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Fantasy » alt.fan.tolkien » OT: Duh-bya's "who would have guessed" response - floored!
| OT: Duh-bya's "who would have guessed" response - floored! [message #137646] |
Do, 22 September 2005 15:56 |
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From: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/1282151.htm l
Please not the date of this piece.
NEW ORLEANS IS SINKING
BY JIM WILSON
The surge of a Category 5 storm could put New Orleans under 18 ft. of
water.
They don't bury the dead in New Orleans. The highest point in the city is
only 6 ft. above sea level, which makes for watery graves. Fearful that
rotting corpses caused epidemics, the city limited ground burials in
1830. Mausoleums built on soggy cemetery grounds became the final resting
place for generations. Beyond providing a macabre tourist attraction,
these "cities of the dead" serve as a reminder of the Big Easy's
vulnerability to flooding. The reason water rushes into graves is because
New Orleans sits atop a delta made of unconsolidated material that has
washed down the Mississippi River.
Think of the city as a chin jutting out, waiting for a one-two punch from
Mother Nature. The first blow comes from the sky. Hurricanes plying the
Gulf of Mexico push massive domes of water (storm surges) ahead of their
swirling winds. After the surges hit, the second blow strikes from below.
The same swampy delta ground that necessitates above-ground burials
leaves water from the storm surge with no place to go but up.
The fact that New Orleans has not already sunk is a matter of luck. If
slightly different paths had been followed by Hurricanes Camille, which
struck in August 1969, Andrew in August 1992 or George in September 1998,
today we might need scuba gear to tour the French Quarter.
"In New Orleans, you never get above sea level, so you're always going to
be isolated during a strong hurricane," says Kay Wilkins of the southeast
Louisiana chapter of the American Red Cross.
During a strong hurricane, the city could be inundated with water
blocking all streets in and out for days, leaving people stranded without
electricity and access to clean drinking water. Many also could die
because the city has few buildings that could withstand the sustained 96-
to 100-mph winds and 6- to 8-ft. storm surges of a Category 2 hurricane.
Moving to higher elevations would be just as dangerous as staying on low
ground. Had Camille, a Category 5 storm, made landfall at New Orleans,
instead of losing her punch before arriving, her winds would have blown
twice as hard and her storm surge would have been three times as high.
Yet knowing all this, area residents have made their potential problem
worse. "Over the past 30 years, the coastal region impacted by Camille
has changed dramatically. Coastal erosion combined with soaring
commercial and residential development in Louisiana, Mississippi and
Alabama have all combined to significantly increase the vulnerability of
the area," says Sandy Ward Eslinger, of the National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration's Coastal Services Center in Charleston, S.C.
Early Warning
Emergency planners believe that it is a foregone conclusion that the Big
Easy someday will be hit by a scouring storm surge. And, given the
tremendous amount of coastal-area development, this watery "big one" will
produce a staggering amount of damage. Yet, this doesn't necessarily mean
that there will be a massive loss of lives.
The key is a new emergency warning system developed by Gregory Stone, a
professor at Louisiana State University (LSU). It is called WAVCIS, which
stands for wave-current surge information system. Within 30 minutes to an
hour after raw data is collected from monitoring stations in the Gulf, an
assessment of storm-surge damage would be available to emergency
planners. Disaster relief agencies then would be able to mobilize
resources--rescue personnel, the Red Cross, and so forth.
The $4.5 million WAVCIS project, which is now coming on line, will fill a
major void in the Louisiana storm warning system, which was practically
nonexistent compared to those of other Gulf Coast states. A system of 20
"weather buoys" along the U.S. coastline serves as a warning system for
the Gulf of Mexico. However, the buoys are not distributed evenly and
Louisiana falls into one of the gaps. From the mouth of the Mississippi
River to the Louisiana-Texas border, there are no buoys. Only one buoy
serves Louisiana, and it is 62 miles east of the Mississippi River and
more than 300 miles to the south. So it's a bit like predicting the
weather in Boston when your thermometer is in Philadelphia. The other
buoys are near the coastlines of Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida,
and several hundred miles out into the Gulf.
Stable Platforms
One reason that WAVCIS will be more accurate is that its sensors are
attached to offshore oil platforms. The older, floating buoys ride up and
down with the waves and often can't give accurate pictures of wave
heights and storm surges. Stable platforms mean that the sensors can be
placed above and below the water, allowing more precise measurements.
Data from each of the 13 stations, five of which are now on line, is
transmitted to LSU, where it'll be interpreted and sent to emergency
planners centers, via the Internet.
"With this new system [WAVCIS], we get to see real information on storm
surge and we can feed that into our models and come up with real data,"
says Mike Brown, assistant director of the New Orleans emergency
management office.
Because large areas would have to be evacuated, false alarms could be
harmful to the economy. Stone sees it as a reasonable tradeoff.
"It's better to have that frustration than the loss of life. The
potential loss of life in Louisiana could be catastrophic because there
is just nowhere to go."
==========================================================
Don't Duh-bya's denials just take the biscuit?!
"Duh, who would ahve guessed they'd use airliners to hit buildings?"
"Duh, who would have guessed New Orleans would flood that badly?"
What a muppet.
M.
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| Re: OT: Duh-bya's "who would have guessed" response - floored! [message #137671 ] |
Fr, 23 September 2005 01:23 |
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Michael O'Neill wrote:
> The fact that New Orleans has not already sunk is a matter of luck. If
> slightly different paths had been followed by Hurricanes Camille, which
> struck in August 1969, Andrew in August 1992 or George in September 1998,
> today we might need scuba gear to tour the French Quarter.
>
> "In New Orleans, you never get above sea level, so you're always going to
> be isolated during a strong hurricane," says Kay Wilkins of the southeast
> Louisiana chapter of the American Red Cross.
Ms. Wilkins and the author of this piece are ignorami.
The French Quarter is five feet *above* sea level.
-- FotW
Coming soon: Windows VISTA (Viruses, Infections, Spyware,
Trojans, Adware)
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| Re: OT: Duh-bya's "who would have guessed" response - floored! [message #138589 ] |
Sa, 24 September 2005 15:08 |
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On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 00:23:26 +0100, Flame of the West
<FotW [at] NOSPAMsolinas.org> wrote:
> Michael O'Neill wrote:
>
>> The fact that New Orleans has not already sunk is a matter of luck. If
>> slightly different paths had been followed by Hurricanes Camille, which
>> struck in August 1969, Andrew in August 1992 or George in September
>> 1998,
>> today we might need scuba gear to tour the French Quarter.
>> "In New Orleans, you never get above sea level, so you're always going
>> to
>> be isolated during a strong hurricane," says Kay Wilkins of the
>> southeast
>> Louisiana chapter of the American Red Cross.
>
> Ms. Wilkins and the author of this piece are ignorami.
> The French Quarter is five feet *above* sea level.
Which is why it's still standing proud when much of the city is still
wallowing in flood water.
Even in Europe the older parts of cities tend to be the most stable and
secure. Often because the less stable and secure buildings from the same
period already got destroyed.
--
Jette Goldie
jette.goldie [at] gmail.com
http://www.jette.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/wolfette/
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| Re: OT: Duh-bya's "who would have guessed" response - floored! [message #138591 ] |
Sa, 24 September 2005 15:24 |
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Jette Goldie <jette [at] blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> Flame of the West <FotW [at] NOSPAMsolinas.org> wrote:
[New Orleans flooding]
<snip>
>> Ms. Wilkins and the author of this piece are ignorami.
>> The French Quarter is five feet *above* sea level.
Though the real issue is not level above sea level, but level relative
to the high water marks of the relevant parts of the Mississippi River
and Lake Pontchartrain. Neither of these values will be sea level, but
will be slightly above sea level. After all, that is why the water at
those points still tries to flow _towards_ the sea and find its natural
level.
When a river floods on a high mountain plateau, it doesn't matter much
that all the action takes place high above sea level. It is the
localised flooding and topography that matters.
> Which is why it's still standing proud when much of the city is still
> wallowing in flood water.
>
> Even in Europe the older parts of cities tend to be the most stable
> and secure. Often because the less stable and secure buildings from
> the same period already got destroyed.
Doesn't the French Quarter get flooded if the Mississippi floods? I know
the current flooding is from Lake Pontchartrain (north of New Orleans),
or the canals running off that (very large) lake, and the French Quarter
is on the other side of New Orleans, on the north bank of the
Mississippi River, but I'm not sure what the average water level of the
Mississippi is at that point, whether it is above or below the French
Quarter. If above, then the French Quarter will always be in danger of
flooding from the river.
Christopher
--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
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| Re: Duh-bya's "who would have guessed" response - floored! [message #141264 ] |
Do, 29 September 2005 23:00 |
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keep up the wishful thinking - better to have fantasies than nothing at all.
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| Re: Duh-bya's "who would have guessed" response - floored! [message #141297 ] |
Fr, 30 September 2005 11:08 |
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fabbl wrote:
> keep up the wishful thinking - better
> to have fantasies than nothing at all.
Q.E.D.
M.
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