wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: Panos from Katrina
G. Donald Bain 2005-Sep-06 18:37:00
I lived in new Orleans for two years, working at Tulane University. So
this has been occupying a lot of my attention over the last few days.
I am trying to establish contact with a few close friends still living
there, but so far without success. I assume they are safe somewhere,
but perhaps without electricity and telephone. The disruption of normal
life for a million people is incredible.
My interest centers on the Uptown areas, where Tulane University is
located and where I lived, plus Jefferson Parish (the first suburban
county west of the city), where some close friends live. The media are
obsessed with dramatic shots of rescuing people from rooftops in the
deeply flooded area, and not giving much attention to the rest of the
city, and the broader disaster area. My best information has been from
blogs. There were several first hand accounts of trips through various
parts of the city with medical crews.
The claims that 90% of the city was flooded seem a bit exaggerated to
me. The Uptown area, the Garden District, and the French Quarter were
all on the edge of the water, and mostly escaped major damage. These
are the areas that tourists mostly see, so the famous look and feel of
New Orleans will be back, eventually. My guess is perhaps 80% flooded
at the peak (within city of New Orleans proper), with maybe 60% flooded
up into the living spaces. Many houses in New Orleans have an above
ground basement story, so they have two meters or so safety from
floods. But the worst areas were submerged up to their rooftops.
Everyone in New Orleans knows about the dangers of flooding, so the
media comments about being caught unprepared are kind of silly. I
remember looking down Napoleon Avenue and seeing oil tankers sailing up
the Mississippi River, their water-lines above the rooftops. Every drop
of rain that falls in the city needs to pumped out, and it is the
rainiest major city in the U.S. Three times in recent years (once when
I was there) the pumps failed during a heavy thunderstorm and the city
flooded, within hours. I remember kids paddling canoes down my street,
with only the roofs of the cars visible. Those floods were blamed on
poor maintenance of the pumps, linked to corruption and neglect. But it
seems that this time the pumps have not been a problem.
I lived on Prytania Street near Napoleon Avenue, a block south of Saint
Charles (with the famous streetcar line). The post-hurricane
floodwaters reached within a block of there, so it was made a major
center for rescue and relief. On television I saw the actor Sean Penn
loading up his boat there - I may even have seen my old house in the
background.
A lot of people seem to think the Mississippi River flooded the city.
Actually the river is very low right now, due to drought further north.
The storm surge raised the river and pushed boats up the banks, where
they now sit high and dry. The flooding came from Lake Ponchartrain,
north of the city, and the canals connecting to it that run through the
city. This is usually where the water is pumped out, since Ponchartrain
is almost at sea level, much lower than the river level. Ironic that
the flooding was via this reverse route. The lakeshore and canals have
broad earthen levees to above the normal level of the lake. A few years
ago concrete walls were built along the tops to provide an extra margin
of safety, calculated for a major hurricane. Unfortunately, this
hurricane was just a bit bigger than the walls were built for. The
water overtopped them, then rapidly eroded into major breaks. It was
apparently very close, maybe a matter of inches.
I am getting all kinds of contradictory information about criminal
activity. It is certainly to be expected, New Orleans has always had a
very high crime rate. Nobody was surprised to see looting break out.
But people firing at rescue helicopters and bridge repair crews?
Amazing. I knew a lot of law enforcement people when I was down there
(I administered a criminal justice program, among other things), and I
will be interested to hear what they have to say.
Two of the blog reports had completely different views on the crime
situation, both first-hand accounts on the same day in the same areas.
One reported groups of dangerous looking armed men, which they avoided,
another said there were lots of armed men but they all seemed to be
"good guys". Both of these reports were within unflooded or shallowly
flooded areas. There are lots of other accounts of serious crime - the
hotel the mayor was staying in was broken into by armed men, and he and
his staff had to run up 28 floors to safety.
I think the racial angle is being exaggerated also. The city is 67%
black, and some of the worst flooded areas are more like 90%. Class
aligns largely with race, and the poorest people, the ones without
means to get themselves out of the city, are also mostly black. This is
the deepest of the Deep South, and I am sure there is some racism
involved, but it wrongs the people working so bravely to deal with this
catastrophe to accuse them of racial bias. Bureaucratic ineptitude is a
more telling accusation.
Amazingly, there was a full-scale rehearsal for this disaster just two
years ago. Government agencies modeled a category three hurricane
(Hurricane Pam) and postulated levee failures and the evacuation of a
million people. Eerily close to what actually happened. Yet the
response when it did happen was uncoordinated and slow. I would
personally like to see every political appointee in FEMA and maybe
other key agencies summarily fired.
So for now I am reading the blogs and the survivor databases and
sending out e-mails that keep bouncing back. There is still a chance I
might drive down to Louisiana (a mere 4600 miles/7400 km round trip) to
help out a friend or two, maybe even move them west. Out here where all
we have to worry about is wildfires, landslides, and earthquakes.
Thought some of you might be interested.
Don
On Sep 3, 2005, at 9:44 AM, Robert C. Fisher wrote:
>
> On Sep 3, 2005, at 4:45 AM, Bostjan Burger wrote:
>
>> Thanks Elizabeth for the notice,
>>
>> there are realy only panoramas but no VR panoramas...however... very
>> brave from John Poole as the significant part of victims were murdered
>> by gangs (or only rumours...? I can't belive it...)
>
> I don't think so, the rumor mills are flying high I see. The biggest
> problem here is the news is so severely tainted by big business and big
> media that you can't trust news but having said that the only place
> that seems to have problems with civil unrest is in New Orleans which
> is in dire straits. There seem to be people who are shooting at the
> rescuers but that to me seems so counter productive. The problem seems
> to be an extremely poor response by the government which has known of
> the flooding issues in New Orleans for years and even this year cut
> budgets of the agencies that are trying to fix the problems. Enough of
> the political ramblings, I liked the panos it's a shame that the
> Washington Post doesn't offer QTVR playback in addition to Flash.
> Awesome images of the destruction, without being there it's hard o
> imagine but this helps.
>
>>
>> Bostjan
>>
>> liz_golf <#removed#> wrote:
>> Just found these posted at the Washington Post - taken by John Poole:
>>
>> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/flash/photo/
>> nation/2005-08-30_pano/
>> index_frames.htm?startat=1&indexFile=test_2005-08-30_pano>
>>
>> Elizabeth
>>
>>
> Cheers
> Robert C. Fisher
> QTVR Photography/Cinematography
> www.rcfisher.com
>
>
>
>
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