one year ago today...

August 29th 2005 I was at a meeting in Chicago, I was up late flicking between the Weather Channel and CNN while catching up on some work and preparing to chair a session...

2:27 am August 30th 2005

New Orleans - bad news breaking on CNN

Oh dear. Tulane Uni hospital director is reporting the lake levee is breached and water is rapidly rising.
FEMA is evacuating hospitals by helicopter in the dark; deep water rushing into the business district;
this is very bad, especially with many people still stuck in houses - the water will now rise in the dark.

Earlier reports had city workers trying to shore up levees but not being able to keep up; sounds like they were short staffed and underequipped - after the storm passes they should have rushed to shore levees against rain water coming from upstream.
Hope the Mississippi doesn't breach on the other side.

This is not good.

It is hard to concentrate on cooling functions for low metallicity gas under the circumstances.

CNN anchor reaction was a bit flustered; I don't think they quite know what to make of it - story was supposed to be over and they could run the canned stories of highlights, rescue, and wait-for-the-dawn to see the damage. Their coverage and recap of the boat rescues was effective, but again I don't think they quite "got it" - since there is no authority yet telling them how bad it is, they are treating the anecdotal news reports with caution, even those from their own reporters.
I hope it is not as bad as it sounds right now.
It sounded very, very bad from Tulane medical center. And the implications for what was happening elsewhere in the city at this very late stage are frightening.

Late update: back to CNN and TWC after a long day... I guess the river levees broke as well.
Not good.

Ah well, we did get those low metallicity cooling functions sorted out eventually, eh?

A colleague of mine just returned from New Orleans, surveying some public facilities that need to be rebuilt, he brought back lots of photos.
It was appalling, roads still closed due to heaps of trash, houses still crumbling off their foundations, whole sections in ruin.
Total failure of government, army engineers, national guard and serious contractor teams should have moved in and at the very least cleaned up the dangers to public health and cleared transport corridors, absolute total waste.
Realisticall the city is overwhelmed and the State is struggling, so where are the feds?

Disgraceful.