The Big Easy and Katrina

Sunday, 6 am: Hurricane Katrina, forecast to be as bad or maybe worse than Camile in 1965, lies around three hundred miles south of Mobile Bay this morning. She's steadily built up into a catagory V hurricane, the strongest level on the meteorological scale. Packing winds above one-hundred-fifty miles an hour, she's still moving west-northwest and by this evening the Gulf Coast shoreline from northeast texas to the Florida panhandle will begin experiencing first of what may be the worst hurricane ever. The waters of the Gulf have heated up more than usual due to this summer's long hot spell and to say they've steamed up Katrina's wrath just might be an understatement. What's unusually worrisome (and frightening) is her path, as now projected, is on course for a direct hit on New Orleans-- the 'Big Easy' city which is built on land below sea level. What makes this particularly horrific is up to a hundred thousand people there have neither the ways or means to evacuate. So far, predictions are that 40,000 folks (or more) could be killed by the ferocity of Katrina which, if prognostications come true, will put the Big Easy under water except for the tallest of structures which could be blown apart by the catagory V winds.

The army core of engineers has been working on flood control in New Orleans since 1965. The city has a large canal system, a pumping system which can lower flooding at one inch per hour (which will be incapacitated quickly if the direct hit happens). They've also completed ten of eleven new brides supposedly engineered to stay in place no matter what happens.

I've always said that mother nature is a capricious bitch and she might just prove me right although, for the sake of those stranded in her patch, I certainly hope not.

I have no idea what will happen here (outside of Evergreen, Al.) but, as it looks now, we'll just experience a little flooding, a few storms and (actually, worst of all) power outages. I'll probably be pondering out on the porch in the morning watching the rain fall and glad that my house is not in a flood plain.

Good luck, Big Easy!