And even bring down a plane that flew through the methane cloud.

Wonder if the rising tide will unearth the many corpses buried by Carlos Marcello's crew up Gretna way?

__________________

Dey sleep wit da fishes.

I guess change is the only constant but I'm increasingly uncomfortable with some of the change we're seeing. I've mentioned a few times about a back-to-the-land hippie crowd in N-Central WA state I hang out with from time to time, and the kids up there seem a lot healthier and well adjusted than kids in more modern, civilised areas. They play outside a lot, spend time around horses, and go to big gatherings with their neighbors where they can see their parents singing, drumming, and dancing out in the open air.

We are way too dependent on other people doing our celebrating and artistic expression for us in this modern life, IMHO. I wish I had some good answers that could be readily applied to current circumstances, but most of what looks good to me involves living a more primitive, work intensive life, complete with tending a prolific garden, and I'm afraid I'll have a hard time selling that one to very many people.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Tonasket, Republic and Kettle Falls--nice areas and nice people. Lots of similar folks around these parts doing the organic farming thang that're living similar lifestyles, with a leftwing libertarian bent.

Hey, hey, Tonasket is my favorite city on the planet. The Okanogan River Co-Op is a slice of Americana that I hope never dies. I've been to a couple of the fairs near Republic though haven't spent much time there, ditto with Kettle Falls. They had barter fairs near Kettle Falls in the 80s and 90s, they weren't as cool as Tonasket's for me -- largely because open drinking parties are allowed at the KF's event, the name of which escapes me.

The road from Tonasket up to Chesaw is a lovely route. D'ever hear of Skeeter, aka Michael Pilarski? He was a founder of the Ok. Highlands' (Tonasket) Barter Faire and a big force behind the old Ahntankaranna Circle (sp) community outside of Chesaw. Quite a guy and the land, about 1,000 acres, where some of the folks still live, is pretty incredible.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

New Orleans is an unnatural island in a vast swamp. There are more places to hide a corpse than there are places to live.

I attended a meeting to coordinate data sharing among agencies with emergency responsibilities in LA & MS. One thing struck me as terribly important. A person responsible for emergency data mgmt in the GNO area said that modeling a Cat 4 or 5 strike in NOLA was not cost-effective.

Bot

I'm not sure I follow that. By modeling, do you mean doing a intensive virtual enactment of what could/would happen in the event of such a storm, so as to be able to evaluate whether facilities and mechanisms are in place to began to adequately deal with the worst case scenario?

Is that guys head in the sand or somewhere even less pleasant? I mean, whether I have a grasp of what's going on down there is not high on the National Security Priorities list, but it is interesting as a mental exercise, and God knows, I need it.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

There are some software models that provide storm surge, wind force, and river level interactions under any number of scenarios. The user specifies storm characteristics (track, wind vectors, rainfall, forward movement) and river conditions. There are traffic flow models. All of these are based on real data and are tested against each storm that comes along. They have high confidence in predicting the effects of storms up to a strong Cat 3. Beyond that, the storms are so strong that the interactions with the local topography are not reliable for planning purposes. They're working on it. If you want to make some big bucks, come-up with a storm model that predicts surge behavior at a 1 meter cell size. Currently they're at about a half-km (area), I think. That means it is impossible to predict local events below a half-km. FYI, cells are computational entities that react to the surrounding cells and effect the surrounding cells by passing data. It is an ideal problem for folks who are into massively parallel problems.

It means that the impact of a Cat 3 hurricane is a manageable problem but even so, the city would have a good chance of being flooded by breaches along the Industrial Canal levees and Metairie levees. Not because the levees are any lower in those spots but because the storm surge would pile-up in those semi-enclosed areas and the top of teh pile of water would overtop the levee. That would lead to erosion of the levee and then local failure. It would take several days after levee failure for the low areas of the city to be flooded, in which time the storm surge would dissipate, limiting the flood to sea level (Ponchartrain, MRGO) or river level, whichever is higher. Most of the power plants, substations, freshwater and sewage treatment and gas facilities are above MSL and thus, would not be flooded. The pumping stations would probably not be damaged. After emergency levee repair (which the CoE planned for and trains for) are complete, the pumping stations would dewater the area pretty quickly and services would be respored soon after. It would be a disaster, but controllable.

Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes would be unmanageably catastrophic. The levee system would experience multiple unpredictable breaches and flood most of the city while the storm surge, perhaps 10 ft MSL or more, would not have dissipated and would bring floodwaters into the city and inundate the whole thing. In the CBD it would rise to the second story on most buildings. Approx 300,000 have remained in NOLA during previous hurricanes. If that number stayed in NOLA for a catastrophic levee failure, most of them would be at risk of drowning. All infrastructure would be flooded and much of it lost. Of the 300,000 who refused or were unable to leave, the survivors would be living among the dead perhaps for several days before relief would find them. During that time they would have been drinking vile water and likely contract cholera and other water-borne diseases of filth. Many tens of thousands of people would die of drowning immediately. Others, perhaps thousands, would die later of waterborne diseases. It would require national mobilization for relief, far exceeding the aid given FL after four intense hurricanes last year.

That kind of disaster is just not something that it is possible to mitigate by stockpiling materiale. They have gross plans, but it is a catastrophy that defies emergency planning.

Last month the Fed and state emergency response folks ran a Cat 2 storm model up through Barataria Bay and into NOLA. Field personnel from the affected parishes and municipalities participated. They were very pleased with the drill and learned an awful lot. The city of NOLA asked everybody to run it again using a powerful Cat 3 along a similar track. It isn't cheap to run a multi-agency drill across many different municipalities, but everybody agreed to do it (because Ivan scared the ***** out of everybody last year). That drill will begin next week. I should be getting website information soon. They will have a public website for monitoring the drill on the theory that folks should know what the hell is going on, good or bad. When I get the address, I'll post it on O.D.

Oh yeah, the models are all based on the NGS benchmark systems for elevation. remember a couple weeks ago when I mentioned that the benchmarks are unreliable, +/- about 20 cm. Thus MSL (mean sea level) is unknown within about a foot elevation. That foot elevation is mostly interpreted as meaning that the land is a foot lower than previously assumed. Evac routes are based on old data, overestimating road elevations by about a foot. Thus, many routes declared open will actually be flooded, perhaps impassable, stranding even more people.

Ain't life interesting?

After reflecting a bit, I guess I was off sides in slighting that fellow you mentioned who said that modeling a Cat 4 or 5 strike in NOLA was not cost-effective. Easy for me to say; the guy is probably up to his eyeballs in awareness of the intricacies involved in trying to accurately model that scenario.

Was NOLA created by humanoids, sort of like parts of Holland that were reclaimed, or did it exist somewhat as is and has only become unnatural because of our attempts to prevent flooding -- building all the levies, etc?

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

French sailors went up the river until they found decent high ground--forested with live oaks covering thousands of acres. There was forest on both sides. They didn't know it was an island in a vast marsh. It looked big like the beginning of the continental landmass rather than a bump in tens of thousands of square miles of swamp and marsh. After scouting around they staked-out a fort, mainly to stake a claim for France but also to protect the garrison.

It flooded badly in a couple of years so they built houses and such raised high off the ground and also dug drainage canals. As the population grew, the decided to levee the town. So they built a 2-3 ft high ring levee. That worked fine and the pupulation grew outside of the ring levee. Also, other communities up-river and across the river built levees. The levees reduced the amount of acreage that could hold water during a flood and also constricted the flow at NOLA so the water stacked higher and eventually over-topped the levee. So they built another ring levee, but higher. This was 'progress' for the next 200 years or so until 1927.

By 1927, most of the Mississippi River from above St Louis, MO, to below NOLA was leveed. The theory was that by restricting the water to the channel, it would increase erosion of the river bed. This would deepen the river compensation for loss of volume from levee restrictions. Levee heights varied and levee quality varied. The levees built to COE specs were very well engineered but expensive. So private landowners, states, and municipalities that built their own often saved money by substandard construction of levees.

In fall and winter of 1926 the tributary system of the Mississippi River received the heaviest precipitation in history. In spring of 1927 the weather had not abated. Whole states from Louisiana and Arkansas to Ohio were constantly setting new precip rates, sometimes 18 inches in 24 hours over huge areas. This increased snow melt. The tributaries began flooding in early spring. By mid spring computed flows of water passed St Louis had broken all previous flow records. It was also deeper than ever before. Many private levees failed, flooding farms and towns. Still the water kept rising even though it spread over thousands of acres several feet deep.

When the levees failed in Greenville Mississippi, the flow was around 3,000,000 CFS. The levee failure at Greenville did more to change the plantation system in MS and LA than had the War Between the States. It changed a trickle of african-americans to northern cities to a huge migration, for if the planters couldn't protect or feed them, what could they do? Well, MS tried forcing laborers to stay on the farms by calling-out the National Guard.

It's a fascinating history.

The COE believes it can control a 3,000,000 CFS flood, based on calculations from readings taken in 1927. Trouble is, many hydrologists question those readings and calculations. They believe the actual flow rate to have been higher. Much higher.

In 1983 the COE almost lost control of the Mississippi River at the Three Rivers (Old River) Flood Control Station. It keeps the Mississippi/Red River from flowing down the Atchafalaya River (branch) of the Mississippi distributary system. If that happened, all international shipping above Baton Rouge would cease until the river settled into a new channel and it could be declared safe for navigation.

What would happen to farming in the midwest if they couldn't ship products for perhaps a year?

Bingo!
http://www.yorku.ca/twainweb/reviews/barry-01.html

Also John McPhee's "Control of Nature". An excellent book, too.
http://www.johnmcphee.com/controlofnature.htm

Just off hand, I'd guess that rail lines to Duluth and Chicago would get the workout of their lives and that the Erie Canal would enjoy a combination Renaissance/Traffic Jam from Hell.

No but hey, all seriousness aside, that would be a rude slap in the face in about 18 hundred ways.

Nice thumbnail history there. I was only in NOLA for about 4 to 5 months, I can't recall exactly, more 'n 30 years ago, so I didn't get too familiar with the terrain. I hitch-hiked in and hitch-hiked out. I got caught in one of those torrential downpours the area is sorta famous for on the way out. Somewhere near Baton Rouge and the skies got into that 18 inches in 24 hours mode. Within about 2 minutes, it was as if several 5 gallon buckets of water had been poured over me. There I was with my haversack (my backpack having long since been stolen) sporting huge beard and hair, gamely holding my thumb out.

This young black dude and his friend in a Camaro picked me up. The guy was grinning ear to ear at me. I guess I must have looked half comical and half brave, I know I felt sorta stoic standing there, but we took a real liking to each other. I never heard anyone talk so fast in my life. I wondered that his jaw could move that fast. At one point, he made a big show of stuffing a big roll of bills into his jacket pocket, which he soon took off and left draped over the front seat. He and his buddy got out at a gas station and left me in the back seat with the jacket. He just smiled at me. I didn't entertain for a second a thought of reaching for that money. Sorry to go on about nothing, but it is a fond memory.

I imagine you've seen the movie "Down By Law," with Tom Waits and the Italian dude, the eternal optimist guy, forget his name. It was set in NOLA and at one point features an overland exodus from the city through miles of swamp. I didn't understand what was up with that and I get it now.

BTW, if you haven't seen it, rent it, trust me. It is a very cool movie. One of the first by Jim Jarmusch, and I think his best.

Nice links, now if you'll excuse me, I've got some reading to do.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Yeah, I read the review on the linked site. Sounds interesting. I'll look for the book. I remember seeing a PBS special about a flood and I think it was that one, because they had aerial footage of a lot of blacks stranded on levies. I guess in '26, '27 they would have had aerial movin' pitcher footage. Unbelievable. Sometimes when I get bummed out, I remind myself: "Dude, you ain't seen REAL suffering in this body..."

I saw another PBS show about the Galveston flood of 1900. I just did a search to recall the year and found this site:

http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~geol108/yoon/galveston_flood_1900.htm

Not that it would be new to you guys in the South. Interesting story. They said there were 6 to 10 thousand deaths.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I missed that note the first time around.

My cell meets regularly. We have a call to order and roll call. Then we talk about what to do about the environment. We propose taking action and my side always wins the vote, 1-0. Then we adjourn to the fridge and drink homebrew.

Bot