Ridiculous statements

[Tri-State_1925]

Had the levees held, this WOULDN'T have been the big one as most of the deaths have come because of the floods and most of the homes are intact in New Orleans, just flooded. Yes, this was the big one for New Orleans because of all of the flooding, which obviously caused the horrific scene.

"Had the levees held..." -- newsflash, it was always ALL about the levees in NO. The reason NO was the biggest potential hurricane disaster was its topography. Levees breaking or getting overrun resulting in massive flooding was the doomsday scenario for NO. It had little to do with wind damage. Regardless of how strong this storm was, it broke NO's levees and you know the rest. Had a category 1 storm somehow broke NO's levees and flooded the city, it would have demanded equal notoriety.

[Huckster]

Good point. It's almost like saying, "If Charley's winds would not have been so high and the storm so strong, then it wouldn't have caused nearly the damage it did. Basically, if it would have been weaker, it wouldn't have been as bad." Here's another great insight...

"If New Orleans was not built where it was, and was on high land instead, this disaster wouldn't have happened!"

One could take any disaster and come up with these "if such and such wouldn't have happened" things and minimize or explain away the significance.

[Radar]

Even if New Orlean's levee system would have held and New Orleans would have been be spared by the brunt... IT still would have been very newsworthy for the impact it had on the Plaqumines Parish, Slidell, Lousiana and along the Mississippi and even Alabama coast line. The significance of this would have been diminished some but lets not forget the amount of suffering in other areas beside N.O.

[Cookiely]

I have a question concerning the topography of New Orleans. First of all they seem to think if they raise the levees this will eliminate the possibility of this ever happening again. Is this true? I keep thinking about Allison. If this kind of scenario played out wouldn't the "bowl" of New Orleans fill and flood? Could the pumps keep up with an Allison type storm? My mother is just beside herself that they are going to rebuild New Orleans in the same spot. If the city itself is "sinking" what are going to be the long term problems for New Orleans?

[skysummit]

Even if New Orlean's levee system would have held and New Orleans would have been be spared by the brunt... IT still would have been very newsworthy for the impact it had on the Plaqumines Parish, Slidell, Lousiana and along the Mississippi and even Alabama coast line. The significance of this would have been diminished some but lets not forget the amount of suffering in other areas beside N.O.

Right Radar...New Orleans is getting all the media since it's a metropolitan area. When I rode along the Miss. Gulf Coast, I had to stop many times because it was just so emmotional. New Orleans had the flooding, Plaq. and St. Bernard Parishes are gone mostly due to flooding, but Plaq. does have catastrophic wind damage, however, the Miss. Gulf Coast is beyond description. I have never in my life seen so much devistation. It's amazing what the power of water can do. Here's a pic of what's left of a McDonalds...just the tables and chairs that are cemented into the floor. I took it near the Long Beach, Miss. area.

[wolfmmiii]

I'm pretty sure this topic has already been beaten to death in another thread that has since been locked. Let's get over it now.

[skysummit]

I'm pretty sure this topic has already been beaten to death in another thread that has since been locked. Let's get over it now.

If you don't like the topic, don't read it.

[oneness]

Seriouly, this topic has been beaten to a pulp in several tedious threads.

[skysummit]

I know it has....I agree, and I was tired of reading about it, but if the author wanted to bring it back up again, shouldn't he have the right to? Well....now this is really off topic

[wolfmmiii]

It's not that I don't like the topic. It's just obvious that some can't "let it go".

Keeping in line with the topic - this IS NOT the BIG ONE as defined by the "doomsday scenario" painted by the NHS/NWS. Whether you like it or not, it just isn't. Of course, we'll hear the "tell that to those who lost their houses and loved ones" argument and that it was still really bad.

YES - it was really bad but it WASN'T the doomsday scenario. I don't know why people cannot distinguish the two. The doomsday scenario isn't an opinion - it's a documented set of circumstances that, if occurred, would be catastrophic. If those things didn't happen, it's not "doomsday".

It's really not all that hard to comprehend, really.

[aOl]

Had the levees held, this WOULDN'T have been the big one as most of the deaths have come because of the floods and most of the homes are intact in New Orleans, just flooded. Yes, this was the big one for New Orleans because of all of the flooding, which obviously caused the horrific scene.

"Had the levees held..." -- newsflash, it was always ALL about the levees in NO. The reason NO was the biggest potential hurricane disaster was its topography. Levees breaking or getting overrun resulting in massive flooding was the doomsday scenario for NO. It had little to do with wind damage. Regardless of how strong this storm was, it broke NO's levees and you know the rest. Had a category 1 storm somehow broke NO's levees and flooded the city, it would have demanded equal notoriety.

You realize if the mayor wasn't retarded and went through the original plan none of this would have happened, right? WTF are the pumps for if you wait till the city is so flooded you can't use them? The city abandoned their plan, how much sense does that make?

[skysummit]

No, it definately was not the "doomsday" scenario that was talked about for years...it was only 40 miles or so that made that difference. Sure, a lot of flooding did occur, however, it could've been MUCH worse. In this case, Plaq., St. Bernard, and eastern Orleans Parishes got the brunt of the flooding. Flooding did occur downtown, but not the doomsday type we all feared. The Westbank stayed dry along with most other areas in SE La., including myself. If Katrina would've come up Terrenbonne Bay, or just west of Grand Isle, the flooding would have been severly worse, and would've put NOLA in the eastern eyewall.

[timNms]

Even if New Orlean's levee system would have held and New Orleans would have been be spared by the brunt... IT still would have been very newsworthy for the impact it had on the Plaqumines Parish, Slidell, Lousiana and along the Mississippi and even Alabama coast line. The significance of this would have been diminished some but lets not forget the amount of suffering in other areas beside N.O.

Right Radar...New Orleans is getting all the media since it's a metropolitan area. When I rode along the Miss. Gulf Coast, I had to stop many times because it was just so emmotional. New Orleans had the flooding, Plaq. and St. Bernard Parishes are gone mostly due to flooding, but Plaq. does have catastrophic wind damage, however, the Miss. Gulf Coast is beyond description. I have never in my life seen so much devistation. It's amazing what the power of water can do. Here's a pic of what's left of a McDonalds...just the tables and chairs that are cemented into the floor. I took it near the Long Beach, Miss. area.

Not only was Katrina a coastal event, she cause major damage well inland in Mississippi. There are areas near my hometown that resemble war zones. All of the timber is down or damaged, houses are either crushed under trees or damaged from the winds. Numerous mobile homes were destroyed by fallen trees, roofs of houses suffered damage. I've seen at least one well built house with NO roof. There are still people in my area who have no electricity or running water! Schools in this area are hoping to be able to resume on the 19th of this month. Many are saying that the rural roads are still too dangerous for the school buses to travel because of down power lines and debris. It will take quite some time for things to return to a somewhat normal way of life for many of the rural communities in central and south Mississippi.

[jasons2k]

It's not that I don't like the topic. It's just obvious that some can't "let it go".

Keeping in line with the topic - this IS NOT the BIG ONE as defined by the "doomsday scenario" painted by the NHS/NWS. Whether you like it or not, it just isn't. Of course, we'll hear the "tell that to those who lost their houses and loved ones" argument and that it was still really bad.

YES - it was really bad but it WASN'T the doomsday scenario. I don't know why people cannot distinguish the two. The doomsday scenario isn't an opinion - it's a documented set of circumstances that, if occurred, would be catastrophic. If those things didn't happen, it's not "doomsday".

It's really not all that hard to comprehend, really.

Very well stated. Many have been flamed horrendously for stating similar comments (including me) but it's that simple.

The "Doomsday" scenario is water coming OVER the levee in a quick, short, and dirty massive surge, not the gradual 2 day rise Katrina caused from a breach. There is a huge difference, regardless of how devasting Katrina was.

Just as Camille was regarded as the "worst case" for the MS coast, Katrina set the record straight.

[Recurve]

I think the doomsday scenario, worst case, catastrophe, whatever you call it, is pretty much what happened. The levees were overtopped and breached. The pumps failed. Half the city was flooded, people trapped, homes destroyed.

So the conditions happened, though with less than total flooding of the entire leveed bowl. The scenario where the French Quarter is under 30 feet of water is dubious because it's above sea level. Levee breaks would have always alllowed areas above sea level to drain, no matter how deep the water got at first.

I guess if you think the true doomsday scenario is only a perfect Cat 5 storm tracking from the southeast, filling the lake, then stalling at Cat 5 and blowing the entire contents of Lake Ponchartrain into New Orleans, so a tidal wave moves from UNO to the Moonwalk and obliterates every building and kills every single person in a hundred-square-mile area, then that didn't happen. Maybe we should say they got the doomsday storm, but not the apocalypse storm.

[wolfmmiii]

I think the doomsday scenario, worst case, catastrophe, whatever you call it, is pretty much what happened. The levees were overtopped and breached. The pumps failed. Half the city was flooded, people trapped, homes destroyed.

So the conditions happened, though with less than total flooding of the entire leveed bowl. The scenario where the French Quarter is under 30 feet of water is dubious because it's above sea level. Levee breaks would have always alllowed areas above sea level to drain, no matter how deep the water got at first.

I guess if you think the true doomsday scenario is only a perfect Cat 5 storm tracking from the southeast, filling the lake, then stalling at Cat 5 and blowing the entire contents of Lake Ponchartrain into New Orleans, so a tidal wave moves from UNO to the Moonwalk and obliterates every building and kills every single person in a hundred-square-mile area, then that didn't happen. Maybe we should say they got the doomsday storm, but not the apocalypse storm.

If I send you out to buy Vanilla ice cream and you come back with Fudge Swirl, did you get what I requested? Almost. It's MOSTLY Vanilla but not quite. As I said in my previous post - the doomsday scenario is not an OPINION - it's a documented series of events. If they didn't happen (according to the document), then it wasn't the doomsday scenario. HOWEVER, that's not to say what did happen wasn't a catastrophe - it was. However, it wasn't "THE" scenario.

You are pregnant, or you are not.

Is there anyone that can post a doc or a link to what the scenario outlined by the NHC is? I don't have one.

[Recurve]

Pregnancy and ice cream flavors aren't disaster scenarios either, so it's kinda hard to compare I think.

If you include enough conditions in a scenario, then it might never happen, no matter how close a disaster comes to being as bad as the scenario predicted ("The winds were only 154, not 165, and the GNO bridge didn't crash into Riverwalk, instead it floated down to English Turn").

I've read articles about the NOLA situation for years, but don't remember a specific scenario by the NHC you referred to. I assume -- could be wrong -- but basically they feared:
1. Cat 3-5 cane tracks northward, pushes water into Lake.
2. Eye passes over or just east of city, pushing accumulated water from north and east into NOLA, NOLA East and St. Bernard parish.
3. Lakefront and hurricane protection levees are overtopped and breached.
4. Pumps fail, floodwaters bury entire neighborhoods as far as mid-city.
5. Thousands of non-evacuees have to be rescued from roofs, old and infirm drown in their houses and hospital beds, thousands of evacuees stranded at flooded superdome.
6. Toxic soup sits in city for weeks or months, can't be removed until levees and pumps are fixed.

Like I said, I think many of the conditions of the "oh-no" scenario for NOLA occurred, except for a tidal wave washing from the lake to the river and obliterating the French Quarter too. But the calls that Max Mayfield made to the mayor and FEMA officials saying, basically, "this is it," say something about this being the scenario they worried about.

Anyway, I don't disagree -- who could -- that it could have been even worse, and wind damage in the city was light (must be a lot of big darn oak branches strewn everywhere uptown though).