Current Hurricane Katrina Information & Images

Parts of mid-city near the cemetaries are 19 feet below sea level. The underpass at Metarie road is the lowest point in Louisiana at over 25 feet below sea level.

Most scenarios have the levees holding in anything but a worse-case CAT-5 storm. But if the storm stalls over New Orleans and drops 24 inches of rain, the levee bowl will fill up with rainwater and the pumps (while power lasts) will have no place to pump it to because the storm surge will have flooded all of the outflow channels. The LSU Hurricane Center reports that even the best case evacuation will leave 100,000 people in the bowl because the roads out will go under water. These people will have to evacuate vertically in multi-story buildings if the pumps can't keep up.

If the bowl floods completely, many people are going to die. There will be dead animals and people in the water; oil, gasoline, & other toxic chemicals in the water; plus live animals like snakes and rats also seeking dry ground to complicate survivors efforts. Looters are going to have their hands full just surviving. Last summer FEMA conducted a simulated "Hurricane Pam" exercise to assess these problems. It scared the hell out of everybody concerned.

If the bowl doesn't completely flood, then the National Guard will have to go in quickly to prevent looting. Only . . . most of the Louisiana National Guard is in Iraq. Blanco would have to ask for federal troops or help from other states . . . which would not get there quickly.

All in all, we should be hoping that the storm misses New Orleans or at least loses some strength.