Katrina 2: New Orleans expected to take direct hit from Hurricane Ida

[AbsolutSurgen]

Hurricane Ida: New Orleans braces for possible direct hit - BBC News

 

[Uaarkson]

New Orleans really just never should have existed where it is in the first place 

[PaladinSolo]

Water off the coast there is almost 90 degrees.

[mclumber1]

10 minutes ago, Uaarkson said:

New Orleans really just never should have existed where it is in the first place 

 

People say Phoenix and Las Vegas are monuments to humanity's arrogance - but I think New Orleans takes the cake. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

In a time before climate change NO was fine. It would continue to be fine if like, the Dutch ran it. (To be fair the dutch don't have major tropical storms coming through every few years)

 

But in the hollowed out corpse that is american government, it's a mistake.

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

I(To be fair the dutch don't have major tropical storms coming through every few years)

So literally THE reason it is a bad idea for a city notwithstanding, it is totally fine  

[SaysWho?]

49 minutes ago, Uaarkson said:

New Orleans really just never should have existed where it is in the first place 

I was having this conversation with the lady today. Living near the Louisiana coast in general seems exhausting during Hurricane season.

[SaysWho?]

There’s really nothing to weaken this barring an eye wall replacement cycle shortly before landfall. Hope that happens.

[marioandsonic]

Shit's about to get fucky!

[Bacon]

Ida get out of there if I were them. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

12 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

 

 

At least some good is coming out of this.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

46 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

So literally THE reason it is a bad idea for a city notwithstanding, it is totally fine  

I'd imagine that a robust, well funded system to keep as much water out as possible and failing that removing as much water as possible as quickly as possible and the one major hurricane within 100 nautical miles of new Orleans per decade is manageable. That said, the city should probably shrink to the relatively higher ground within the city but as the port city at the mouth of the Mississippi it is invaluable

[CayceG]

 

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

4 minutes ago, CayceG said:

 

 

 

 

Dear God

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, CayceG said:

 

 

 

An utter failure of governance.

 

Back after Katrina, we had Ike or Rita headed toward Houston and people were flipping out because of what we had witnessed the prior month in NOLA. There was traffic jams so bad it took many people over 20 hours to get from Houston to Dallas, San Antonio, or Austin, drives that normally take under 4 hours.

 

The storm ended up missing Houston, but one of the things that everybody demanded was that no such mess ever occur again. So they added in all these easy to open barricades along the major freeways out of town to make contraflow possible in less than 2 hours notice. Shame that it took some people literally dying in their cars trying to flee the storm in sweltering late summer heat, but it should have been a wake up call for everybody else to prep your evacuation routes NOW.

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

I'd imagine that a robust, well funded system to keep as much water out as possible and failing that removing as much water as possible as quickly as possible and the one major hurricane within 100 nautical miles of new Orleans per decade is manageable. That said, the city should probably shrink to the relatively higher ground within the city but as the port city at the mouth of the Mississippi it is invaluable

I don’t think you need residential neighborhoods in areas in which flooding is such a high risk. Industrial, sure, because you could theoretically require pumping capacity to be built in to any industrial construction. 

 

I suppose you could also require all residential be built on stilts far above the flood plain?

[Uaarkson]

This is going to be an enormous tragedy isn’t it?

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

8 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

I don’t think you need residential neighborhoods in areas in which flooding is such a high risk. Industrial, sure, because you could theoretically require pumping capacity to be built in to any industrial construction. 

 

I suppose you could also require all residential be built on stilts far above the flood plain?

Abolish single family homes and have ground level business/communal space with higher rise residential

 

But yeah stilts would work too. It's fairly common practice in coastal Alabama after Katrina (iirc)

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

6 minutes ago, Uaarkson said:

This is going to be an enormous tragedy isn’t it?

 

It certainly has the potential to be.

[Air_Delivery]

I guess well see if they learned anything from last time.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

This is god punishing us for tolerating Nathan j Robinson

[CayceG]

 

 

I... hadn't thought of this. Why the fuck AREN'T they requisitioning commuter trains to evacuate people?

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

15 minutes ago, CayceG said:

 

 

I... hadn't thought of this. Why the fuck AREN'T they requisitioning commuter trains to evacuate people?

Nearest commuter line is in like Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, or Orlando and no guarantee those trains are compatible with track around NOLA (not to mention the logistics outside of the basics like train power source and gauge widths). As for Amtrak, well,

Fate of Amtrak's Gulf Coast route lies with federal board | Mississippi Today

MISSISSIPPITODAY.ORG

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Amtrak is at least one step closer to knowing how viable its plans are to return passenger rail service to the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2022.

 

Rail here, like almost everywhere else, is privately owned and you'd have to work around that and FRA rules, and that's if there is an agreement in place in the first place (which there probably should be!)

 

Also, Well There's Your Problem is a good podcast (guy whose tweet you posted is a host)

[Ricofoley]

Well There's Your Problem rules

[CayceG]

I was a fan of WTYP before it had a channel and was still on donoteat's channel

 

 

It truly is great. 

 

But also, I figured the US all had standard rail gauges. 

Either way... it's almost as if national infrastructure should be... nationalized. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

50 minutes ago, CayceG said:

But also, I figured the US all had standard rail gauges. 

Doing some looking into this, there's really only two major rail systems that don't have standard gauge: WAMTA, the DC metro (which is slightly narrower), and BART, SF Bay Area Rapid Transit, which is slightly larger Indian Gauge.

 

The two major commuter lines in DC, VRE and MARC, both use standard gauge. For the Bay Area, other rail lines in the metro are standard. 

 

Reading about the problems of these two systems I thought using nonstandard gauge was more common than it is!$

[mclumber1]

How do you efficiently move people out of a concentrated area very quickly using rail? You can't use all of the lines, because you need to be able to bring the trains back to the origin point, so only half of the lines at any given time can evacuate.  It would be better if it was a looped system, but I'm not sure New Orleans is set up like that.  I could be wrong though.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

16 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

How do you efficiently move people out of a concentrated area very quickly using rail? You can't use all of the lines, because you need to be able to bring the trains back to the origin point, so only half of the lines at any given time can evacuate.  It would be better if it was a looped system, but I'm not sure New Orleans is set up like that.  I could be wrong though.

The bottleneck is passenger loading so the answer is more trains per hour and more cars per train. Otherwise it just takes time, same as if a freeway were to capacity and full of cars.

 

If it takes ten minutes to load then waiting one minute for a single line track to clear isn't the issue.

[mclumber1]

3 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

The bottleneck is passenger loading so the answer is more trains per hour and more cars per train. Otherwise it just takes time, same as if a freeway were to capacity and full of cars.

 

If it takes ten minutes to load then waiting one minute for a single line track to clear isn't the issue.

 

Right, but how are you getting more trains into the station if the station is at a dead end?  I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just trying to picture how this would work in real life. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

2 hours ago, mclumber1 said:

 

Right, but how are you getting more trains into the station if the station is at a dead end?  I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just trying to picture how this would work in real life. 

Rail yards outside of the station and management of traffic

[silentbob]

Poor New Orleans. When I was in the French Quarter in 2013, my sister and I went on a gator trip. So it starts off more like tour bus then anything and they had most of the city still in need of repair. The original ballroom palace that Mardi Gras took place had not been fixed, and had a huge hole in the dome structure. Some little local music hall was just getting fixed up, but everything else still in ruins. We were told that was because one man owned most of the places in the FQ and didn’t wanna spend the money to fix. Went on a river boat ride down the Mississippi River and saw the docks that caught fire in Katrina and they too were not fixed. It’s been 8 years and the man had passed away, and wonder what has been fixed since then. I also wonder with this storm, if they will run into the same problem as before in that many buildings will be left in ruins for years again.

 

I just had to add this song from The Tragically Hip. Someone took the song and added picks after Katrina hit

 

 

[Jason]

Apparently Louisiana has a Democratic governor, good thing or else he'd probably ban evacuation and tell everyone the hurricane is a hoax.

[Guest]

Very not great

[AbsolutSurgen]

'Time is not on our side.' Gulf Coast braces for Sunday arrival of Hurricane Ida, potentially a Category 4 storm By Aya Elamroussi, Haley Brink, Ray Sanchez and Alaa Elassar, CNN  Updated 8:34 PM ET, Sat August 28, 2021

Quote

"I want to reiterate the storm surge that we are expecting is unsurvivable," she said, adding that the storm is expected to linger over the area. "We need you to leave immediately."

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto said if people want to leave, they should go now, but once the storm starts, they need to stay off the roads to protect first responders.

Anyone who cannot live without power for days or possibly weeks due to a medical condition should evacuate now before the storm starts, Sarah Babcock, the chief administrative assistant for Jefferson Parish, said.

New Orleans is anticipating impacts from damaging winds of up to 110 mph, according to Arnold.