It could happen tomorrow - New Orleans "Lost Episode&qu

[Extremeweatherguy]

TWC will air their original first episode of "It could happen tomorrow" on June 4th at 9pm. This episode had to do with what would happen if a major hurricane hit New Orleans, but it was cancelled due to Katrina. It will be interesting to see if they were right about what could have happened.

[Josephine96]

I was actually gonna post this.. I love that show.. when they dont do repeats over and over lol

[Epsilon_Fan]

that would be interesting... to see if the real thing actually outdid Hollywood!

[Jam151]

It would be hard for Katrina to outdo TWC's scenario if they did their homework. Katrina did not directly hit New Orleans.

[Evil Jeremy]

A little off topic, but do they still produce "Storm Stories"?

[skysummit]

It would be hard for Katrina to outdo TWC's scenario if they did their homework. Katrina did not directly hit New Orleans.

That's correct. Even though Katrina's devastation was horrific, it was still not the feared worst case scenario that we've been talking about for years.

[StormScanWx]

I shutter to think this, but could a storm bigger and stronger than Katrina strike New Orleans? Yes, but what could get worse? (Please don't think I'm wishing New Orleans another hurricane, that would be AWFUL!)

[skysummit]

I shutter to think this, but could a storm bigger and stronger than Katrina strike New Orleans? Yes, but what could get worse? (Please don't think I'm wishing New Orleans another hurricane, that would be AWFUL!)

A LOT could get worse. Downtown New Orleans was barely touched by the floodwaters and the French Quarter didn't even get a drop. The Westbank had no flooding, and all the parishes to the south barely got affected. If the same type storm....or even weaker storm, would hit 30 - 40 miles to the west of where Katrina hit, ALL of New Orleans would go under water, the Westbank would go under water, and just about ALL of southeast Louisiana would be submerged. It can get MUCH, MUCH worst than what it was.

[Portastorm]

Roughly speaking, how much (percentage wise) of the city was under water due to the levee issue with Katrina?

I got the sense from the media that the bulk of the city was under water at some point. Maybe not?

[terstorm1012]

Roughly speaking, how much (percentage wise) of the city was under water due to the levee issue with Katrina?

I got the sense from the media that the bulk of the city was under water at some point. Maybe not?

80% was the number I heard---

also heard it was everything that was built up since 1879.

[skysummit]

Porta...I believe it was about 80% of the city was under water, however, the small portion of the downtown area that was under, was only a couple feet or so. The main devastation was caused in the Lakeview area, 9th ward, and New Orleans east area.

...well, let me not forget the Gentilly area and along Tulane Ave also. Parts of Tulane and Airline that I saw had up to 6 feet in some areas. Downtown, for the most part isn't bad, but once you get away from downtown, you begin seeing water marks everywhere.

[Portastorm]

OK, thanks for the info!

I bet you guys are right ... a landfall of Katrina some 30-40 miles west of where she hit would have created catastrophic level failure, let alone countless other problems.

It's amazing to look at that number -- 80% -- and realize that 80% of one of our nation's major cities/most famous/most visited was under water. Wow.

[cajungal]

I plan on taping the episode. Yes, as bad as Katrina was, it could always be worse. If Katrina would of went just west of the city like Grand Isle or Houma, New Orleans would of seen even worse devestation. I don't even like to think about it because what truly happened was heartbreaking enough. Nearly 9 months later and the images never left me.

[LSU_Weatherguy]

http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/flashflood.swf
Here is a link for how and why NOLA flooded. It will show you the areas that where flooded and how deep they got.

[Brent]

I will defintely be watching this! Should be very interesting.

[Pearl River]

I believe most of the worst case scenario's for New Orleans are based on a Betsy type storm coming in from the southeast. The Hurricane Pam scenario is based on that.

[skysummit]

I wonder how the simulation is going on today. Today and tomorrow or so, New Orleans is simulating a Cat 3 hurricane and what they'll need to do. I wonder if they broke the levees or not yet

[Pearl River]

New Orleans is simulating a cat 3 hurricane to see what would happen? If they don't know the answer by now, they never will, no matter how much simulation is done.

[LSU_Weatherguy]

They had the sim. today and it all went off with out an hitch EXECPT they forgot to evacuate the FEMA trailer park in Baker........How can you forget to evac 500 trailers

[Recurve]

It would be hard for Katrina to outdo TWC's scenario if they did their homework. Katrina did not directly hit New Orleans.

Still, the worst case scenario was always the surge pushing into St. Bernard, new orleans east and the Mr Go, the levees failing so the flooding didn't stop until lake pontchartrain's level equalized, and the pumps being down for weeks, leaving the city inundated. Isn't that pretty much what happened? -- along with utter devastation of the gulf coast from the Pearl River to Florida.
The fact that there wasn't 30 feet of water in the French Quarter with Katrina just shows that the doomsday 30-feet-of-water scenarios weren't taking actual sea level into account, and so overshot the zone of devastation by a bit -- but not much.
It could of course be worse if 24 hours of Cat 5 winds blew directly at the Lakefront levee and obliterated it, and blew the entire lake into Audubon Park. But so would a direct hit by a meteor. That doesn't make Katrina not pretty much a worse case scenario.