It had actually weakened to about the strongest category 3 storm possible before it hit New Orleans.
Hurricane Ida
- Thread starter cstrunk
- Start date
It had actually weakened to about the strongest category 3 storm possible before it hit New Orleans.
It had also been awhile since NoLa had seen a Large hurricane so they hadn’t focused on updates and repairs like they should. They also didn’t evacuate like they should.
I could be misremembering but I spent about 2 months down there in 07 or 08 helping out and I think the evacuation thing was more a problem of people who didn't own transportation or have anywhere else to go. I think a lot of the people with the means still made it at least outside of the biggest hit.
They fixed the levees (hopefully they held this time) but the evacuation problem isn't really solveable. You can't evacuate NOLA.
The swath of Katrina was huge as well. People couldn’t just drive a little ways and get out of the path.
And some people don't have cars to drive, and there's people that aren't able bodied to even walk.
A co-worker still stands by the idea that people could have still evacuated despite these limitations like it's just that simple or they automatically have anywhere to go.
Yeah. It's simple to say just evacuate, but the realities of trying to get so many people out is just crazy. Especially when you only realistically have 2 days maximum to do it (even with today's forecasting technology storms still can shift 150 miles fairly quickly so if you are going laterally to avoid the storm, you could be SOL). Plus a lot of people don't have the means (or finances) to be able to evacuate. Even getting to a shelter can be tough.
I remember evacuating for Gustav (I think) back in '08 and it took me ~5 hours to get to the MS/LA state line on I55, a drive which normally takes 1.5 hrs.
My favorite city to party in. Not my wife's favorite. Hoping to get there for the Sugar Bowl in January, I'm looking for flights already.
Looks like the reports of major powerline collapses are true. Check out this one:
www.wafb.com
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Reading that article, I actually know where that was (I worked about 2 miles downriver from it)
That power line goes across the Mississippi River. I think that tower was 250'+ tall
Major electrical tower collapse leaves New Orleans completely without power
Orleans Parish is in the dark.
www.wafb.com
Reading that article, I actually know where that was (I worked about 2 miles downriver from it)
That power line goes across the Mississippi River. I think that tower was 250'+ tall
Especially with how many times a hurricane cone hits that area.
Leaving means leaving work (which may not be flexible if you want to leave for something that might hit), packing up as much as you can, driving hundreds of miles, and then having to pay hotels for multiple nights when you can find one (and it'll be full rate obviously). A large percent of this country, and especially in the south, can't afford 1 $500 emergency, much less dropping a grand each time on evacuating multiple times a hurricane season
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Ted Cruz went to Cancun when Texas went dark. Why can’t these people?
Looks like the reports of major powerline collapses are true. Check out this one:
Major electrical tower collapse leaves New Orleans completely without power
Orleans Parish is in the dark.
Reading that article, I actually know where that was (I worked about 2 miles downriver from it)
View attachment 88744
That power line goes across the Mississippi River. I think that tower was 250'+ tall
so an entire major US city can go dark by one tower going offline? And we publicize it? If I was a terrorist...
This gives a little bit of scope of how bad the power situation is. You can zoom in and see how many power lines are off.
For another view click that link and then the area button on the menu.
This just one of the providers.
For another view click that link and then the area button on the menu.
This just one of the providers.
I think the issue was that all 8 major lines got damaged or destroyed. One line wouldn't bring down the entire grid.
As someone in the civil infrastructure world, I marvel at how easy it would be to seriously mess stuff up in this country. Pipelines are especially scary.
I'm sure there are lines that if you hit them synchronously would know out large percentages of the country not just one mid sized city. Everyone kind of already knows that our power grid is antiquated
This could be it's own thread. I held a position where I knew of (and was working to rectify) security gaps in our facility. Some of them couldn't realistically be fixed.
It's a big yikes.