Ivan

[Kaldaur]

My network has for some reason blocked ports going to yahoo, so I can't read the articles; I can only see the headlines. There's an article up about Ivan hitting New Orleans and sinking it. Can anyone repost the article so I can read it? Thanks.

[Arborealus]

My network has for some reason blocked ports going to yahoo, so I can't read the articles; I can only see the headlines. There's an article up about Ivan hitting New Orleans and sinking it. Can anyone repost the article so I can read it? Thanks.

Warnings are up Morgan City all along the Fla west coast...

Highest hit prob is around Mobile - Penns...

[Dregor Thule]

By BRETT MARTEL, Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS - The worst-case scenario for New Orleans — a direct strike by a full-strength Hurricane Ivan — could submerge much of this historic city treetop-deep in a stew of sewage, industrial chemicals and fire ants, and the inundation could last for weeks, experts say.

If the storm were strong enough, Ivan could drive water over the tops of the levees that protect the city from the Mississippi River and vast Lake Pontchartrain. And with the city sitting in a saucer-shaped depression that dips as much as 9 feet below sea level, there would be nowhere for all that water to drain.

Even in the best of times, New Orleans depends on a network of canals and huge pumps to keep water from accumulating inside the basin.

"Those folks who remain, should the city flood, would be exposed to all kinds of nightmares from buildings falling apart to floating in the water having nowhere to go," Ivor van Heerden, director of Louisiana State University's Hurricane Public Health Center, said Tuesday.

LSU's hurricane experts have spent years developing computer models and taking surveys to predict what might happen.

The surveys predict that about 300,000 of the 1.6 million people living in the metropolitan area would risk staying.

The computer models show a hurricane with a wind speed of around 120 mph or more — hitting just west of New Orleans so its counterclockwise rotation could hurl the strongest surf and wind directly into the city — would push a storm surge from the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain over the city's levees. Ivan had sustained wind of 140 mph Tuesday.

New Orleans would be under about 20 feet of water, higher than the roofs of many of the city's homes.

Besides collecting standard household and business garbage and chemicals, the flood would flow through chemical plants in the area, "so there's the potential of pretty severe contamination," van Heerden said.

Severe flooding in area bayous also forces out wildlife, including poisonous snakes and stinging fire ants, which sometimes gather in floating balls carried by the current.

A rescue of people who stayed behind would be among the world's biggest since 1940, when Allied forces and civilian volunteers during World War II rescued mostly British soldiers from Dunkirk, France, and carried them across the English Channel, van Heerden predicted.

Much of the city would be under water for weeks. And even after the river and Lake Pontchartrain receded, the levees could trap water above sea level, meaning the Army Corps of Engineers would have to cut the levees to let the water out.

"The real big problem is the water from sea level on down because it will have to be pumped and restoring the pumps and getting them back into action could take a considerable amount of time," said John Hall, the Corps' spokesman in New Orleans.

Hall spoke from his home — 6 feet below sea level — as he prepared to flee the city himself. The Corps' local staff was being relocated 166 miles north to Vicksburg, Miss.

New Orleans was on the far western edge of the Gulf Coast region threatened by Ivan, and forecasters said Tuesday that the hurricane appeared to moving toward a track farther east, along the Mississippi coast.

If the eye came ashore east of the city, van Heerden said, New Orleans would be on the low side of the storm surge and would not likely have catastrophic flooding.

The worst storm in recent decades to hit New Orleans was Hurricane Betsy in 1965, which submerged parts of the city in water 7-feet deep and was blamed for 74 deaths in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. That storm was a Category 3, weaker than Ivan is expected to be.

Even if New Orleans escapes this time, van Heerden said, it will remain vulnerable until the federal and state governments act to restore the coastal wetlands that should act as a buffer against storms coming in from the Gulf.

Louisiana has lost about a half million acres of coast to erosion since 1930 because the Mississippi River is so corralled by levees that it can dump sediment only at its mouth, and that allows waves from the Gulf to chop away at the rest of the coastline.

"My fear is, if this storm passes (without a major disaster), everybody forgets about it until next year, when it could be even worse because we'll have even less wetlands," van Heerden said.

[Kaldaur]

Thanks Dregor. A scary possibility I hope never occurs. The scariest part is the 300,000 who would remain in the city when the storm hits, based upon their estimates. That's quite a recipe for disaster.

[kyoukan]

Bourbon blues on the street loose and complete
Under skies all smoky blue-green
I can Forksake the dixie dead shake
So we dance the sidewalk clean
My memory is muddy what's this river I'm in
New Orleans is sinking and I don't want to swim

Colonel Tom What's wrong? What's Going On
You can't tie yourself up for a deal
He said" Hey North you're south shut you big mouth
You gotta do what you feel is real."
Ain't got no picture postcards ain't go no souvenirs
My baby she don't know me when I'm thinking about thoes years

Pale as a light bulb hanging on a wire
Sucking up to someone just stoke the fire
Picking out the highlights of the scenery
Saw a little cloud looked a little like me

I had My hand in the river
My feet back up on the banks
Looked up to the lord above and said hey man thanks
Some time I fell so good I gotta scream
She says Gordie baby I know exactly what you mean
She said, she said I swear to god she said

My memory is muddy what's this river I'm in
New Orleans is sinking and I don't want to swim

[Arborealus]

Bourbon blues on the street loose and complete
Under skies all smoky blue-green
I can Forksake the dixie dead shake
So we dance the sidewalk clean
My memory is muddy what's this river I'm in
New Orleans is sinking and I don't want to swim

Colonel Tom What's wrong? What's Going On
You can't tie yourself up for a deal
He said" Hey North you're south shut you big mouth
You gotta do what you feel is real."
Ain't got no picture postcards ain't go no souvenirs
My baby she don't know me when I'm thinking about thoes years

Pale as a light bulb hanging on a wire
Sucking up to someone just stoke the fire
Picking out the highlights of the scenery
Saw a little cloud looked a little like me

I had My hand in the river
My feet back up on the banks
Looked up to the lord above and said hey man thanks
Some time I fell so good I gotta scream
She says Gordie baby I know exactly what you mean
She said, she said I swear to god she said

My memory is muddy what's this river I'm in
New Orleans is sinking and I don't want to swim

Heh Canadians so cannot pronounce New Orleans...

[Kelshara]

Wow an American talking about other people being unable to pronounce things? Classic

[kyoukan]

actually anglo canadians pronounce it properly using the correct regional variation of the french version. watching anglo americans in the US try to butcher it with their faux french accent is what's cute.

it is interesting to note however that most people from france have an easier time understanding louisiana-borne french dialects than the mangled gutterspeak they use in quebec. my husband's father is from jamaica and his mother is from haiti, and he took conversational french in university; so he can speak patois french, creole and french-canadian. people from france can only really understand him if he speaks creole and he says that creole is a lot closer to 'real' french than anything else.

my theory is that in quebec the very nature of the dialect has changed due to the incredibly dumbfounding amount of whining french canadians do on a daily basis.

[Lynks]

I did reseach on my familly tree and what I found out was that the when the French landed in Canada, 2 gorups went their seperate ways. One stayed in Quebec, and the other to Louisiana. Kyo has a great explanation about les Quebecois.

[kyoukan]

well, most of the french in the south are french expatriates. the word cajun actually comes from the way they pronounced acadian (some people thing it's creole slang for 'canadian' which is debatable because no decent god fearing acadian would have referred himself as a canadian in my humble opinion), which is what the french pioneers were called.

when the british beat the french, the french ceded the territories around where the acadians lived and the british started to kill them in enormous numbers until they decided that the 13 colonies was a tad more comfortable than having british soldiers shoving matchlock rifles up their asses. there was a long history of the british letting the acadians back into eastern canada and then killing a bunch until they all left again. then they got invited back and shot at again.

acadians make good lumberjacks, and bayonet targets.