New Orleans Escapes The Big One Again - Thank God

[ConvergenceZone]

The only bad part of this is, the next threat may make more people decide not evacuate. There's enough damage down there though that hopefully they will still take is seriously, but I knew it wouldn't be the doom and gloom scenerio that was being painted yesterday, unless the eye wall went DIRECTLY over the city, and the chance of that happening was pretty small. I did think it would have moved a bit closer than it did though.

Overall this has done alot of damage, but it's too early to say what cane we can compare it to yet.

[djtil]

the western eyewall went directly over the city.

2 things saved the city from worse damage:

1. nola is not a coastal city
2. the storm weakened considerably in the 24 hours before landfall.

[JtSmarts]

I just hope that if this ever happens again, people will think back to the reports of those who are sitting on their roofs waiting to be rescued and will not be complacent.

[swampdude]

I'm not sure they dodged very much. Let's make that assessment in the next 48 hours.

[AlabamaDave]

Right. Given the reports of widespread flooding in New Orleans East, the 9th Ward of New Orleans, and St. Bernard Parish, there will be incredible water damage in those sections. Those are heavily populated areas.

[sandr552001]

How exactly is dodging a bullet when there will be:

-No power to a million people for weeks
-Thousands of homes flooded (confirmed 4-6 feet in Metairie/Kenner, and 8-10 feet in Arabi/Chalmette/9th Ward)
-Thousands of cars destroyed
-Thousands of animals killed/abandoned
-Dozens to hundreds of humans killed
-200 year old oak trees and antebellum irreplacables destroyed forever
-Infrastructure will take years to fully rebuild?

Sure, technically there wasn't the Superdome being blown away with 15k souls, or the entire City wiped off the planet.. but it's going to make Andrew look like a weakling, and we will never recover fully

[blueeyes_austin]

I think we're still seeing a Betsy or Camille equivalent.

[Josephine96]

"escaped the big one".. Sounds like someone's in denial.. I wouldn't go as far as escaping the big 1..

Just because she made landfall at 150 instead of 175.. doesn't mean New Orleans escaped..

Although I will say.. that because New Orleans is not directly on the water.. It could have been a whole lot worse.. I haven't seen any damage photos though so I don't know..

[djtil]

definitely wont see hundreds...and probably not dozens of "humans killed".

[DESTRUCTION5]

How exactly is dodging a bullet when there will be:

-No power to a million people for weeks
-Thousands of homes flooded (confirmed 4-6 feet in Metairie/Kenner, and 8-10 feet in Arabi/Chalmette/9th Ward)
-Thousands of cars destroyed
-Thousands of animals killed/abandoned
-Dozens to hundreds of humans killed
-200 year old oak trees and antebellum irreplacables destroyed forever
-Infrastructure will take years to fully rebuild?

Sure, technically there wasn't the Superdome being blown away with 15k souls, or the entire City wiped off the planet.. but it's going to make Andrew look like a weakling, and we will never recover fully

Agree..

[djtil]

betsy possible.....not even same ballpark as camille...imo.....while the 150 was the official landfall no reason to think it wasnt actually 130-135.

[steveklein]

"escaped the big one".. Sounds like someone's in denial.. I wouldn't go as far as escaping the big 1..

Just because she made landfall at 150 instead of 175.. doesn't mean New Orleans escaped..

Although I will say.. that because New Orleans is not directly on the water.. It could have been a whole lot worse.. I haven't seen any damage photos though so I don't know..

goodness guys. can you guys not understand what the original poster was saying? they did escape the big one.

1) the hurricane made landfall with winds of 140 or 145, not 150.
2) the eastern side of the city had a glancing blow from the western eyewall when the storm had diminished down to 130 or 135 mph.

if this thing had moved 20 miles to the west as a true cat 5, new orleans would have been destroyed. instead, it just sustained minor to moderate damage. some parts of the city resemble a direct hit from a cat 1, others resemble a direct hit from a cat 2.

[Praxus]

CNN's reports from near the dome give the impression of just moderate damage. Sure not all reports are in; but that last minute swing eastwards still spared them the 'doomsday' scenario that people thought they were in for.

[GalvestonDuck]

1) the hurricane made landfall with winds of 140 or 145, not 150.

And the difference is...?

Basically, sounds like you mean they got kicked by a steel-toed boot instead of a combat boot. Wouldn't it still hurt?

[x-y-no]

I think it's clear the very worst didn't happen (I can think of lots of things which could have happened - like a storm 30 or 40 mph stronger actually collapsing the roof of the superdome rather than just damaging the skin) but we have no real idea yet just how bad this will have been in the end. By all accounts, the flooding hasn't stopped yet, for example.

Remember that it wan't until SFL could be surveyed from the air that we knew the scope of Andrew.

[Derek Ortt]

there is a lot of damage to the high rises.

There is also a building that ahs collapsed with many inside and help cannot get to them

This is the costliest hurricane in US history. They didn't really dodge anything completely

[ConvergenceZone]

How exactly is dodging a bullet when there will be:

-No power to a million people for weeks
-Thousands of homes flooded (confirmed 4-6 feet in Metairie/Kenner, and 8-10 feet in Arabi/Chalmette/9th Ward)
-Thousands of cars destroyed
-Thousands of animals killed/abandoned
-Dozens to hundreds of humans killed
-200 year old oak trees and antebellum irreplacables destroyed forever
-Infrastructure will take years to fully rebuild?

Sure, technically there wasn't the Superdome being blown away with 15k souls, or the entire City wiped off the planet.. but it's going to make Andrew look like a weakling, and we will never recover fully

Well, then they aren't showing that footage on TV. All they keep saying on TV is that it's not near as bad as they thought it would be, and I haven't heard about the thousands of lives lost that they were talking about yesterday. Yes it's still bad, but it could have been alot less had the storm not weakened and moved directly over the city. That's what everyone was fearing the most. I have relatives down in New Orleans. They got out fine. They are the first ones we got a message from this morning saying that they heard it wasn't as bad as they were saying it would be.

So yes it's bad. We knew it would be bad, but we also knew the worse case scenerio that everyone was expecting. That's what this topic was addressing.

[Brent]

definitely wont see hundreds...and probably not dozens of "humans killed".

Don't think so?

Dozens could be as little as 24... I think the toll is going to be HIGH. The lack of info on the coast concerns me a lot... also, this whole "people being trapped on their roofs" when they will probably drown before the rescuers get there is not good...

[djtil]

ill go lower than 24...with the wildcard that every heart attack might be tallied in katrinas column.

[Scorpion]

There could be hundreds killed on the MS coast with that 30+ foot storm surge.