Hurricane Katrina- 10 years later (1 Viewer)

[Officer Pete Malloy]

http://p1cdn04.thewrap.com/images/2014/05/kanye-west-comment-on-bush1.jpg

 

[Doug B]

I've been to Nola once so pardon my ignorance but doesn't the lake ponchatrain causeway lead straight into the super dome? Or was the access on the main land flooded

The terminal points of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway are Mandeville, LA and Metairie, LA, the latter of which is the suburb bordering New Orleans on the west. The foot of the Causeway and the Superdome are almost 8 miles apart.

In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, some parts of the highways in between the two were flooded, but the bigger problem for vehicle access was that there were people camping out on the elevated portions of the highways (chiefly the I-10 and some connecting arteries).

IMHO, the issue with getting food and water to the Superdome was one of (lack of) foresight and information gathering. Keep in mind that the Superdome was regarded as a shelter and actually had game-day concessions**, drinks, etc. Going into Katrina, the thought was that people would have to ride it out in the Superdome for maybe three days, and then get back to their daily lives (which was expected to have some degree of the all-too-familiar flood cleanup). In short: those in the Superdome were felt to be essentially OK.

Not foreseen (somehow): the Superdome lost power early on, and some of the concessions went bad. Furthermore, the Superdome was in the dark, which made the atmosphere within terrifying and working conditions close to untenable for those on hand giving aid (e.g., medical staff). Efficient, orderly distribution of what food and drink was on hand must have been especially challenging in the dark, and there's no doubt that there were evacuees within who had no compunction with hoarding what they could get their hands on.

** among them the infamous Superdome hot dogs that got slammed so much by Georges' Superdome evacuees seven years earlier. Again, a "funny ha-ha" aspect of the 1998 evacuation.

 

[Doug B]

Interactive map of the Katrina flooding in the New Orleans area. Shows how it all went down with time progression.

 

[Doug B]

The New Orleans Times-Picayune's Hurricane Katrina newspaper archive. The newspapers from 8/29 - 11/9/2005 are available online as PDFs.

 

[Doug B]

Hurricane Katrina came ashore roughly at the border of Louisiana and Mississippi a little after 6 a.m. on Monday, August 29th 2005.

Slight correction of the above: the eye of Katrina passed over Buras, LA (just NW of the mouth of the Mississippi) at 6:10 a.m. CDT -- that was the first landfall, and I think the official one. Buras is on the peninsula created by the mouth of the river, so the eye was able to traverse the peninsula and get back over open water again. The eye passed over a point just east of Slidell, LA (very close to the border of Louisiana and Mississippi) about 3 1/2 hours later.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Hurricane Katrina came ashore roughly at the border of Louisiana and Mississippi a little after 6 a.m. on Monday, August 29th 2005.

Slight correction of the above: the eye of Katrina passed over Buras, LA (just NW of the mouth of the Mississippi) at 6:10 a.m. CDT -- that was the first landfall, and I think the official one. Buras is on the peninsula created by the mouth of the river, so the eye was able to traverse the peninsula and get back over open water again. The eye passed over a point just east of Slidell, LA (very close to the border of Louisiana and Mississippi) about 3 1/2 hours later.

That was basically the turn I do believe, which at the time seemed like a miracle saving the city. Or so it was thought.

 

[Doug B]

That was basically the turn I do believe, which at the time seemed like a miracle saving the city. Or so it was thought.

As you know -- for the usual hurricanes that whip through a little quicker -- being on the west side of the eye makes a big difference with rainfall amounts since the northerly bands of the storm are over land and are no longer pulling moisture from open water. That didn't help with Katrina because Katrina was pushing and moving so much gulf and lake water ahead of it -- the often misunderstood "storm surge".

A lot of people from outside the area see that "New Orleans is under sea level" and think "Of course they flooded!" ... that Katrina simply filled the city with rainwater the way you fill a soup bowl with minestrone. That wasn't the case at all. New Orleans has had many hurricanes and tropical storms pass over and do their worst, rain-wise -- most recently in 2012 with Hurricane Isaac. The city can drain and pump a hurricane's rainwater out before catastrophic flooding occurs, and that was true at the time of Katrina as well.

Storm surge something altogether different. Hurricane winds push water ahead of it, kind of like sliding your hand over the top of a pan of Jello. On top of that, the hurricane's low atmospheric pressure and it's circulation allows water underneath the eye to well up a few feet. The combined effects are all the more exacerbated when a storm is especially large (square mileage, not windspeed). Large storms push more water over a wider area and keep it "propped up" for a longer time. A small, tight hurricane that moved more quickly than Katrina would have been much less damaging to the city, even if it had stronger winds.

 

[Doug B]

There's been some argument upthread about what could and should have been done for people who had evacuated to the Superdome, and how quickly it should have been done. Here's an article detailing the account of the Superdome facility manager Doug Thornton. He stayed in the Dome from the Sunday morning before Katrina hit (on Monday 8/29/2005) until the Friday after, once the last of the evacuees were transported out of New Orleans.

Refuge of last resort: Five days inside the Superdome for Hurricane Katrina

 

[Doug B]

One thing I've often wondered about, and want to run it by people who don't live in the New Orleans area or on the Gulf Coast:

The local media -- most assiduously our local newspapers -- takes great care to never, ever print that Katrina was a natural disaster. It's always referred to as something like "the breach of the federal levees" or "the failure of the federal flood protection system" ... sometimes even "the Federal Floods" for short. The conventional wisdom locally is that Katrina was straight-up a man-made disaster, with culpable human actors as the ultimate (if not readily determinable) root cause.

Does this play outside of the New Orleans area? How do folks in other hurricane-vulnerable areas regard the "man-made disaster" argument? How about people that live well away from hurricane risk?

 

[Chadstroma]

I wonder if air drops existed ten years ago. It's not like we've been doing them in foreign countries for decades, right?My point is not that they could have landed a helicopter with no problem. It's that you don't have to land a helicopter to get water to people.

This is basically what I am talking about. People who think there is a capability there to make everything better that just does not exist.

Do you have any idea how dangerous an air drop is? My goodness I can only imagine how Bush would be blamed if someone dropped a ton of water on a few people.

And for the sake of argument- let's say that you get some water there faster but without the outright show of force to keep order such as National Guardsmen handing out the water. What do you think the chances are that people would tear each other apart to get to that limited water? Remember, water is heavy and helicopters are limited in how much they can carry. How many people were there at the Superdome? Geesh- just imagine the news reports showing people basically kill each other for a bottle of water.

 

[Chadstroma]

One thing I've often wondered about, and want to run it by people who don't live in the New Orleans area or on the Gulf Coast:

The local media -- most assiduously our local newspapers -- takes great care to never, ever print that Katrina was a natural disaster. It's always referred to as something like "the breach of the federal levees" or "the failure of the federal flood protection system" ... sometimes even "the Federal Floods" for short. The conventional wisdom locally is that Katrina was straight-up a man-made disaster, with culpable human actors as the ultimate (if not readily determinable) root cause.

Does this play outside of the New Orleans area? How do folks in other hurricane-vulnerable areas regard the "man-made disaster" argument? How about people that live well away from hurricane risk?

The man made disaster is having a city where it is built on below sea level marshland. Even with up to grade levees, it is only a matter of time before another disaster happens.

But to answer your question- no, you don't get the same angle played out in the media in general.

 

[timschochet]

My impression of how people in California talked about Katrina, anecdotally, was that is was a racial issue.

Some conservatives I spoke to at the time felt that blacks in New Orleans wouldn't help themselves, had been taught to be reliant on the government, and were waiting around to be rescued.

Some liberals, especially blacks, whom I spoke too were convinced that the government, particularly the Feds were slow to move because these were poor black neighborhoods being flooded.

There was a lot of anger on both sides, much more like the Ferguson discussion than any natural disaster discussion I can recall. It was pretty ugly.

 

[Doug B]

The man-made disaster is having a city where it is built on below sea level marshland. Even with up to grade levees, it is only a matter of time before another disaster happens.

I think a little too much gets made of this. For one, much of New Orleans (maybe most?) is above sea level, especially the older sections of town, a crescent hugging the river underlying Uptown, and the eastern end of the Metairie Ridge (close to where Metairie Road and the I-10 cross).

For two, many coastal cities worldwide have large areas where the ground is below sea level. However, there have always been economic advantages to populating these areas (which is why these places grew to be cities organically to begin with). The catch, though, is not to build on-slab buildings in below-sea-level areas ... that was very much a man-made issue. Only since Katrina has the concept of building new construction (or raising an existing building) to a certified Baseline Flood Elevation level been introduced to New Orleans in earnest.

I wonder how many people in SE Louisiana even knew what flood zone their home was in ten years ago?

 

[Chadstroma]

The man-made disaster is having a city where it is built on below sea level marshland. Even with up to grade levees, it is only a matter of time before another disaster happens.

I think a little too much gets made of this. For one, much of New Orleans (maybe most?) is above sea level, especially the older sections of town, a crescent hugging the river underlying Uptown, and the eastern end of the Metairie Ridge (close to where Metairie Road and the I-10 cross).

For two, many coastal cities worldwide have large areas where the ground is below sea level. However, there have always been economic advantages to populating these areas (which is why these places grew to be cities organically to begin with). The catch, though, is not to build on-slab buildings in below-sea-level areas ... that was very much a man-made issue. Only since Katrina has the concept of building new construction (or raising an existing building) to a certified Baseline Flood Elevation level been introduced to New Orleans in earnest.

I wonder how many people in SE Louisiana even knew what flood zone their home was in ten years ago?

The fact that you have portions of the city under sea level and some not is why I favored a complete re-thinking and re-building of the city. My thought was taking the lower level areas and making it park land or other type of uses that would benefit the city but if there was flooding again would not be so costly to fix up and keep people out of harm. But the political reality of doing something like that was not really every possible. Correct me if I am wrong but most of that lower than sea level area is the poorer parts of the city?

Regardless, the location of the city is not ideal in terms of thinking about Hurricanes. I am not aware of other large cities that are below sea level that are in areas that hurricanes are a regular concern. The reason why New Orleans exists and why it grew is because of the economic advantages of being the mouth of the Mississippi. Humans have a very long tradition of establishing cities in places that may not be ideal because of the potential for disaster but are ideal for other reasons.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Good god I don't think I have the energy for this.

 

[Doug B]

My impression of how people in California talked about Katrina, anecdotally, was that is was a racial issue.

Some conservatives I spoke to at the time felt that blacks in New Orleans wouldn't help themselves, had been taught to be reliant on the government, and were waiting around to be rescued.

Some liberals, especially blacks, whom I spoke too were convinced that the government, particularly the Feds were slow to move because these were poor black neighborhoods being flooded.

To me, and especially in retrospect, this angle was all very odd. People of all races were all in the same boat locally ... how was the nation getting informed on this at the time?

One thing that I do feel differed between races (though I have no stats) was the rate of evacuation -- but even that, truly, cut more along economic lines than skin color lines. Many, many African-Americans evacuated from the city ... I'd even go so far as to conjecture a strong majority got out in advance of the storm. It's true, at the same time, that many who couldn't evacuate ended up in the Superdome, the Convention Center, or camped out on the elevated portions of the interstate and other highways -- and those were visuals that were shown far and wide.

Something else ... one of the areas the hardest hit and with the most horrifying visuals, the Lower Ninth Ward, made for startling TV. That part of town happened to be strongly majority African-American. There were other areas with about as much damage, but with not quite as arresting visuals -- namely Lakeview (strong majority white), Chalmette and Arabi (adjacent to Lower Ninth Ward, slight white majority) and New Orleans East (African-American majority with a substantial Vietnamese minority). But I think the national audience saw and heard far, far less about the latter three areas.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

We are here on a real and figurative island - we shouldn't've been here 300 years ago either, a hurricane hit just a year or so after the city was founded. We live with the knowledge that we could be gone tomorrow. I pity you fools who have never had the benefit of, that sad lesson, to face losing everything you've ever had or known and everything you're ever gonna have. It's very freeing. America can have us or not but we survived and we will continue. Long Live the Great City of New Orleans.

 

[Doug B]

Correct me if I am wrong but most of that lower than sea level area is the poorer parts of the city.

Within the city limits of New Orleans, this is generally true with the exception of Lakeview -- see this map published in February of this year. Now, in the western suburbs, there are wide swaths of below-sea-level areas where more affluent folks live.

The article with which that map was published -- New Orleans was once above sea level, but stormwater drainage has caused it to sink -- with deadly consequences -- is worth a read for anyone interested in the matter. I've just learned something myself:

Modern drainage systems

Starting in the 1890s, New Orleans developed a sophisticated system to direct runoff through gutters and underground pipes to a series of pumping stations, which would push the water through "outfall canals" and into surrounding water bodies, principally Lake Pontchartrain. Engineer Albert Baldwin Wood made the new system much more efficient when he developed his patented Wood "screw pumps," which dramatically increased outflow speed and capacity while removing debris.

The basic design, with key modifications such as pumping station locations, was extended into eastern New Orleans in the 1910s and 1920s and replicated in adjacent parishes in subsequent decades.

The effect of municipal drainage on urban geography was nothing short of revolutionary. Wrote George Washington Cable in 1909, "there is a salubrity that could not be when the ... level of supersaturation in the soil was but two and a half feet from the surface, where now it is 10 feet or more. ... The curtains of swamp forest are totally gone[,] drained dry and covered with miles of gardened homes."

New Orleanians moved en masse off their historic high ground by the river and into new auto-friendly subdivisions on former swamps to the north, west and east. We no longer had to worry about topography.

There was one big problem. In removing unwanted swamp water, air pockets opened in the soil body, which oxidized the organic matter, which in turn opened up more spaces. Finely textured particles settled into those cavities, and the soil sunk.

Architects were among the first to notice the impact upon the cityscape. "Was the drainage of the city responsible for the settling of the old [st. Louis] cathedral wall a few days ago?," pondered a 1913 article in the Times-Picayune. "Will similar breaks in the walls of all of the old downtown buildings occur, and will it force them to be rebuilt? These are two questions which are worrying New Orleans architects and engineers."

By the 1930s, a metropolis that originally lay above sea level saw one-third of its land surface sink below that level.

By the 2000s, roughly half of the metropolis was below sea level -- by 3 to 6 feet in parts of Broadmoor, 5 to 8 feet in parts of Lakeview and Gentilly, and 6 to 12 feet in parts of Metairie and New Orleans East.

Why those spots? Because they were the lowest to begin with, and thus had the most water to lose closest to the surface and the most peat to oxidize.

The good news is that 50 percent of our metro area remains above sea level.

The bad news is that it used to be nearly 100 percent above sea level, and it was we humans who sank it.

The worst news is that our absolute rate of land sinkage roughly doubles when we measure it relative to the level of the sea -- which is indisputably rising. And, of course, it's the sea that makes this matter potentially deadly.

When Hurricane Katrina's surge ruptured the levees, it poured so swiftly and accumulated so deeply in so many areas because they had become bowl-shaped on account of manmade soil subsidence. Had a similar surge come upon an undrained and unsubsided landscape, say 200 years ago, it would have generally washed off the next day. And, of course, those landscapes would not have been populated.

Instead, the Katrina deluge sat for weeks, impounded, on top of fully developed neighborhoods. People drowned in part because of the unforeseen effects of swamp drainage and soil subsidence.

 

[Henry Ford]

I wonder if air drops existed ten years ago. It's not like we've been doing them in foreign countries for decades, right?

My point is not that they could have landed a helicopter with no problem. It's that you don't have to land a helicopter to get water to people.

This is basically what I am talking about. People who think there is a capability there to make everything better that just does not exist.Do you have any idea how dangerous an air drop is? My goodness I can only imagine how Bush would be blamed if someone dropped a ton of water on a few people.

And for the sake of argument- let's say that you get some water there faster but without the outright show of force to keep order such as National Guardsmen handing out the water. What do you think the chances are that people would tear each other apart to get to that limited water? Remember, water is heavy and helicopters are limited in how much they can carry. How many people were there at the Superdome? Geesh- just imagine the news reports showing people basically kill each other for a bottle of water.

This is a stupid argument.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Correct me if I am wrong but most of that lower than sea level area is the poorer parts of the city.

Within the city limits of New Orleans, this is generally true with the exception of Lakeview -- see this map published in February of this year. Now, in the western suburbs, there are wide swaths of below-sea-level areas where more affluent folks live.

The article with which that map was published -- New Orleans was once above sea level, but stormwater drainage has caused it to sink -- with deadly consequences -- is worth a read for anyone interested in the matter. I've just learned something myself:

Modern drainage systems

Starting in the 1890s, New Orleans developed a sophisticated system to direct runoff through gutters and underground pipes to a series of pumping stations, which would push the water through "outfall canals" and into surrounding water bodies, principally Lake Pontchartrain. Engineer Albert Baldwin Wood made the new system much more efficient when he developed his patented Wood "screw pumps," which dramatically increased outflow speed and capacity while removing debris.

The basic design, with key modifications such as pumping station locations, was extended into eastern New Orleans in the 1910s and 1920s and replicated in adjacent parishes in subsequent decades.

The effect of municipal drainage on urban geography was nothing short of revolutionary. Wrote George Washington Cable in 1909, "there is a salubrity that could not be when the ... level of supersaturation in the soil was but two and a half feet from the surface, where now it is 10 feet or more. ... The curtains of swamp forest are totally gone[,] drained dry and covered with miles of gardened homes."

New Orleanians moved en masse off their historic high ground by the river and into new auto-friendly subdivisions on former swamps to the north, west and east. We no longer had to worry about topography.

There was one big problem. In removing unwanted swamp water, air pockets opened in the soil body, which oxidized the organic matter, which in turn opened up more spaces. Finely textured particles settled into those cavities, and the soil sunk.

Architects were among the first to notice the impact upon the cityscape. "Was the drainage of the city responsible for the settling of the old [st. Louis] cathedral wall a few days ago?," pondered a 1913 article in the Times-Picayune. "Will similar breaks in the walls of all of the old downtown buildings occur, and will it force them to be rebuilt? These are two questions which are worrying New Orleans architects and engineers."

By the 1930s, a metropolis that originally lay above sea level saw one-third of its land surface sink below that level.

By the 2000s, roughly half of the metropolis was below sea level -- by 3 to 6 feet in parts of Broadmoor, 5 to 8 feet in parts of Lakeview and Gentilly, and 6 to 12 feet in parts of Metairie and New Orleans East.

Why those spots? Because they were the lowest to begin with, and thus had the most water to lose closest to the surface and the most peat to oxidize.

The good news is that 50 percent of our metro area remains above sea level.

The bad news is that it used to be nearly 100 percent above sea level, and it was we humans who sank it.

The worst news is that our absolute rate of land sinkage roughly doubles when we measure it relative to the level of the sea -- which is indisputably rising. And, of course, it's the sea that makes this matter potentially deadly.

When Hurricane Katrina's surge ruptured the levees, it poured so swiftly and accumulated so deeply in so many areas because they had become bowl-shaped on account of manmade soil subsidence. Had a similar surge come upon an undrained and unsubsided landscape, say 200 years ago, it would have generally washed off the next day. And, of course, those landscapes would not have been populated.

Instead, the Katrina deluge sat for weeks, impounded, on top of fully developed neighborhoods. People drowned in part because of the unforeseen effects of swamp drainage and soil subsidence.

I'm not even going to check the map. If you cut a swath into the river levee or both sides of the 17th street canal, it would flood 80% of the city, mid-city, much of Carrollton, Lakeview, Gentilly, into Metairie, Central City, Ninth Ward, 7th Ward, Tulane-Gravier, etc. It's happened before, 1848 when the river levee busted, 1915, 1871 or so, 1946 (when the other side of the 17th street canal levee busted, which flooded Metairie). Hell there used to be a small lake in Broadmoor. I don't think it even matters what the +/- of the sea level is, it's all about topography. There are some ridges but really nearly everything should naturally be swamp or marsh and once was.

eta - see here.

 

[Doug B]

There are some ridges but really nearly everything should naturally be swamp or marsh and once was.

eta - see here.

No doubt about it. At the same time, I don't believe that alone is sufficient reason for people to stay out (not your argument - db).

 

[Chadstroma]

I wonder if air drops existed ten years ago. It's not like we've been doing them in foreign countries for decades, right?

My point is not that they could have landed a helicopter with no problem. It's that you don't have to land a helicopter to get water to people.

This is basically what I am talking about. People who think there is a capability there to make everything better that just does not exist.Do you have any idea how dangerous an air drop is? My goodness I can only imagine how Bush would be blamed if someone dropped a ton of water on a few people.

And for the sake of argument- let's say that you get some water there faster but without the outright show of force to keep order such as National Guardsmen handing out the water. What do you think the chances are that people would tear each other apart to get to that limited water? Remember, water is heavy and helicopters are limited in how much they can carry. How many people were there at the Superdome? Geesh- just imagine the news reports showing people basically kill each other for a bottle of water.

This is a stupid argument.

So far you have offered "air drop" as a way to get water to people without obviously having a clue of how ignorant that suggestion is. Then your reply is "stupid argument" to an explanation of why that would not be a feasible solution to get supplies to people at the Superdome. Well, I guess, that is that. You win.

 

[fdas2]

I like the "I'm a bank teller from Chicago, and I'm going to tell people who live on coast how to manage a hurricane" shtick.

Top notch buffoonery.

 

[Doug B]

This is a stupid argument.

Something to keep in mind, for whatever it's worth, is that the solution that ended up being actually applied was to move the people to the resources, and not moving the resources to the people. I think the powers-that-be had a good reason to do that, as much of New Orleans was a dangerous place to be in the immediate aftermath of Katrina (check out the link in post #109 above).

And to be clear: I mean "dangerous" from ALL conceivable threats -- but chiefly environmental threats like accidentally wading into holes, sharp debris unseen under the waves, animals, etc. Not to mention the heat/humidity in an environment where fresh water and sanitation were close to nonexistent. The dangers from actual people with ill intent, though present, were less of a concern than the natural and environmental dangers.

 

[Ditka Butkus]

I wonder if air drops existed ten years ago. It's not like we've been doing them in foreign countries for decades, right?My point is not that they could have landed a helicopter with no problem. It's that you don't have to land a helicopter to get water to people.

This is basically what I am talking about. People who think there is a capability there to make everything better that just does not exist.

Do you have any idea how dangerous an air drop is? My goodness I can only imagine how Bush would be blamed if someone dropped a ton of water on a few people.

And for the sake of argument- let's say that you get some water there faster but without the outright show of force to keep order such as National Guardsmen handing out the water. What do you think the chances are that people would tear each other apart to get to that limited water? Remember, water is heavy and helicopters are limited in how much they can carry. How many people were there at the Superdome? Geesh- just imagine the news reports showing people basically kill each other for a bottle of water.

If memory serves me right the people were more interested in looting T.V's and tennis shoes than trying to acquire water.

 

[Henry Ford]

I wonder if air drops existed ten years ago. It's not like we've been doing them in foreign countries for decades, right?

My point is not that they could have landed a helicopter with no problem. It's that you don't have to land a helicopter to get water to people.

This is basically what I am talking about. People who think there is a capability there to make everything better that just does not exist.Do you have any idea how dangerous an air drop is? My goodness I can only imagine how Bush would be blamed if someone dropped a ton of water on a few people.

And for the sake of argument- let's say that you get some water there faster but without the outright show of force to keep order such as National Guardsmen handing out the water. What do you think the chances are that people would tear each other apart to get to that limited water? Remember, water is heavy and helicopters are limited in how much they can carry. How many people were there at the Superdome? Geesh- just imagine the news reports showing people basically kill each other for a bottle of water.

This is a stupid argument.

So far you have offered "air drop" as a way to get water to people without obviously having a clue of how ignorant that suggestion is. Then your reply is "stupid argument" to an explanation of why that would not be a feasible solution to get supplies to people at the Superdome. Well, I guess, that is that. You win.

"You can't drop supplies because you'd crush people to death and you wouldn't drop enough" is a stupid argument.

 

[Doug B]

If memory serves me right the people were more interested in looting T.V's and tennis shoes than trying to acquire water.

If we're talking about "the people" -- those that were still in the city as a collective set of people -- make no mistake: personal shelter, water, food, and shelter were their overwhelming priorities. While there were far too many people looting and aiming to profiteer, I want to make clear that they were nowhere near the default.

 

[chauncey]

A few interesting reads:

Israeli commandos protect elite neighborhood

Blackwater article (with only a pinch of liberal conspiracy/bias)

 

[msommer]

Mu wife works for UNICEF so I have some at least anecdotal knowledge of the difficulties faced when disaster strikes and emergency relief is required.

First requirement is shelter, water and food and first aid.

In the case of the UN relief agencies they have strategic warehouses in a few locations world wide and from the get go the object is to secure as much space on aircraft (and vessels for the later stages but due to transit time the shipments need to be secured and sent early).

In the recent case of the earthquake in Nepal everyone in my wife's department had the task to charter a complete cargo aircraft per week to go from one of the warehouses to the closest open airport to the disaster area. All also had to secure space on commercial airiners (sometimes this is donated) which must be filled as well. This will empty the stores pretty quickly so others go into overdrive to replenish the stocks in the warehouses - and buy/send stuff directly from manufacturers somewhere in the globe to the disaster area.

It is pretty intense and a lot of stuff happens (too much of one thing gets sent, too little of something else).

At the same time responders have been assembling in the disaster area to organize the efforts, get the supplies to where they are needed, and get organization in the designated shelter areas.

These are not easy tasks and the situation is generally extremely dynamic.

I have no idea how FEMA's response stacks up to international/UN relief efforts at all.

That aside I cannot remember having read so much criticism on disaster relief ever as was written about Katrina. I remember some criticism when Haiti was flattened a few years ago, and before that there was an earthquake in Turkey in the fall/winter that got criticism for not getting sufficient shelters winterized.

Why was Katrina seen as such a cluster####?

I'd think it was to some extent political. Bush was not the most popular president and the appointment of Brown was roundly criticized IIRC

On the other hand it seemed that the relief effort was indeed poorly coordinated, very late and seemingly inadequate.

And I guess this was reported more exactly because it happened in the US, in a major city, with lots of news helicopters flitting about taking pictures

 

[Chadstroma]

I like the "I'm a bank teller from Chicago, and I'm going to tell people who live on coast how to manage a hurricane" shtick.

Top notch buffoonery.

What have been my main points been in this thread?

1) While acknowledging that mistakes were made and improvements could be implemented in disaster response- that much of the criticism is partisan/ignorant in nature.

2) That a complete remake of the city planning was a missed opportunity.

3) I have little sympathy for anyone who made a decision to stay in harms way.

4) It is ignorant to think you can 'air drop' supplies to an urban area with a concentration of people in one area.

I am adding to a discussion in an online message board which is what you are suppose to do.

And your erroneous characterization of my career as an attempt to personally attack me is top notch buffoonery in my book. Would appreciate it if you would refrain from such buffoonery.

 

[Doug B]

That aside I cannot remember having read so much criticism on disaster relief ever as was written about Katrina...

Why was Katrina seen as such a cluster####?

I'd think it was to some extent political. Bush was not the most popular president and the appointment of Brown was roundly criticized IIRC

On the other hand it seemed that the relief effort was indeed poorly coordinated, very late and seemingly inadequate.

And I guess this was reported more exactly because it happened in the US, in a major city, with lots of news helicopters flitting about taking pictures

Looks like you answered your own question.

Your point about "the relief effort was ... very late" is spot on. I just don't think it was unduly late once Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin (finally) came to grips with the severity of the damage. From about 48 hours before landfall to about a day and a half after, too many in charge in the state and city were too often treating Katrina like "just another hurricane" and were inexcusably reluctant to immediately call for what federal aid could be brought to bear (even if those efforts would be flawed themselves).

Note that three years later, Hurricane Gustav was declared an emergency even before landfall and Louisiana coordinated with FEMA ahead of time. Of course, the lessons of Katrina informed the new protocols.

 

[fdas2]

I like the "I'm a bank teller from Chicago, and I'm going to tell people who live on coast how to manage a hurricane" shtick.

Top notch buffoonery.

What have been my main points been in this thread?

1) While acknowledging that mistakes were made and improvements could be implemented in disaster response- that much of the criticism is partisan/ignorant in nature.

2) That a complete remake of the city planning was a missed opportunity.

3) I have little sympathy for anyone who made a decision to stay in harms way.

4) It is ignorant to think you can 'air drop' supplies to an urban area with a concentration of people in one area.

I am adding to a discussion in an online message board which is what you are suppose to do.

And your erroneous characterization of my career as an attempt to personally attack me is top notch buffoonery in my book. Would appreciate it if you would refrain from such buffoonery.

Apologies. Assistant bank teller.

 

[dparker713]

Mu wife works for UNICEF so I have some at least anecdotal knowledge of the difficulties faced when disaster strikes and emergency relief is required.

First requirement is shelter, water and food and first aid.

In the case of the UN relief agencies they have strategic warehouses in a few locations world wide and from the get go the object is to secure as much space on aircraft (and vessels for the later stages but due to transit time the shipments need to be secured and sent early).

In the recent case of the earthquake in Nepal everyone in my wife's department had the task to charter a complete cargo aircraft per week to go from one of the warehouses to the closest open airport to the disaster area. All also had to secure space on commercial airiners (sometimes this is donated) which must be filled as well. This will empty the stores pretty quickly so others go into overdrive to replenish the stocks in the warehouses - and buy/send stuff directly from manufacturers somewhere in the globe to the disaster area.

It is pretty intense and a lot of stuff happens (too much of one thing gets sent, too little of something else).

At the same time responders have been assembling in the disaster area to organize the efforts, get the supplies to where they are needed, and get organization in the designated shelter areas.

These are not easy tasks and the situation is generally extremely dynamic.

I have no idea how FEMA's response stacks up to international/UN relief efforts at all.

That aside I cannot remember having read so much criticism on disaster relief ever as was written about Katrina. I remember some criticism when Haiti was flattened a few years ago, and before that there was an earthquake in Turkey in the fall/winter that got criticism for not getting sufficient shelters winterized.

Why was Katrina seen as such a cluster####?

I'd think it was to some extent political. Bush was not the most popular president and the appointment of Brown was roundly criticized IIRC

On the other hand it seemed that the relief effort was indeed poorly coordinated, very late and seemingly inadequate.

And I guess this was reported more exactly because it happened in the US, in a major city, with lots of news helicopters flitting about taking pictures

It was more than just New Orleans. It was the entire Gulf Coast. New Orleans got all the press, but the devastation was a thousand miles wide.

 

[dparker713]

I like the "I'm a bank teller from Chicago, and I'm going to tell people who live on coast how to manage a hurricane" shtick.

Top notch buffoonery.

What have been my main points been in this thread?

1) While acknowledging that mistakes were made and improvements could be implemented in disaster response- that much of the criticism is partisan/ignorant in nature.

2) That a complete remake of the city planning was a missed opportunity.

3) I have little sympathy for anyone who made a decision to stay in harms way.

4) It is ignorant to think you can 'air drop' supplies to an urban area with a concentration of people in one area.

I am adding to a discussion in an online message board which is what you are suppose to do.

And your erroneous characterization of my career as an attempt to personally attack me is top notch buffoonery in my book. Would appreciate it if you would refrain from such buffoonery.

You do realize we figured out how to air drop supplies on large cities in 1948, right?

 

[Nathan R. Jessep]

There's been some argument upthread about what could and should have been done for people who had evacuated to the Superdome, and how quickly it should have been done. Here's an article detailing the account of the Superdome facility manager Doug Thornton. He stayed in the Dome from the Sunday morning before Katrina hit (on Monday 8/29/2005) until the Friday after, once the last of the evacuees were transported out of New Orleans.

Refuge of last resort: Five days inside the Superdome for Hurricane Katrina

what a chilling read

is the second part of it published yet? couldn't find it

 

[dparker713]

One thing I've often wondered about, and want to run it by people who don't live in the New Orleans area or on the Gulf Coast:

The local media -- most assiduously our local newspapers -- takes great care to never, ever print that Katrina was a natural disaster. It's always referred to as something like "the breach of the federal levees" or "the failure of the federal flood protection system" ... sometimes even "the Federal Floods" for short. The conventional wisdom locally is that Katrina was straight-up a man-made disaster, with culpable human actors as the ultimate (if not readily determinable) root cause.

Does this play outside of the New Orleans area? How do folks in other hurricane-vulnerable areas regard the "man-made disaster" argument? How about people that live well away from hurricane risk?

That wording seems specifically designed to pass the buck entirely onto the federal government.

I think by and large most people realize that it was the flooding that caused the majority of the damage, but I've not generally heard of it being regarded as a man-made disaster.

 

[Doug B]

There's been some argument upthread about what could and should have been done for people who had evacuated to the Superdome, and how quickly it should have been done. Here's an article detailing the account of the Superdome facility manager Doug Thornton. He stayed in the Dome from the Sunday morning before Katrina hit (on Monday 8/29/2005) until the Friday after, once the last of the evacuees were transported out of New Orleans.

Refuge of last resort: Five days inside the Superdome for Hurricane Katrina

what a chilling read

is the second part of it published yet? couldn't find it

Yes, I should have posted the link earlier:

How one couple's desire to rebuild New Orleans nearly tore them apart

 

[Chadstroma]

I like the "I'm a bank teller from Chicago, and I'm going to tell people who live on coast how to manage a hurricane" shtick.

Top notch buffoonery.

What have been my main points been in this thread?

1) While acknowledging that mistakes were made and improvements could be implemented in disaster response- that much of the criticism is partisan/ignorant in nature.

2) That a complete remake of the city planning was a missed opportunity.

3) I have little sympathy for anyone who made a decision to stay in harms way.

4) It is ignorant to think you can 'air drop' supplies to an urban area with a concentration of people in one area.

I am adding to a discussion in an online message board which is what you are suppose to do.

And your erroneous characterization of my career as an attempt to personally attack me is top notch buffoonery in my book. Would appreciate it if you would refrain from such buffoonery.

You do realize we figured out how to air drop supplies on large cities in 1948, right?

You do realize that the Berlin Airlift (which I assume is what you are referring to) did not air drop supplies, right?

(I suppose that is not fully accurate. There was the candy air drop that the did for fun)

 

[Todd Andrews]

http://p1cdn04.thewrap.com/images/2014/05/kanye-west-comment-on-bush1.jpg

This sums everything up perfectly.

 

[Todd Andrews]

I wonder if air drops existed ten years ago. It's not like we've been doing them in foreign countries for decades, right?My point is not that they could have landed a helicopter with no problem. It's that you don't have to land a helicopter to get water to people.

This is basically what I am talking about. People who think there is a capability there to make everything better that just does not exist.

Do you have any idea how dangerous an air drop is? My goodness I can only imagine how Bush would be blamed if someone dropped a ton of water on a few people.

And for the sake of argument- let's say that you get some water there faster but without the outright show of force to keep order such as National Guardsmen handing out the water. What do you think the chances are that people would tear each other apart to get to that limited water? Remember, water is heavy and helicopters are limited in how much they can carry. How many people were there at the Superdome? Geesh- just imagine the news reports showing people basically kill each other for a bottle of water.

Are you simply crazy?

The federal government could have had everyone there out days earlier, and fed and watered every person there if we wanted. Your lack of understanding of our capabilities is ridiculous.

 

[The Big Guy]

I wonder if air drops existed ten years ago. It's not like we've been doing them in foreign countries for decades, right?My point is not that they could have landed a helicopter with no problem. It's that you don't have to land a helicopter to get water to people.

This is basically what I am talking about. People who think there is a capability there to make everything better that just does not exist.

Do you have any idea how dangerous an air drop is? My goodness I can only imagine how Bush would be blamed if someone dropped a ton of water on a few people.

And for the sake of argument- let's say that you get some water there faster but without the outright show of force to keep order such as National Guardsmen handing out the water. What do you think the chances are that people would tear each other apart to get to that limited water? Remember, water is heavy and helicopters are limited in how much they can carry. How many people were there at the Superdome? Geesh- just imagine the news reports showing people basically kill each other for a bottle of water.

Are you simply crazy?

The federal government could have had everyone there out days earlier, and fed and watered every person there if we wanted. Your lack of understanding of our capabilities is ridiculous.

I agree that if the government had tried to get it done, it would have gotten done. No doubt that a small squad of national guard could handle the parking deck that other helicopters landed on, to supervise the unloading of relief helicopters for the folks that were stuck in the superdome. The federal government and FEMA should have overridden the leadership void of the state and local officials and stepped up and delivered what was needed.

The funny thing is that if Bush and Brown had done that, I would bet that the political blowback for overstepping their roles and boundaries after the fact would have been just as bad. Our media today is totally geared towards feeding and creating stories and not just the basic reporting of the news.

 

[Henry Ford]

I wonder if air drops existed ten years ago. It's not like we've been doing them in foreign countries for decades, right?

My point is not that they could have landed a helicopter with no problem. It's that you don't have to land a helicopter to get water to people.

This is basically what I am talking about. People who think there is a capability there to make everything better that just does not exist.Do you have any idea how dangerous an air drop is? My goodness I can only imagine how Bush would be blamed if someone dropped a ton of water on a few people.

And for the sake of argument- let's say that you get some water there faster but without the outright show of force to keep order such as National Guardsmen handing out the water. What do you think the chances are that people would tear each other apart to get to that limited water? Remember, water is heavy and helicopters are limited in how much they can carry. How many people were there at the Superdome? Geesh- just imagine the news reports showing people basically kill each other for a bottle of water.

Are you simply crazy?

The federal government could have had everyone there out days earlier, and fed and watered every person there if we wanted. Your lack of understanding of our capabilities is ridiculous.

I agree that if the government had tried to get it done, it would have gotten done. No doubt that a small squad of national guard could handle the parking deck that other helicopters landed on, to supervise the unloading of relief helicopters for the folks that were stuck in the superdome. The federal government and FEMA should have overridden the leadership void of the state and local officials and stepped up and delivered what was needed. The funny thing is that if Bush and Brown had done that, I would bet that the political blowback for overstepping their roles and boundaries after the fact would have been just as bad. Our media today is totally geared towards feeding and creating stories and not just the basic reporting of the news.

I agree that there may have been political blowback. The major problem here is the placement of politics over citizens during a deadly crisis.

 

[Doug B]

The federal government and FEMA should have overridden the leadership void of the state and local officials and stepped up and delivered what was needed.

Most unfortunately in hindsight, this, specifically, was proscribed at the time by the letter of the Stafford Act (the covering federal disaster-assistance law that defines FEMA's role and authority). The reasoning was that local resources, with presumably more specific area knowledge and more proximate and immediate logistical support than federal agencies, would serve as the vanguard of disaster response. FEMA and other federal agencies were to step in whenever local resources were overwhelmed (which could be close to immediately).

In 2005, federal law dictated that FEMA not act until the governor of the state explicitly asked for a federal disaster declaration. Kathleen Blanco did not do this in advance of landfall for Katrina, but Bobby Jindal** did do so in advance of Gustav(2008), Ike (2008, affected SW Louisiana), and Isaac (2012).

Title IV (see link) of the Stafford Act was amended sometime between 2006-2008 to allow the President (via FEMA and/or the U.S. military) more latitude to "step over" local/state governments in the event a major disaster declaration. A little more detail about this is given in the Michael Brown article linked on page 1 of this thread.

** no political jab is meant to be inferred here.

EDIT: fixed typo

 

[Doug B]

The federal government could have had everyone there out days earlier, and fed and watered every person there if we wanted. Your lack of understanding of our capabilities is ridiculous.

Would have been very difficult to pre-position supplies, though, as the storm track moved from the Florida Panhandle to SE Louisiana over the span of just over 60 hours.

IMHO, with absolutely no mistakes made and all decision being essentially perfect ... provisions could maybe have gotten into the city maybe a day earlier. Remember, for those known to be sheltered in places like the Superdome, the initial calculus (for maybe 36 hours or so) performed by distant officials was that the sheltered people were uncomfortable, but OK.

Keep in mind, too, that there were human beings driving the trucks down to the New Orleans area ... and they were hearing unspeakable rumors about what was happening to people in the city. Some individual hesitation, for right or wrong, was attributable to personal safety concerns.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Let's face it, it was a confederacy of dunces. Brown was a political spoils job. Our mayor would go to jail, the parish presidents of 2 neighboring parishes would go to jail, and the sheriff in another neighboring parish would go to jail. We had corruption and incompetence, and at least two if the above flat out lost their mind. Blanco was a blank. Even now after the reforms with BP we found out the MMB was run by a connected appointee and Jindal actually tried, maybe successfully, to interfere in the Sela levee board, meanwhile the West Bank got their own levee board fiefdom early on. This stuff angers me, truly.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Small subplot people probably don't know nationally. Nagin took a needed idea, a communications system that would tie all the channels of first responders together as well as a citywide wifi and emergency tower system, and he turned it into a massive embezzlement boondoggle. Guess what would have come in really handy when the sht went down but wasn't remotely operational? Ack, disgusting what came out. This stupid purest stuff like good government matters, people, lives and property rest on it.

 

[Doug B]

A really good read is Chris Rose's 1 Dead in Attic. Highly recommended if you want to live through the aftermath of someone who was there.

Chris Rose is a friend of mine and that is a great read.

My favorite Chris Rose column came five years after Katrina. I love the whole irreverent "F you, hurricanes!" vibe:

Raising Canes

A colleague of mine recently reached out to me, begging me to write a column about a topic close to his heart. He presented his concerns — fears, really — in a clearly agitated state of mind and implored: "For the love of God. ... Put some sense into it, Chris!"

  When a situation — any situation — has deteriorated to such a degree that someone thinks I can serve as a plausible arbiter of clearmindedness, then we do indeed have a crisis on our hands. So, with all due respect to God and Bob Breck, I'll give it a try.

  It was Breck who wrote the email. The veteran meteorologist from Fox 8 News is a-dither, aroused, annoyed, fevered, ruffled and distraught. Which is saying a lot. Because, if you've ever seen his broadcasts, you know he can be an excitable chap with on-air delivery styles that range from animated to jittery — and all the whistle stops in between.

  And that's on a slow news day.

  So if Bob Breck thinks someone is overreacting, well, then. Well then, indeed.

  (In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I perform some contractual services for WVUE-TV, Breck's employer, but I'm not sure that's relevant to the matter at hand.)

  The issue here is hurricanes. Well, sort of. It's not really the storms themselves, but the relatively new means by which we — as a nation of 24/7 news cycle, technologically-obsessed, information junkies — track, monitor, follow, fixate and otherwise preoccupy ourselves with where they are, where they're going and when they'll get there, a science as imprecise as, and (oddly, ironically) as seasonal, as figuring out what Brett Favre's plans are each fall.

  And that gives me the metaphor I am looking for. Full-blown hurricanes — and even your Everyday Joe tropical storms — have morphed from flash-in-the-pan, Whoa, Nellie! meteorological phenomena that burst onto and off the scene in two or three news cycles into something resembling a professional sports season: starting somewhere in the vague Deep South, irrelevant in the opening weeks, starting slow, dragging on two weeks too long and, in the end, generally turning out to be a bust, a colossal waste of everybody's time.

  Really, they should just call every storm Hurricane Brett.

  "Years ago, we didn't track them for two weeks," Breck points out. Now, he says, advanced satellite tracking systems, the emotional fragility of emergency preparedness officials in the post-K era, and the compliant media conspire to "scare the bejesus out of us!" he says. "It's already difficult enough to sleep at night — fear of crime, fear of bedbugs — but now we have to fear another hurricane that 'might' hit us in two weeks? The governor is doing promos urging us to 'get a game plan!' We can't let our guard down! We're all gonna die!"

  Like I said, Breck has a tendency toward excitability. And it's a shame about that bedbug thing. Little TMI there, Bobby Boy!

  But he is onto something here. On the day I write this story — Sept. 15 — the home page of nola.com, The Times-Picayune website, has these three headlines, one atop the other:

  "Tropical Storm Karl expected to reach Yucatan Peninsula overnight."

  "Hurricane Igor, a Category 4 storm, continues to strengthen."

  "Hurricane Julia intensifies to Category 2."

  Says Breck: "The headline should read: Three named storms at once with zero chance of coming here."

  Instead, we get these super-cool, uber-tech, satellite images shot from thousands of miles above the planet that show the merest formations of little, tiny cloud whorls, kind of like cosmic ultrasound photos of Mother Earth proudly showing off her newest spawn, conceived off the west coast of Africa, still six weeks from North America but DETERMINED TO KILL EVERYONE IN NEW ORLEANS.

  But it's not just a local phenom we're talking about. As I write this, the home page for msn.com says: "Storms Look Scary ... Even From Space," accompanied by those same Mother Earth ultrasound photos. And this text:

  "To keep track of these scary storms in the days ahead, click into the Weather section and check out our whiz-bang Hurricane Tracker. And for a quick primer on hurricane science, take a spin through our 'Birth of a Hurricane' interactive."

  Whiz-bang indeed!

  With all due respect to God and Bob Breck, what I'd like to know is: Where the hell is Nash Roberts with his Magic Markers and his wipeboard?** And just what the hell does he have to say about all this?

** Videos of Nash Roberts and his wipeboards, first 1:25 of this link. Roberts drawing out the hurricanes' potential paths had comforted New Orleanians in advance of potential doom for forty years:

In later years, Nash was the favorite forecaster in the area, especially among older viewers, to the point where competitors good-naturedly referred to him as "the Weather God". After his retirement, he would be brought back as a special consultant when hurricanes threatened in the Gulf. By the late 1980s he seemed to many like a figure from an earlier era, as he eschewed computer graphics and other modern special effects in favor of a simple black marker and paper map. Nash retired from the Eyewitness News anchor desk in February 1984, but would come back during storms to help calm and educate the locals during hurricane season, sometimes to the visible resentment of the station's younger weathermen, especially when Nash's experience, intuition, and pen and paper yielded more accurate predictions than their computer models. He accurately predicted the path of Hurricane Georges in 1998, while all the full-time on-air meteorologists of the area, namely Bob Breck of WVUE and Dan Milham of WDSU, predicted an incorrect track.

Roberts finally retired from even his special hurricane appearances in July 2001 (in part to help take care of his wife of over 60 years, Lydia), and that same year donated his papers to Loyola University, New Orleans.

 

[shader]

The Bush Administration was blamed for Katrina?

Bush is blamed for everything, including things like the Civil War, Hindenburg disaster, the second Star Wars trilogy.

The bolded happened under his watch, and SOMEBODY's got to take the blame for it.

Actually Clinton was in office when "The Phantom Menace" came out.

I knew Clinton was evil, but never connected these two events. Thanks.

 

[shader]

That was basically the turn I do believe, which at the time seemed like a miracle saving the city. Or so it was thought.

As you know -- for the usual hurricanes that whip through a little quicker -- being on the west side of the eye makes a big difference with rainfall amounts since the northerly bands of the storm are over land and are no longer pulling moisture from open water. That didn't help with Katrina because Katrina was pushing and moving so much gulf and lake water ahead of it -- the often misunderstood "storm surge".

A lot of people from outside the area see that "New Orleans is under sea level" and think "Of course they flooded!" ... that Katrina simply filled the city with rainwater the way you fill a soup bowl with minestrone. That wasn't the case at all. New Orleans has had many hurricanes and tropical storms pass over and do their worst, rain-wise -- most recently in 2012 with Hurricane Isaac. The city can drain and pump a hurricane's rainwater out before catastrophic flooding occurs, and that was true at the time of Katrina as well.

Storm surge something altogether different. Hurricane winds push water ahead of it, kind of like sliding your hand over the top of a pan of Jello. On top of that, the hurricane's low atmospheric pressure and it's circulation allows water underneath the eye to well up a few feet. The combined effects are all the more exacerbated when a storm is especially large (square mileage, not windspeed). Large storms push more water over a wider area and keep it "propped up" for a longer time. A small, tight hurricane that moved more quickly than Katrina would have been much less damaging to the city, even if it had stronger winds.

I personally think the current "ranking" system for Hurricanes needs to be updated to include a combination of Storm Surge and Wind Speed. I'm sure there are some out there, but they aren't used publicly. People think "ah its just a Cat3, i've lived through a Cat4", and then they get blindsided because the storm surge is the surge of a Cat5. Wasn't that the case with katrina? It weakened just before landfall, but due to the fact that it had been so powerful, the storm surge was still the surge of a Cat4/5 hurricane.

 

[Doug B]

I personally think the current "ranking" system for Hurricanes needs to be updated to include a combination of Storm Surge and Wind Speed. I'm sure there are some out there, but they aren't used publicly. People think "ah its just a Cat3, i've lived through a Cat4", and then they get blindsided because the storm surge is the surge of a Cat5. Wasn't that the case with katrina? It weakened just before landfall, but due to the fact that it had been so powerful, the storm surge was still the surge of a Cat4/5 hurricane.

Right on, except that severity of storm surge is not directly related to the Category 1-5 scale, which is really just a ranking by wind speed.

Hurricane Isaac (2012) was only a Cat 1 (80 mph max sustained winds), but it was a painfully slow mover with a huge wind field. Isaac not only pushed a lot of water around (aka storm surge), it's slow movement made sure that the storm surge stayed in place for much longer than a normal hurricane AND that Isaac's rainfall had time to overflow some canals and inland waterways. In the New Orleans area, we were able to shelter in place at home** and watch Isaac pass overhead gradually. It took just about an entire 24-hour day for it to clear the area. More typical hurricanes (smaller, quicker) pass over in about 6-8 hours.

** there were mandatory evacuations for some parishes west and southwest of the New Orleans metro area. These ended up being the primary areas in SE Louisiana that received flood damage from Isaac.