NEWS: Lake Pontchartrain Becomes Lake New Orleans

POLITICS: Lake Pontchartrain Becomes Lake New Orleans

It looked for a while like the worst-case scenario in New Orleans would not come to pass. But it has. A levee was breached and Lake Pontchartrain is now spilling into New Orleans where all the other levees are trapping the water in.

The WWLV TV station is live-blogging additional gruesome information as it comes in.

After this, will there be much point in recolonizing New Orleans?

If we don't, the French will move in and take it back.

christ.

that's just scary.

the question is, andvari: will there be any new orleans left?

fucking saddam huesein and his blasted weather machine!

They're showing video of the "twin spans" of I-10 across Lake Pontchartrain now. There are major sections of it just missing. Other sections seem to have been completely knocked out of line.

It looks like the early optimistic reports that the worst of this missed New Orleans were, sadly, wrong.

Whoops

They'll get it back up and running.

This is what happens when they decide proper up keep on the levee system isnt that important. They are saying 1 - 2 months before the city is up and running again. The worst is yet to come. All that standing water, with all sorts of stuff in it. Disease is going to be rampant.

UPDATE From WWLV's Live-Bloog:

3:15 P.M. - Charity Hospital is out of commission and they are trying to evacuate patients, but it is hard to get there because rising water is surrounding the hospital. They will try to evacuate the patients to other cities.

3:13 P.M. - Governor Blanco: A lot of people have lost their lives, but we have no numbers because the priority is saving those who are alive so we don't have more casualties.

3:12 P.M. - Senator Vitter: Mayor Nagin's calm and control and command of the facts showed me that we have one of the best leaders in the country right here.

3:12 P.M. - Senator Landrieu - Scenes are similar to what she saw after the Tsunami.

3:11 P.M. - Senator Landrieu: Those who evacuated should be patient and thank God that they are okay because so many still need to get out.

3:09 P.M. - Senator Landrieu: Plenty of people still on rooftops in N.O. East waiting to be rescued. Every boat available is being used to try to save people.

3:07 P.M. - Governor Blanco: We are looking for ways to get people out of the Superdome and out of New Orleans said Governor Blanco as she tried to keep from crying.

3:03 P.M. - Latest on Northshore from St. Tammany Parish. Click here.

2:42 P.M. (AP) -- The question is not whether Congress will pass legislation to speed disaster relief to communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina, but how soon and how much. The answers: real soon and a lot.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has $2.5 billion in funds available for immediate assistance such as emergency shelters, food, and medical care, said Scott Milburn, spokesman for the White House budget office. But longer-term assistance, such as help in removing wreckage, rebuilding homes, and repairing highways and federal facilities will require a major infusion of cash provided by Congress.

2:41 P.M. - Jefferson Parish officials say schools could reopen by Dec. 1.

2:39 P.M. - Jeff Parish councilman Tom Capella says pumps working near Veterans and West Esplanade and water is receeding there. He says break in levee at 17th Street canal continues to pour water into Lakeview.

2:32 P.M. - LSU to begin classes next Tuesday.

2:30 P.M. - Coast Guard says it has rescued 1,200 people so far in Louisiana.

2:24 P.M. - (AP) -- Hurricane Katrina forced scores more flight cancellations involving New Orleans and other Southern cities Tuesday as airlines juggled their schedules around one of the worst storms on record.

2:09 P.M. - Video on WAFB-TV shows the Twin Spans between I-10 and Slidell broken in dozens of spots.

2:07 P.M. - (AP) -- A top casino executive is calling on the Mississippi Legislature to enact emergency legislation to keep the state's coast gaming industry alive.

Treasure Bay Casino President and CEO Bernie Burkholder says most of the casino hotels on the coast survived Hurricane Katrina, but several gambling barges suffered extensive damage. He says it could take several years to rebuild.

2:01 P.M. - Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard says there is no plumbing and the sanitary situation is getting nasty. He told WAFB-TV that he is carrying around a bag for his own human waste.

Last I heard, they are going to fix the levees and drain the city with the pumps. I also heard, fix the levees and break a different one to let the water out.

I think it was on CNN, that I saw them saying this.

Good stuff, people. Years ago, when art spiegelman was comics editor
for DETAILS magazine, which didn't last all that long, Spain and I talked
him into having the magazine send us to a backwoods gun show in Metarie
Parish where David Duke was trying to rise again. I actually scripted our
story, and it was crazier than we ever suspected it might be, but the Editor
who hired Spiegelman quit, and all of his projects were tossed. We got an
amazing kill fee, though. ANYWAY, Spain and I were put up at this great luxury hotel literally on the Banks of Lake Pontchartrain which until right now I always associated with the Paul Brady version of the song of the same name. An old French tale very popular in Ireland because, I suppose, of the common anti-Roundhead Catholicism of both people?

I don't think I will ever make that first association again.
Can you imagine this thing. I wonder if this is like what the Italians felt when
the volcano destroyed Pompei. Something you just have to sit in awe and wonder
about before you have a clue what the fuck is actually happening. I am about right there now. But all writers are terrible people. Tragedies become fiesta's for story telling, and slime like us love to crawl right out there in between the headlights. This is men and women, of course. As "my" photographer, I worked with a Sicilian woman in Ireland regularly, and she would run out in the street between a unit of the British Army advancing against a crowd of rock throwing insurgents, and just click away like she was in Disneyland. She said being a woman helped. Being a women you get used to being ignored unless sex is on the table. I said she was right as for guys, and some other women. But the rocks, bricks, and bottles were sure as shit real. She said by now, for her, the whole thing was instinctive. I just wish it was happening to almost any other city. Can you imagine what the place is going to SMELL like when the rain stops, the sun again rises, and the humidity returns. Nobody will return for a hundred years. Man is this a War of the Worlds Space Ship kind of movie, or what?

[Edited on Aug 30, 2005 by DragoD]

I wonder how long before the Westboro Baptist Church claims this was God's way of punishing the homosexuals in America, like they claimed the Tsunami was punishment for Sweden.

More updates from New Orleans:


6:41 P.M. - Efforts to stop the levee break at the 17th Street Canal have ended unsuccessfully and the water is expected to soon overwhelm the pumps in that area, allowing water to pour into the east bank of Metairie and Orleans to an expected height of 12-15 feet.

6:05 P.M. - Thomas: Saw at least three dead bodies during his rescues. Whole families were among those rescued.

6:04 P.M. - Thomas: Most sobering moment - being told to leave the dead bodies, because there are people to rescue.

6:03 P.M. - N.O. Councilman Oliver Thomas: "What you see on TV, you have no idea what the level of devastation and frustration is on the street."

5:57 P.M. - Jeff Parish schools chief Dianne Roussel says two months is probably "optimistic" to get schools back and functioning.

5:49 P.M. - (AP) WASHINGTON -- The Navy is sending three ships to the Gulf Coast with water and other supplies for those hit by Hurricane Katrina, but officials are urging service members not to try to return to their military bases in New Orleans.

5:46 P.M. - Four confirmed dead in St. Tammany. One died in traffic accident, one died after he stayed and a tree fell and trapped him in his home. Two others died by unknown reasons.

4:42 P.M. - (AP) Electric companies from around the country are rushing crews to the hurricane-ravaged South. They will help restore power to an area so devastated that it could be weeks or even months before the lights come back on in many places. David Botkins, a spokesman for Dominion Virginia Power, says 200 workers are headed to Louisiana and Mississippi.

4:40 P.M. - (AP) State officials say they are working on plans to evaucate inmates from the Orleans Parish prison and the Jefferson Parish jail. Both facilities face a threat of flooding.

The state Corrections Department is trying to figure out how to transfer 4,000 inmates from the New Orleans jail and another 1,000 from the Jefferson Parish jail in Gretna.

The inmates would be moved to state prisons including the highest-security at Angola. Corrections spokesman Pam LaBorde says it's quite a logistical situation to accomplish.

4:23 P.M. - Jefferson Parish officials say schools could reopen two months after Labor Day.

4:21 P.M. - WWL-TV Reporter quotes officials as saying there may now be 60,000 people in the Superdome and that more people are still being urged to go there.

3:59 P.M. - WWL-TV reporter Jonathan Betz reports widespread looting and WWL-TV cameras showed people walking out of Canal Street stores with racks of clothes and electronics. Some looters concentrated on basics and supplies, while others made no secret of their desire to get what they could.

More'n likely cans of beer - but hey, man's gotta drink.

Walking in water that contaminated is fucking dangerous. Give the man all the beer he can handle.

it's not because of gay people.
it's god's way of punishing them for guy banister.
or, for that matter, the years when lee harvey oswald
lived with his uncle, who was the driver for carlos marcello.

it's actually check book time again.
san francisco came back strong a century ago.
we can all help this great region of the world.
professor longhair, shirley and lee, fats domino
allan tousaint, the wild magnolias, james booker
we ain't talking about just beansville here.

i just can't get out of mind the notion of all of those
displaced snakes from the swamps in those silent nightime waters.
it's zombie time down south. the lord be coming in the morning.

That's what I mean. Since it is in such a precarious place to start with, might it not be better to leave well enough alone. Or at least fill in the portions that are below sea level before rebuilding.

My wife and I have been talking about buying property in Waveland, MS. The land value might go down now, gotta find something good out of a mess.

This is so sad.

Ummm, being savaged by one of the most powerful natural disasters on record is hardly precarious. It happens. Its nature. Are we not supposed to live in Iowa because of flooding, or LA because of earthquakes or NY because of blizzards? Where exactly are we supposed to go?

I mean the being below sea level part.

Living below sea level whilst on the coast is precarious.