DISASTER IN NEW ORLEANS!

DISASTER IN NEW ORLEANS

Yes, Hurricane Katrina caused quite a bit of damage to the Gulf Coast and especially to the city of New Orleans. Let’s take a closer look at New Orleans and see what, if anything could have been done to minimize the damage.

In 1969 I was a medic/lab technician stationed in Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. Biloxi was in the eye of Hurricane Camille. I rode out the hurricane in the base hospital and then did search and rescue after so I have some hurricane experience.

New Orleans is a city that is below sea level, it always has been. The city is surrounded by levees that keep the Gulf of Mexico waters out as well as the waters of Lake Ponchatrain. These levees are old and designed to withstand a 3 intensity hurricane.

Hurricane Katrina was downgraded to a level 1 before it hit the city but still managed to do quite a bit of damage.

The real damage occurred after the hurricane came through – when the levee keeping Lake Ponchatrain out gave way. That breach flooded the city and surrounding areas and caused the real damage and is causing it as we speak.

The Netherlands, a country below sea level, has existed precariously with the ocean for many, many years. They too have levees but they call then dykes. In 1953 a storm allowed waters to come over their dykes and 2,000 people died. After that disaster, they installed hydraulic dykes. These are dykes that can be lowered or raised, depending on the level of the sea water. In effect, they had a movable sea wall.

PBS and the Discovery Channel had reports on the New Orleans levees and what would happen when a really big hurricane hit and what needed to be done to avert disaster.

New Orleans never listened. When the levee collapsed, the mayor of the city was furious that no department came forward to fill the breach.

May I suggest that it was the incompetence of city leaders that caused the real damage to the city and its citizens? I would sue those responsible on the grounds that the natural disaster was compounded by human irresponsibility.


Janusz