stormy weather

[hnpcc]

Looking at the photos of Hurricane Katrina and I'm in awe of the storm. Such beautiful satellite photos - although I'm glad I'm on the other side of the world from it.

I'm hoping that the worst is over for New Orleans at least. I can't believe anyone stayed... but then again, there are always some who do. Either because they can't leave or because they feel the need to see it out I suppose. Pray for those who are lost - and for their families.

We had stormy weather on a much smaller scale last night in Melbourne - wind blowing, then it started pouring. We did the usual wander around the house looking at the roof and this time there was a leak. A large leak, and growing. Right over the toilet, too.

Bugger. More so because I was in my PJs already.

But out into the night we went (I changed first) and Dean went up a ladder to look at the roof. Shifted some tiles, cleared out the guttering as much as he could.

I checked the leak. Gone. We think it may have been overflow from the guttering - we cleared it recently, but possibly not recently enough. Either way the drips had ceased so we battened down the hatches and went to bed.

Comments

[jakebullet.livejournal.com]

New Orleans has a larger-than-average (I think) poor population who simply didn't have the means to get out of the city.

The destruction is just massive. There are going to be some benefits that come out of this, though. I can see the drainage systems and levees getting a complete overhaul to help prevent this from happening again.

[valamelmeo.livejournal.com]

On a radio talk show a few days ago, I heard a caller say that her father had helped design the levees in New Orleans, and they were only rated for a Category 3 hurricane. That far into the Gulf, for anything stronger than that to head north into the US and not south or west into Mexico is reasonably rare.

Where was he when it hit? Here in Dallas, of course.


Of course, it doesn't help at all that the whole city was below sea level to begin with...

[hnpcc]

Of course, it doesn't help at all that the whole city was below sea level to begin with...

Well no. And it had a massive lake on one side and a river on the other and the sea on yet another... and yeah, wind pushes water along quite nicely.

[hnpcc]

New Orleans has a larger-than-average (I think) poor population who simply didn't have the means to get out of the city.

I found myself awake and thinking about the logistics of transporting the 23,000 people out of the stadium at 3am this morning. The only reasonably readily available transport I could think of was school/public transport buses and the only place I could think of to house them was an airforce base.

So I was kind of chuffed when I caught the news at 8am and saw a shot of school buses lining up to transport people to some air base somewhere (missed that bit).