Baton Rouge lucked out in a big way. Several areas here never lost power … although in mine and Logan’s neck of the woods, power was lost for about 8 hours.
A roof shingle went through a bedroom window while my wife was in there napping. Scary moment … no personal harm done.
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We’re now watching extensive helicopter coverage of the New Orleans area damage. It’s very eerie. The damage is not consistent – some areas made out pretty well, and some areas are totalled.
Levee heights and integrity vary considerably througout the area … a lot depends on the tax dollars local residents vote to spend on levee protection. My parents live near probably the best levees in the metro area (25-ft, steel-reinforced levee holding in 13-ft-deep Lake Pontchartrain). On the other hand, the “crumbly”, slipshod levee by the Ninth Ward has been a disaster waiting to happen for 30 years.
For those who asked – the Ninth Ward is the southeastern corner of the city’s east bank (New Orleans also has a tongue of land on the west bank of the Mississippi River, called Algiers). The Ninth Ward is a few miles east of the French Quarter, and is located near a sharp turn in the river. River water slows down and “pools” at this turn, heavily exacerbating storm surge during major storms. On top of that, there a nearby ship channel connecting the Gulf of Mexico to the Mississippi River. The ship channel is wide enough to funnel a significant amount of additional storm surge towards the Ninth Ward.
I’m watching CNN and the footage shows flooding to the roofs of houses–one person was rescued by helicopter from his/her roof. I don’t know what area that footage was from.
keith obermann just mentioned that nbc tech crew are taking care of a puppy that was not allowed into the superdome. they offered to take the puppy so humans could go inside.
some of the hotels were accepting humans and pets for shelter. i’m betting more people would go to shelter if pets were accepted. they did mention that some shelters had designated pet areas.
he had an interview with noah’s ark that goes into areas after natural disasters to find pets and live stock that are stranded.
i’ve see pictures of the dolphin refugees being fed in the hotel pools.
i’ve seen pictures of the roof rescue. there is a building burning somewhere in n.o., they haven’t said where yet.
Yacht Club is no doubt gone from the footage I’ve seen. Kind of crazy that a place is surrounded by water yet burning down. I’ve also just seen footage of about two dozen people looting, even using shopping carts to take their things away.
Seeing more footage of a few more burning buildings. Gas leaks are causing them – the vapors escape into the home, then the oven or stove pilot light ignites the gas.
Well, I was pretty sure we’d be out of power for a couple of days (based on my parents’ experience with the hurricanes in Fla last year), but boy am I relieved to have power tonight! I thought it was going to be a hot, sweaty night. We lost power at about 8am and it came on tonight around 6pm. I don’t even think we lost any “perishables!” I went on a drive with a friend of mine. After attempting to advise him that probably wasn’t the best idea, I caved and went with him. Most noticeable were the number of trees down all over town, including at least a dozen very large trees. The heavily “shrubbed” places had a lot of leaves and branches down in the streets. We saw two houses today (around the lakes/LSU area for those in Baton Rouge) that had very large trees fall on top of them, & both of the houses were in pretty bad shape. Also a truck that had been squashed by a tree.
Directly in front of our apartment (where we spent most of the night last night and the day today), we had a tree split in half and the unfortunate half is now laying in the parking lot. A part of the fence behind our building blew down. This fence separated our apartment complex from the neighborhood next door. Now we have become part of the neighbors’ back yards! There are several other smaller trees in our apt complex that have blown down or split in half.
There were people out all over town. Mostly people in their front yards observing the damage or cleaning up their front yards. The majority of places we passed didn’t have power, but I was surprised at how many people **did **have power. McDonald’s was open right down the street and had a line of cars stretching quite a ways down the road leading into McD’s. Alright, I have to confess, I went to McDonalds. All they were serving were Quarter Lb’ers, fries, chicken Mcnuggets and soft drinks.
Okay that’s enough of my narrative for this evening. I’ll be putting more pictures up tomorrow and I’ll post a link if people are interested.
I know several people whose homes are certainly flooded in New Orleans though. I send my best to those on this board who have homes there. I’m glad this wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. Hopefully New Orleans will be back to its old ways very soon!
10:19pm central time and the frustration level is rising. Can’t get any calls into the arrea. During the damn storm I was able to talk with two people on cells phone 10 mles from the ye of the storm. 12 hours later after it is long gone and all communications are down. We have no idea about our home. No one can returns for a minimum of 24 hours and possibly for up to a week.
Try to be realistic about it. Will the groceries be open? or the gas stations? or the hardware store? You’re better off out of it for a bit. Whatever shape your home is in, it will still be in that shape when you get back to it.
You say that as though hot, sweaty nights are a bad thing…
OK, now that I’ve had my little joke, thanks for the narrative. I found it interesting.
No loss of power here yet, (East-Central Alabama) but the wind velocity is still increasing. Probably will lose power before morning. We are under a wind advisory until 10:00 am. So far, only about 3/4 inch of rain.
Two tornadoes touched down near here today, one house destroyed but no injuries reported.
Oh yeah: Anybody heard from any of the Mississippi dopers? That’s where some extensive damage will be, all the way up to Memphis.
Trees, buildings and so forth located away from the Gulf aren’t nearly as resistant to hurricane winds. Opal in 1995 in East Alabama, and Ivan last year in West Alabama both did extensive damage as far as 200 miles inland.
I think people who evacuated to Jackson or Columbus may have saved their lives, but they moved into areas that will be without electric power and other services. I’d have headed for Houston, Atlanta or Tallahassee.
TV newscasters are saying that the floating casinos at Biloxi are “gone”. Any clue what they mean by gone? Blown away, sunk, or what?
Just to clear up a couple misconceptions, the flooding to the rooflines that we’ve seen coverage of at great length is almost entirely in the Lower Ninth Ward. The levee on the ship canal breached there, and so it flooded. Just like it did in Betsy. (Which was when and where the phrase “keeping an axe in the attic” became popular, according to one report I heard, as people had to chop their way out their roofs from the inside – which they did again today.)
Neighboring St. Bernard Parish (which borders the Lower Ninth Ward) is flooded 12-15 feet deep, from a report by a local NBC reporter who lives there and is holed up in the parish government offices ; nobody was able to get in there today to see how bad the damage is, but I saw reports from New Orleans media that estimates are of 40,000 homes flooded out in St. Bernard Parish alone.
The French Quarter has withstood hurricanes and floods and all kinds of crap for hundreds of years. The buildings there have been through a whole lot; I’m actually not surprised that without bad flooding, they didn’t have massive damage from just the wind.
Now I’m worried about Kenner – I have a friend who lives just a few blocks east of Transcontinental off Esplanade (who’s safe and sound in Houston with her family and all pets), and although she said her street had never flooded, it sounds like that record has probably been broken. Although, frankly, I’d take a house flooded a foot deep that could be scraped out over a house missing half its roof and/or windows any day of the week.
Anybody have ANY idea how things are in the Terrytown area? I feel so awful for the really nice young man who bought our house there – that we closed on exactly one month ago today – only to have it potentially heavily damaged before he could even get settled in properly! I hope I can find out eventually; he was so excited to buy his first house, and I was so pleased he loved the house as much as we did, and now this happens. A small thing in the overall scheme of things, I realize, but it’s one thing that’s really been bothering me today.
Oh Christ. Now the real death toll numbers are rolling in. AP reports at least 50 dead in one Mississippi county. I’m afraid this is only the beginning.
I am from Metairie originally (near Transcontinental and West Esplanade) … my family evacuated to here from Metairie.
Don’t know what part of Metairie you’re interested in … it’s a big place. Some parts made out with only street flooding … some got water in the houses at varying levels (however, from what I’ve pieced together … none in Metairie got in-house water higher than waist deep).
Here are the areas in Metairie I’ve heard about specifically (radio caller to WWL 870 + aerial footage shown on news last night):
– Lake Villa near the pumping station: Flooding right up to porches … a few houses have ankle-deep water … most homes are dry
– West Esplanade near Transcontinental: street flooding … lower houses on corners may have taken in some water. Many houses OK.
– Clearview Mall: heavy wind damage … facade torn off Target … water in parking lot
– Veterans Hwy near where I-10 crosses over (Green Acres to Vets on-ramp): Vets is impassable with water.
Regarding New Orleans, here is a snippet from a CNN article:
I’ve seen flashes across the bottom of the screen saying that it could take 4 to 6 weeks to restore power in N. O., and that both airports are under water.
I went on a drive with a friend of mine. After attempting to advise him that probably wasn’t the best idea, I caved and went with him. Most noticeable were the number of trees down all over town, including at least a dozen very large trees. The heavily “shrubbed” places had a lot of leaves and branches down in the streets. We saw two houses today (around the lakes/LSU area for those in Baton Rouge) that had very large trees fall on top of them, & both of the houses were in pretty bad shape. Also a truck that had been squashed by a tree.