Google it
DS encourages all readers to go to maps.google.com for an aerial view of the extensive flooding in New Orleans. Once on the main page zoom in on the Big Easy until you see "Katrina" in a red bar on the upper right. Click there to view the few frames of satellite imagery taken after the hurricane. Look around the city, the brown areas are still above water, the green are not. For an even starker contrast click between "Katrina" and "Satellite" to see the difference before and after the storm.
DS was especially astounded by the before and after images of the superdome (readers will see that just to the left of the northward flowing Mississippi River in downtown New Orleans--easily found using the "Hybrid" feature). It must be built on a parking garage so that street level is flooded but the top deck is not.
Take note also of Interstate 610/10 in North New Orleans. Click the "Hybrid" feature to get a display of roads. Notice how the low-lying sections are all under water--this is the main route into and out of the city, I don't know where the buses go, but they can't use that road.
On a geographic note DS will attempt to explain what's happened to the city as both of DS's brothers were born in New Orleans and his parents lived there until 1978, DS is very familiar with the geography. The city has been sinking ever since the levees were built by the French during the 1700s. The majority of it is now several feet below sea level as indicated by the water's inability to receed--it's there until it's pumped out. The city has been sinking precisely because no water is allowed to get in. Normally rivers deposit new layers of sediment and soil in the regions they flood thereby increasing or keeping level the altitude of the region. Because of the levees the Mighty Mississip has not been allowed to flood thus depriving the region of new soil and consequently causing it ever so slowly to erode and sink. This horrific event is just one example of how little we understood when first creating for ourselves places to live where we had no business to be in the first place.
It is questionable whether the city will ever look the same again--indeed whether there will still be a city. The homes and regions in the city that are flooded will be that way for at least 6 months. People will have to move on, find new jobs, build new homes. Their possessions are gone, destroyed by the altitude at which they lived. With global warming's effects now being felt DS feels this will become an increasingly common occurrence around the globe: The Maldives (with their average altitude of three feet above sea level) will be first. Followed slowly by other island nations in the South Pacific and eventually felt in our own cities--New Orleans, Miami, New York. The times they are a-changin'.
DS was especially astounded by the before and after images of the superdome (readers will see that just to the left of the northward flowing Mississippi River in downtown New Orleans--easily found using the "Hybrid" feature). It must be built on a parking garage so that street level is flooded but the top deck is not.
Take note also of Interstate 610/10 in North New Orleans. Click the "Hybrid" feature to get a display of roads. Notice how the low-lying sections are all under water--this is the main route into and out of the city, I don't know where the buses go, but they can't use that road.
On a geographic note DS will attempt to explain what's happened to the city as both of DS's brothers were born in New Orleans and his parents lived there until 1978, DS is very familiar with the geography. The city has been sinking ever since the levees were built by the French during the 1700s. The majority of it is now several feet below sea level as indicated by the water's inability to receed--it's there until it's pumped out. The city has been sinking precisely because no water is allowed to get in. Normally rivers deposit new layers of sediment and soil in the regions they flood thereby increasing or keeping level the altitude of the region. Because of the levees the Mighty Mississip has not been allowed to flood thus depriving the region of new soil and consequently causing it ever so slowly to erode and sink. This horrific event is just one example of how little we understood when first creating for ourselves places to live where we had no business to be in the first place.
It is questionable whether the city will ever look the same again--indeed whether there will still be a city. The homes and regions in the city that are flooded will be that way for at least 6 months. People will have to move on, find new jobs, build new homes. Their possessions are gone, destroyed by the altitude at which they lived. With global warming's effects now being felt DS feels this will become an increasingly common occurrence around the globe: The Maldives (with their average altitude of three feet above sea level) will be first. Followed slowly by other island nations in the South Pacific and eventually felt in our own cities--New Orleans, Miami, New York. The times they are a-changin'.
posted by Disco Stu at 8:38 AM
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