I won't ever forget the day Katrina came ashore. In fact, I remember showing the doppler radar on 13News as the eye came inland. The levees held for most of the day. But it wasn't until the storm was ashore that the flooding in the Crescent City began. For nearly 2,000 people life ended on that day and in the days following.I had the unfortunate (fortunate) responsibility of covering Hurricane Lili for KPLC-TV in 2002. Lili was a category five storm before it made landfall between Lake Charles and New Orleans. I spoke with a member of FEMA who said "If a major hurricane hits New Orleans and it floods, the fatalities will be in the thousands." Unfortunately I didn't think that his words would ring true just a few years later. (Honestly, I am done covering hurricanes as a Meteorologist. There's something thrilling about chasing tornadoes and severe weather. Hurricanes are massive. For instance, I did one live shot from outside for three minutes and had every article of clothing wet. We don't think about the fact that the rain and wind are more than 80°. Being in the path of a hurricane wasn't such a nice thing.)
WWL-TV New Orleans has a great slide show with some very dramatic pictures of Katrina. Google has some satellite views of the Lower Ninth Ward. Unbelieveable to see how very little has changed.What do you think went wrong with Katrina? Do you think it will happen again in our lifetime? -ERIC
4 comments:
Katrina was a man-made disaster. If humans hadn't built a town there, and created all the logistic and political processes that came into play, what harm would have come? Perhaps a few alligators and turtles would have perished, though most probably would have survived.
I believe the responsibility is squarely on humans: if we elect to build our houses and towns in places where natural hazards are known to occur then it is our responsibility to make better preparations to deal with the forces of nature which we cannot control.
This goes not only for hurricaines, but also other natural hazards (tornados, floods, earthquakes, blizzards, monsoons, droughts, wildfires, famines - we ALL live in the path of some potential natural disaster which we KNOW will occur sooner or later).
Other "Katrina-magnitude disasters" have occurred (mostly in other countries so far) and will continue to occur, without respect for politics or ethnicity. We are deluded if we think we are somehow "above" the forces of nature; we are not.
The ONLY way to prevent this kind of large scale loss of life and livelihood is to PLAN for what we will do in the places we elect to live, and that requires both small scale (personal, family), medium scale (neighborhood, community) and large scale (national, global) planning and cooperation.
You asked; that's my opinion.
Katrina was a thing that happen because the oceans, the world is heating up, we are going to see less major storms, but when we do see a major storm it's going to be one strong storm. You can see right now what is happening here in the Midwest, we have had rain, you go down state, and the crops our just no good. The Corn and Bean market was showing good signs of that few weeks ago, they are starting come off there highs, but again, I don't think it's going to last long on that part.
The Southeast is having drought the worse in I don't how long, but basically the corn and beans and crops down there our done with they did not get the rain when needed.
We will have more things like this because it's all of our fault what we have done.
Can we change it around? I think we can is it to late, God I sure hope not because this is the only planet that can sunstain life right at this time that I can see.
Good blog post Eric!
-Garry-
I still tear up when I see the pictures of the horrible aftermath from Katrina. I agree this was an act of nature, but the flooding was from the break in the levies. Two years later the citizens still need help. Sad comment, but true.
Why can we rush to aid other countries after a diaster, but limit our response to our own citizens? What if this happened to us?
When I see the pictures from Katrina, I get the same feeling I do when I see pictures from 9-11. It's so sad.
Why can't we help these people rebuild? I am sure that the Evening News found the worst of the city last night, but it seems so widespread in the pictures!\
We all should be visiting New Orleans to bump up the economy there.
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