground and it got picked up from the gulf and carried into NO. :wtf:
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Originally posted by Bobboau
no, that was the lost city of Atlanta
Damn...you mean the Finglonger will never be invented?
Ah, well. A man can dream, can't he? A man can dream...
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Originally posted by Bobboau
who builds a city, a coastal city, 20 feet below sea level and is suprised when it gets flooded?
The italians? :D
Originally posted by Ace Pace
In a way, its ironic, the U.S now has more need for aid money then anything, the richest country in the world and its qualified for aid money. Then again, even if it gets a few paltry billions, since roughly a billion gets squandered elsewhere in the world daily *cough* *cough* the U.S dosn't have any proper ability to rebuild the damn city.
Didn't they default on the money they promised for the Tsunami appeal? I remember reading that they did somewhere. If so I say we all promise them huge amounts of cash and then give them nothing.
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Originally posted by Bobboau
who builds a city, a coastal city, 20 feet below sea level and is suprised when it gets flooded?
We have half the country below sea level.
Green= Above Sea Level
Purple=Below Sea level
Yellow= Beaches and Dunes
Blue= Between 0-1m above Sea Level (would flood if the sea raised above it's normal heigt)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~joost5/height.jpg
This is what hollland would look like without dikes...
http://www.xs4all.nl/~joost5/nodikes.jpg
Most of the Dense populated areas Lie underwater, over 8 million people would lose their homes
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http://yahooracists.ytmnd.com/
You've got to love it when deep socioeconomic insight comes with a Vengaboys soundtrack :D
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You know, I wonder if those people realise what they wading through to get a pair of pants.
Raw Sewage
Loads of Garbage
Toxic Chemicals
Seawater
Dead People.
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Originally posted by Ace Pace
(http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/interactive/weather/0508/gallery.katrina.0830/images/05.ap.jpg)
A bloody OIL RIG got smashed there.
Those things are wedded to the ground and it got picked up from the gulf and carried into NO. :wtf:
Yeah, one got washed up on Dolphin Island, Alabama too.
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****in hell.
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People are shooting at the rescuers.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050901/ap_on_re_us/katrina_superdome_evacuation_hk1
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you know I was just thinking this morning, that NO might turn into a lawless hell hole run by war lords and guns, they can't make order down there with the city flooded like that and they can't fix the flooding without order, so all it'll take is a few people with the inititive to get some guns, find some boats and declair them selves king.
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Someone really needs to tell those people that the place they are staying in is called the Superdome NOT Thunderdome :rolleyes:
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Well, they can shoot at the rescuers, but the rescuers might shoot back...and they have bigger guns...
The Navy has an LHD and the Tarawa Amphibous Ready Group assisting the rescue work with their amphib craft and helos, and last I checked the Army and National Guard were also assisting with helicopter units. Maybe it's just me, but shooting at the military doesn't seem like a good idea.
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They would only shoot back if someone was about five feet away and pointing a gun right at their face. If they start shooting back, then people have a reason to shoot at them, no one trusts them, they get attacked, and it all goes to hell.
But geeze, I mean...I dunno, maybe it's because I'm from a small community who's used to having hurricanes hit us, but I don't understand how people can behave like this. I mean, they're shooting at their rescuers because they're not being rescued right away. Literally, I read something on Yahoo news, where people who shot at the helicopters and stuff were screaming "Come get my family."
Maybe it's just my personality, but if I was down there and I was in trouble, and the rescuers were busy evacuating others, I'd find a place, get some food and water, and just WAIT my ass out. I wouldn't start looting or shooting or fighting. Hell, find a nice apartment in one of the high rises, get some non-spoilables, and just sit and wait.
It's probably a lot harder than that, but that's what I don't understand - why aren't people trying? Why do they instead sit on a lawn next to all the dead and ***** and moan about the fact that there are more people in trouble, and they might just not be on everyone's mind right now? I know that they were promised help, but if that doesn't come, then find a way to make things work and do it without hurting others.
And another thing! Stop *****ing about the power people! OH MY ****ING GOD I DON'T HAVE POWER!!!!1111 Guess what? Every week or so I get power cut out for a day. When hurricanes hit here, even minor ones like a category three - we don't have power for weeks! To top that off, all our power lines are above ground, so fwoosh, they're gone, we have to erect new poles! We manage to get by just fine, we don't suddenly start melting or something if we don't have power. Oh my God, you're not going to have a shower or a fridge for some while. You know how we wash without power? Get a gallon jug, fill it up with some fresh water if you can, go outside, hang it up, and turn it upside down. That's how you take a shower.
Ugh, really shows the ugly side of the United States: unless it's war, we really don't pull together at all, and it's every man for themselves.
//rant over.
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It's not so much Americans as a character flaw in the majority of humanity itself. If people feel that they can get away with something, they will do it.
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I don't know. I don't think I've ever heard of a case like this where people who weren't in immenent danger fired on their would be saviors.
I can understand people storming a rescue ship or the like when they are in danger of dying but these people seem to be doing it just cause they've missed todays meal and are annoyed that they aren't sitting somewhere warm watching COPS.
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Originally posted by Bobboau
you know I was just thinking this morning, that NO might turn into a lawless hell hole run by war lords and guns, they can't make order down there with the city flooded like that and they can't fix the flooding without order, so all it'll take is a few people with the inititive to get some guns, find some boats and declair them selves king.
Why does this remind me so much of Escape from LA?
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Originally posted by Bobboau
you know I was just thinking this morning, that NO might turn into a lawless hell hole run by war lords and guns, they can't make order down there with the city flooded like that and they can't fix the flooding without order, so all it'll take is a few people with the inititive to get some guns, find some boats and declair them selves king.
Well it's happening, sort of
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050901/ap_on_re_us/hurricane_katrina_36
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Bush:"my fellow Americans, with this great tragity looming over us, we are faced with many difucult choices, and many hard ships, but fear not, for I have a plan!
you see I was watching John Carpenters: Escape From L.A. this morning..."
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Man that movie was great.
I need to go watch that.
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Originally posted by Ace Pace
(http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/interactive/weather/0508/gallery.katrina.0830/images/05.ap.jpg)
A bloody OIL RIG got smashed there.
Those things are wedded to the ground and it got picked up from the gulf and carried into NO. :wtf:
Actually, that's not in New Orleans. It's along Mobile River, Alabama (http://www.cnn.com/interactive/weather/0508/gallery.katrina.tues.pm/content.3.6.html).
And lookie what I found:
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Actually, that's not in New Orleans. It's along Mobile River, Alabama (http://www.cnn.com/interactive/weather/0508/gallery.katrina.tues.pm/content.3.6.html).
And lookie what I found:
What is it?
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Actually, that's not in New Orleans. It's along Mobile River, Alabama (http://www.cnn.com/interactive/weather/0508/gallery.katrina.tues.pm/content.3.6.html).
And, it came from a shipyard and not somewhere out in the gulf.
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this a quote from another article
Just last year, the Army Corps of Engineers sought $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans. The White House slashed the request to about $40 million. Congress finally approved $42.2 million, less than half of the agency's request.
Yet the lawmakers and Bush agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-laden highway bill that included more than 6,000 pet projects for lawmakers. Congress spent money on dust control for Arkansas roads, a warehouse on the Erie Canal and a $231 million bridge to a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.
How could Washington spend $231 million on a bridge to nowhere - and not find $42 million for hurricane and flood projects in New Orleans? It's a matter of power and politics.
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Oh. My. Soul.
There's a web hosting company in the middle of NO that's still online.
They have a fiber-optic connection buried underground and still intact, as well as a diesel generator for power.
And - get this - an ongoing, on the scene blog. Horrific reading, so if you don't want to get depressed, don't read it. If you want to, start here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/2005/08/28/
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Oh. My. Soul.
There's a web hosting company in the middle of NO that's still online.
They have a fiber-optic connection buried underground and still intact, as well as a diesel generator for power.
And - get this - an ongoing, on the scene blog. Horrific reading, so if you don't want to get depressed, don't read it. If you want to, start here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/2005/08/28/
Their heroic fighting kept Something Awful online till... yesterday, I think.
Interdictor's blog is unbelievable, those guys are actually doing at least something.
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I'm not from New Orleans, nor do i live in the hurricane zone, but i did run from it all the wya to florida...what a great time to move.....lol
I moved last sunday, i was going down interstate 10 while she was coming ashore.
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Florida, eww. What in the world did you move into God's Bowling Alley™ for?
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surfing and racing...what else?
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VERY interesting read, if a bit long.
[q]New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize
By George Friedman
The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.
But it was not the extraordinary land nor the farmers and ranchers who alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography -- the extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and allowed them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of the rivers flowed into one -- the Mississippi -- and the Mississippi flowed to the ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in New Orleans that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargos stored, sold and reloaded on ocean-going vessels. Until last Sunday, New Orleans was, in many ways, the pivot of the American economy.
For that reason, the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 was a key moment in American history. Even though the battle occurred after the War of 1812 was over, had the British taken New Orleans, we suspect they wouldn't have given it back. Without New Orleans, the entire Louisiana Purchase would have been valueless to the United States. Or, to state it more precisely, the British would control the region because, at the end of the day, the value of the Purchase was the land and the rivers - which all converged on the Mississippi and the ultimate port of New Orleans. The hero of the battle was Andrew Jackson, and when he became president, his obsession with Texas had much to do with keeping the Mexicans away from New Orleans.
During the Cold War, a macabre topic of discussion among bored graduate students who studied such things was this: If the Soviets could destroy one city with a large nuclear device, which would it be? The usual answers were Washington or New York. For me, the answer was simple: New Orleans. If the Mississippi River was shut to traffic, then the foundations of the economy would be shattered. The industrial minerals needed in the factories wouldn't come in, and the agricultural wealth wouldn't flow out. Alternative routes really weren't available. The Germans knew it too: A U-boat campaign occurred near the mouth of the Mississippi during World War II. Both the Germans and Stratfor have stood with Andy Jackson: New Orleans was the prize.
Last Sunday, nature took out New Orleans almost as surely as a nuclear strike. Hurricane Katrina's geopolitical effect was not, in many ways, distinguishable from a mushroom cloud. The key exit from North America was closed. The petrochemical industry, which has become an added value to the region since Jackson's days, was at risk. The navigability of the Mississippi south of New Orleans was a question mark. New Orleans as a city and as a port complex had ceased to exist, and it was not clear that it could recover.
The Ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the republic. On its own merit, POSL is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a year, of which more than half are agricultural products -- corn, soybeans and so on. A large proportion of U.S. agriculture flows out of the port. Almost as much cargo, nearly 17 million tons, comes in through the port -- including not only crude oil, but chemicals and fertilizers, coal, concrete and so on.
A simple way to think about the New Orleans port complex is that it is where the bulk commodities of agriculture go out to the world and the bulk commodities of industrialism come in. The commodity chain of the global food industry starts here, as does that of American industrialism. If these facilities are gone, more than the price of goods shifts: The very physical structure of the global economy would have to be reshaped. Consider the impact to the U.S. auto industry if steel doesn't come up the river, or the effect on global food supplies if U.S. corn and soybeans don't get to the markets.
The problem is that there are no good shipping alternatives. River transport is cheap, and most of the commodities we are discussing have low value-to-weight ratios. The U.S. transport system was built on the assumption that these commodities would travel to and from New Orleans by barge, where they would be loaded on ships or offloaded. Apart from port capacity elsewhere in the United States, there aren't enough trucks or rail cars to handle the long-distance hauling of these enormous quantities -- assuming for the moment that the economics could be managed, which they can't be.
The focus in the media has been on the oil industry in Louisiana and Mississippi. This is not a trivial question, but in a certain sense, it is dwarfed by the shipping issue. First, Louisiana is the source of about 15 percent of U.S.-produced petroleum, much of it from the Gulf. The local refineries are critical to American infrastructure. Were all of these facilities to be lost, the effect on the price of oil worldwide would be extraordinarily painful. If the river itself became unnavigable or if the ports are no longer functioning, however, the impact to the wider economy would be significantly more severe. In a sense, there is more flexibility in oil than in the physical transport of these other commodities.
There is clearly good news as information comes in. By all accounts, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which services supertankers in the Gulf, is intact. Port Fourchon, which is the center of extraction operations in the Gulf, has sustained damage but is recoverable. The status of the oil platforms is unclear and it is not known what the underwater systems look like, but on the surface, the damage - though not trivial -- is manageable.
The news on the river is also far better than would have been expected on Sunday. The river has not changed its course. No major levees containing the river have burst. The Mississippi apparently has not silted up to such an extent that massive dredging would be required to render it navigable. Even the port facilities, although apparently damaged in many places and destroyed in few, are still there. The river, as transport corridor, has not been lost.
What has been lost is the city of New Orleans and many of the residential suburban areas around it. The population has fled, leaving behind a relatively small number of people in desperate straits. Some are dead, others are dying, and the magnitude of the situation dwarfs the resources required to ameliorate their condition. But it is not the population that is trapped in New Orleans that is of geopolitical significance: It is the population that has left and has nowhere to return to.
The oil fields, pipelines and ports required a skilled workforce in order to operate. That workforce requires homes. They require stores to buy food and other supplies. Hospitals and doctors. Schools for their children. In other words, in order to operate the facilities critical to the United States, you need a workforce to do it -- and that workforce is gone. Unlike in other disasters, that workforce cannot return to the region because they have no place to live. New Orleans is gone, and the metropolitan area surrounding New Orleans is either gone or so badly damaged that it will not be inhabitable for a long time.
It is possible to jury-rig around this problem for a short time. But the fact is that those who have left the area have gone to live with relatives and friends. Those who had the ability to leave also had networks of relationships and resources to manage their exile. But those resources are not infinite -- and as it becomes apparent that these people will not be returning to New Orleans any time soon, they will be enrolling their children in new schools, finding new jobs, finding new accommodations. If they have any insurance money coming, they will collect it. If they have none, then -- whatever emotional connections they may have to their home -- their economic connection to it has been severed. In a very short time, these people will be making decisions that will start to reshape population and workforce patterns in the region.
A city is a complex and ongoing process - one that requires physical infrastructure to support the people who live in it and people to operate that physical infrastructure. We don't simply mean power plants or sewage treatment facilities, although they are critical. Someone has to be able to sell a bottle of milk or a new shirt. Someone has to be able to repair a car or do surgery. And the people who do those things, along with the infrastructure that supports them, are gone -- and they are not coming back anytime soon.
It is in this sense, then, that it seems almost as if a nuclear weapon went off in New Orleans. The people mostly have fled rather than died, but they are gone. Not all of the facilities are destroyed, but most are. It appears to us that New Orleans and its environs have passed the point of recoverability. The area can recover, to be sure, but only with the commitment of massive resources from outside -- and those resources would always be at risk to another Katrina.
The displacement of population is the crisis that New Orleans faces. It is also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United States cannot function without a city around it. The physical and business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right now, that is what New Orleans is. It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city's population and the paralysis of the largest port in the United States.
Let's go back to the beginning. The United States historically has depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. Barges navigate the river. Ships go on the ocean. The barges must offload to the ships and vice versa. There must be a facility to empower this exchange. It is also the facility where goods are stored in transit. Without this port, the river can't be used. Protecting that port has been, from the time of the Louisiana Purchase, a fundamental national security issue for the United States.
Katrina has taken out the port -- not by destroying the facilities, but by rendering the area uninhabited and potentially uninhabitable. That means that even if the Mississippi remains navigable, the absence of a port near the mouth of the river makes the Mississippi enormously less useful than it was. For these reasons, the United States has lost not only its biggest port complex, but also the utility of its river transport system -- the foundation of the entire American transport system. There are some substitutes, but none with sufficient capacity to solve the problem.
It follows from this that the port will have to be revived and, one would assume, the city as well. The ports around New Orleans are located as far north as they can be and still be accessed by ocean-going vessels. The need for ships to be able to pass each other in the waterways, which narrow to the north, adds to the problem. Besides, the Highway 190 bridge in Baton Rouge blocks the river going north. New Orleans is where it is for a reason: The United States needs a city right there.
New Orleans is not optional for the United States' commercial infrastructure. It is a terrible place for a city to be located, but exactly the place where a city must exist. With that as a given, a city will return there because the alternatives are too devastating. The harvest is coming, and that means that the port will have to be opened soon. As in Iraq, premiums will be paid to people prepared to endure the hardships of working in New Orleans. But in the end, the city will return because it has to.
Geopolitics is the stuff of permanent geographical realities and the way they interact with political life. Geopolitics created New Orleans. Geopolitics caused American presidents to obsess over its safety. And geopolitics will force the city's resurrection, even if it is in the worst imaginable place.
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Wow. I've never even thought of things in that way. It really brings home the importance of bringing the city back through whatever means necessary.
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“Environmental impact ‘unimaginable’, ‘horrible,” www.disasternews.net, 7 Sept 2005
The environmental impact from Katrina – described by one expert as a "witch's brew" of bacteria, viruses and toxic and hazardous building materials – left officials this week with the daunting task of figuring out how to clean up areas ravaged by the hurricane.
"It is almost unimaginable the things we are going to have to plan for and deal with," said Mike McDaniel, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.
"We're talking about a mass of decomposing dead bodies and animals," said Harold Zeliger, a chemical toxicologist. "This is going to produce a horrible festering of unknown consequences."
As federal and state officials began surveying and assessing environmental damage from the storm, early predictions were that cleanup would take years, the cost could be in the billions of dollars and that effects of the environmental devastation might be felt for years.
Drinking water was not expected to be restored to some areas for years, McDaniel predicted. As of Tues, at least 378 water systems and 114 wastewater treatment plants were out of commission in Louisiana, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. New Orleans metro officials reported more than 500 major, intermediate and minor sewage treatment plans were under water.
Two major oil spills, totaling about 78,000 barrels, were reported near New Orleans and officials expressed concerns about rail cars loaded with chemicals and flooded refineries. Oil and gasoline from boats, cars and in garages has also added to the muck. "Everywhere we look there's a spill," McDaniel said. "It all adds up. There's almost a solid sheen over the area right now."
And more wastes, including paints, solvents, fertilizers and pesticides, were likely to seep into the flood-waters in the coming days and weeks, officials said.
"It's a health risk," said NO Mayor Ray Nagin in announcing a forced evacuation of anyone remaining in the city. "There are toxins in the water, there are gas leaks where we may have explosions."
"This is a creeping catastrophe," said Thomas La Point, director of the Institute of Applied Sciences at the University of North Texas. "We thought they had missed the big shot, but they could be facing very serious problems for years to come."
Not least of those problems is where to dispose of millions of tons of solid waste from destroyed buildings, vehicles and other items (McDaniel said early figures indicated that up to 160,000 homes were flooded and unsalvageable). And pumping the contaminated waters from the city into the Gulf of Mexico could create environmental concerns there as well. Once water has been drained from the city, officials will then have to deal with treating contaminates left in the ground.
"There's no way to deal with a catastrophe environmentally of this magnitude and not have environmental impacts," said Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst for emergency response at the US Environmental Protection Agency. "You're gonna have them. What you want to do is minimize them, & that costs money. I mean, we're talking about big money. We're talking about like how much money we're putting into Iraq."
Kaufman and others noted that floodwaters that inundated New Orleans were already filled with sewage, oil and gasoline, household hazardous materials, pesticides and chemicals among other things. "Remember, you've got landfills down there, hazardous material storage areas, industrial wastewater, all of which has contaminated the whole area…So what you have is a witch's brew of water that not only contains bacteria and viruses from sewage, but you also have heavy metals and other toxic hazardous materials," he said. "It's basically a horrific situation for everyone down there, and for the whole country economically."
McDaniel disputed descriptions of a "witch's brew" and "toxic soup," saying such claims were a "little bit exaggerated" and that more tests were needed. The EPA said it was analyzing samples of the floodwaters in labs in Louisiana and Texas with results expected later this week. "I am concerned that there has been a lot of discussion about 'toxic soup,' 'witch's brew'…it is overkill at the moment to call it toxic," McDaniel said. "To say it's toxic, it sounds like instant death walking in it. Let's get some better data."
The EPA and the US Department of Health and Human Services warned the public and those responding to the disaster to limit contact with the floodwaters "because of potentially elevated levels of contamination associated with raw sewage and other hazardous substances."
News reports Tuesday said 4 people who had been evacuated to Texas and three in Mississippi died from what may have been a waterborne bacterial infection in Katrina's floodwaters. There were also reports of some evacuees in the Houston Astrodome, where thousands are being housed, were suffering from noro-virus, an easily transmitted disease which causes diarrhea and vomiting.
Kaufman and others, meantime, blamed much of the problem in NO on lax environmental enforcement and poor urban planning. "You just cannot justify massive building and rebuilding near the most dangerous pro-perty in the US," said Orrin H. Pilkey Jr., a professor emeritus at Duke University and a specialist in coastal ecosystems. "It's a form of societal madness."
Kaufman such policies in New Orleans resulted in "a tremendous population growth in areas that are very environmentally fragile, that are weakened in environmental regulation enforcement in terms of hazardous material control, and it was a crisis waiting to happen."
"And frankly," he told Living on Earth, "folks down there were living on borrowed time and, unfortunately, time ran out with Katrina. Now all the environmental hazards – or the worst-case scenarios – occurred, and now we're seeing the results of bad planning which made for this catastrophe."
Even if levees that ring New Orleans had held, some experts said the storm surge from Katrina could have poured over the top of the levees and inundated the city. Even in that scenario, one expert said the situation would have created "an incredible environmental disaster."