Interesting article
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/343324p-292991c.htmlWhat's the reputation of this newspaper?
People do seem to forget that there are no ordinary Cat4 hurricanes (15 Cat4 hit the US in the last century out of 560 total hurricanes), and this was Cat4 only because it was a couple of mph below the Cat5 threshold!!!
It would be easy to criticise the situation thousands of miles away over here in Europe and people have commented that 1999 double storm (Lothar and Martin) over Europe was a much larger event with only 80 casualties - and from this people have tried to draw conclusions about an American race and poverty problem, but this is an unfair comparison, yes it affected a much larger area, but I don't believe that it would match in any way the intensity and windspeed - (although it was exceptional in terms of European speeds) - the energy of a hurricane is unimaginable to us, on the order of 8000 megatons of TNT *per day* for an typical Cat2 storm.
The evacuation warning was the day before the hurricane. That is insufficient time to stock up places with supplies. Hurricanes have a tendency to change direction. This one did. Stocking up various places on the off chance is also expensive and wasteful. So I doubt that any suggestion they were trying to weaken peoples resolve to get out by dehydrating or starving them was true.
Although I have to ask, why did it take so long to organise buses and airlifts?
Another interesting article - this one from the National Geographic. Chilling isn't it - this was an article published a year ago predicting exactly this scenario... read an bit -
" It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.
But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.
The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.
Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched."
No indeed, it wasn't far fetched!
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/Was Katrina exceptional ? No
Was it predictable ? Yes
Will it happen again ? Yes
At worse intensity? Yes
And frankly people are burying their heads in the sand if they think otherwise.
