It's bad. They were congratulating themselves that the hurricane went east instead of doglegging southeast to northwest, which was predicted to be worst case.
But I don't think anybody really expected this. This is about as bad as it can get.
I guess by now everbody knows that New Orleans is bowl-shaped, low ground in the center, high ground around the edges, surrounded by levees, and then outside the levees is water -- the Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Borgne, the Industrial Canal, the Intercoastal Waterway, and where there isn't water, it's just swamps. No high ground anywhere except the ridges. French Quarter is on naturally high ground and parts of Uptown, Metairie Ridge, Gentilly Ridge, that's about it.
I used to have nightmares about floods, of a crevasse opening in the Mississippi Levee.
This was something I don't think anybody was expecting -- water coming in from Lake Pontchartrain through that canal. That's a drainage canal. I guess those pumps broke down.
Edit: "high ground" means above sea level. Like a few feet above sea level. |
