just a thought

[kitanzi]

Hurricane Gustav appears to be slowly falling apart, down to category 1 now. I've seen at least a couple of people saying "Why the hell was everyone making this much fuss? It's gonna be nothing, we've been through this for generations."

I don't live in the area, I don't think I'm remotely qualified to say whether it was too much fuss - evacuations and worrying and storm preparation. CNN says the levees are overtopping now in New Orleans. If this turns out to all have been more fuss than was actually needed - I don't think I will have ever been happier for the fact.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I've seen at least a couple of people saying "Why the hell was everyone making this much fuss?

Did they fall through a time portal sometime before late 2005 and land yesterday?

But let me not snark as I agree with you, because I wholeheartedly agree.

[gorgeousgary]

I was watching CNN a short while ago (probably about 6:30-ish) and heard there's apparently a private (local) levee in Plaquemines [sp] Parish that's close to failing. Could take out about 200 homes if it goes. They said they were trying to get boats over that way to evacute the folks who stayed.

[hawklady.livejournal.com]

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2008/09/plaquemines_parish_levee_threa.html

Article:
Plaquemines Parish levee overtopped, subdivision threatened
by Andrew Vanacore, The Times-Picayune
Monday September 01, 2008, 4:43 PM

The Caenarvon Mississippi River diversion in Plaquemines Parish will be opened to ease pressure on a levee that is being overtopped in Braithwaite, near the St. Bernard Parish line. The Corps of Engineers has approved running the diversion pumps in reverse to help drain the water and take pressure off the levee that runs along the Clearwater Canal.

.

Plaquemines Parish workers have been furiously working on the levee since mid-afternoon. Floodwaters spilling over the top of the levee threaten the Braithwaite Park subdivision.

The levee has not breached, but authorities are not hopeful.

"We don't think our efforts are going to be successful so we need to get everyone out now,'' Parish President Billy Nungesser said.

Officials said opening the diversion would allow some of the floodwater to be diverted into the Mississippi River, which is lower.

Meanwhile, St. Bernard Parish is sending firefighters, deputies and other workers to the area to help with the efforts. Orleans Parish is also sending firefiighters and the corps is sending a truck with huge sandbags.

The canal is on the east bank of the parish. The subdivision is off Louisiana 39. The 8-foot-tall levee is a parish levee that is not part of the federal levee protection system, officials said.

Officials said the same levee is also being overtopped further south at Scarsdale.

[hawklady.livejournal.com]

It's by no means over yet.

The real problem with Katrina wasn't the storm, it was the levee failure causing flooding in NO, and the 25+ foot storm surge hitting MS (which didn't have levees).

Gustav isn't done yet with dumping rain on The Lake and its feeder streams, and the winds are still quite high across the area. The surge was "only" 10+ feet, and those areas by and large didn't have the levee system so it was just a 10-foot high pileup of water. On the plus side, the levees seem to have done quite well considering they took a glancing punch from a Cat2.

People needed to evacuate. Otherwise, a levee failure becomes a massive death creator instead of just massive property damage creator. The levees could still fail at Cat1 given the right storm path. They still could fail for this Cat2 since the bands are still dumping rain and the winds are still playing havoc with drainage and waves and flow.

Yes, I will be happiest if it turns out there wasn't a massive flood. And I do think the Mayor a *bit* overdid the Doomsday scenario with his claims, as if it were guaranteed the storm would do such-and-such instead of just likely. Maybe that was necessary to get the evacuation compliance, I dunno.

I'm just very, very relieved at "stayed behind" numbers that are something like 1/10th or 1/20th the number of people who stayed behind for Katrina. EMS and the public officials have plenty enough to deal with in assessing damage, preventing additional problems, and planning infrastructure restoration.

[hawklady.livejournal.com]

According to some meteorologist friends, a mere 10-20 miles further east at landfall, and Gustav's storm surge would have put 2-3 feet more water into the Lake and the NOLA area. That probably would have made a substantial difference in the levee holdups and flooding so far.

Of course, the westward turn right before landfall meant that Terrebonne, St Mary and other west-side parishes got trashed more than they would have otherwise.

[pafuts.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a category one HURRICANE! That like saying "oh, it's only stage 2 cancer. Nothing to worry about."

I saw a woman interviewed on weather dot com who had been in the Superdome during Katrina who put it well. "If there's a one percent change that I have to go through that again I'm leaving."

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

Oh, she wouldn't have. You heard that the government said specifically that there would be no shelter of last resort, such as the Superdome, and anyone who chose to stay was on their own and took responsibility for themselves?

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Hm. Year 2000 -- why were people making such a fuss?

Same reason, you guys -- because an ounce of prevention costs $300 is worth the investment.

People who ask that sort of thing are inevitably either shortsighted or ignorant; the best way to distinguish them is to answer the question seriously for them. Once.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

I grew up in southwest Louisiana, where hurricanes have been a fact of life since colonial days and generations of my family have ridden them out. My daddy, when I called him Sunday night, predictably said he "ain't goin' nowhere." They have at least some protection in Lafayette being farther inland than Baton Rouge or New Orleans, and on a smaller river. OTOH, the Atchafalaya Basin (the nearby ginormous swamp) can more than make up in flooding what the Vermilion River can't provide, should rain get heavy enough.

Point being, I'm sure my daddy and brothers both wondered what all the fuss was about. They're used to making sure provisions are stocked, windows are boarded up and power loss is provided for when these things happen. If there had been a mandatory evacuation order there, I'm sure they would have complied (even if Doug had had to drag Daddy away), but only if and when. Cajuns are very territorial and hard to get away from their homes for any but the most life-threatening, immediate disaster; it's a function of our agrarian, tied-to-the-land culture and our history of being chased off our land at gunpoint a couple centuries back.