jay_merrill
Vice Admiral
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2007
- Messages
- 5,653
Re: Sensationalism
Hurricanes are largely unpredictable. Modern modeling techniques have become very good at offering some clue as to what they will do, but they have a habit of fooling even the best of the meteorologists. In this basic fact of life, lies the reason to take hurricanes seriously.
Here in New Orleans, we hadn't seen a truly devastating storm in 40 years, prior to the arrival of Katrina. Year after year, our residents watched storms march up the Gulf, only to veer away at the "last minute" and go somewhere else. The end result of such a scenario, is a population that grows weary of the effort and expense involved in leaving town for a few days, every time the mere possibility of getting "hit" occurs. From this, complacency is born.
Inspite of this, SE Louisiana, including New Orleans and the surrounding parishes (counties) have one of the most extensive evacuation plans of any region in the US and probably the world. This plan was developed over many years and is the reason why over a million people were evacuated from our area in a very efficient manner, just prior to Katrina. Unfortunately, there were still a few holes in it and many people who wanted to leave, were not able to do so.
The biggest lessons of Katrina, are that complacency kills (about 2,000 people, in our case) and no matter how well you plan and/or think you know what a hurricane is going to do, things that you don't expect, do happen. Simply put, everything that you thought you knew about what would happen during a major storm, may turn out to be completely wrong.
As an example, I helped a friend of mine in an effort to salvage whatever she could from her home, after the storm. She felt that some of her things might be OK, because the house that she lived in, was raised ten feet off of the ground. As we drove onto her street in New Orleans, were puzzled by the rest of the houses in her neighborhood, which were not raised. In most areas of New Orleans at the time, you could see the water line on the outsides of the houses, but not there - the houses were all just very dirty looking. When we got to my friend's house, climbed the stairs and entered it, all of a sudden we understood. The waterline inside was clear and it was about four feet above floor level, meaning that her neighborhood was submerged under 14 feet of water. The other houses had no waterline, because they had been completely submerged!
I have been in Louisiana for about 20 years, but have family roots in Rhode Island, so I am well familiar with both the Gulf South and New England. To those of you in New England, who think you are safe from a devastating storm, think again. In particular, you might want to do some research on a hurricane that hit eastern Long Island, Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1938. I remember it, not because I was even alive then, but because it was always a topic of conversation among the adults, when I was growing up in the fifties and sixties. I also remember a photographic book that my grandfather had, showing many before and after photos of where he lived. That book included photos of many homes that were completely obliterated, just as I saw in New Orleans, after Katrina. In fact, my grandfather's home was reduced to a pile of rubble and he had to completely rebuild it.
There is no doubt that news stations chase ratings and try to "pump things up," in that endeavor. Then again, this (below) is an example of just what can happen when a storm arrives.
???
Hurricanes are largely unpredictable. Modern modeling techniques have become very good at offering some clue as to what they will do, but they have a habit of fooling even the best of the meteorologists. In this basic fact of life, lies the reason to take hurricanes seriously.
Here in New Orleans, we hadn't seen a truly devastating storm in 40 years, prior to the arrival of Katrina. Year after year, our residents watched storms march up the Gulf, only to veer away at the "last minute" and go somewhere else. The end result of such a scenario, is a population that grows weary of the effort and expense involved in leaving town for a few days, every time the mere possibility of getting "hit" occurs. From this, complacency is born.
Inspite of this, SE Louisiana, including New Orleans and the surrounding parishes (counties) have one of the most extensive evacuation plans of any region in the US and probably the world. This plan was developed over many years and is the reason why over a million people were evacuated from our area in a very efficient manner, just prior to Katrina. Unfortunately, there were still a few holes in it and many people who wanted to leave, were not able to do so.
The biggest lessons of Katrina, are that complacency kills (about 2,000 people, in our case) and no matter how well you plan and/or think you know what a hurricane is going to do, things that you don't expect, do happen. Simply put, everything that you thought you knew about what would happen during a major storm, may turn out to be completely wrong.
As an example, I helped a friend of mine in an effort to salvage whatever she could from her home, after the storm. She felt that some of her things might be OK, because the house that she lived in, was raised ten feet off of the ground. As we drove onto her street in New Orleans, were puzzled by the rest of the houses in her neighborhood, which were not raised. In most areas of New Orleans at the time, you could see the water line on the outsides of the houses, but not there - the houses were all just very dirty looking. When we got to my friend's house, climbed the stairs and entered it, all of a sudden we understood. The waterline inside was clear and it was about four feet above floor level, meaning that her neighborhood was submerged under 14 feet of water. The other houses had no waterline, because they had been completely submerged!
I have been in Louisiana for about 20 years, but have family roots in Rhode Island, so I am well familiar with both the Gulf South and New England. To those of you in New England, who think you are safe from a devastating storm, think again. In particular, you might want to do some research on a hurricane that hit eastern Long Island, Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1938. I remember it, not because I was even alive then, but because it was always a topic of conversation among the adults, when I was growing up in the fifties and sixties. I also remember a photographic book that my grandfather had, showing many before and after photos of where he lived. That book included photos of many homes that were completely obliterated, just as I saw in New Orleans, after Katrina. In fact, my grandfather's home was reduced to a pile of rubble and he had to completely rebuild it.
There is no doubt that news stations chase ratings and try to "pump things up," in that endeavor. Then again, this (below) is an example of just what can happen when a storm arrives.
???