Monday, August 29, 2005
New Orleans spared the worst
In New Orleans' historic French Quarter of Napoleonic-era buildings with wrought-iron balconies, water pooled in the streets from the driving rain, but the area appeared to have escaped the catastrophic flooding that forecasters had predicted.
On Jackson Square, two massive oak trees outside the 278-year-old St. Louis Cathedral came out by the roots, ripping out a 30-foot section of ornamental iron fence and straddling a marble statue of Jesus Christ, snapping off only the thumb and forefinger of his outstretched hand.
At the hotel Le Richelieu, the winds blew open sets of balcony French doors shortly after dawn. Seventy-three-year-old Josephine Elow of New Orleans pressed her weight against the broken doors as a hotel employee tried to secure them.
"It's not life-threatening," Mrs. Elow said as rain water dripped from her face. "God's got our back."
Somehow New Orleans has escaped again -- still extensively battered and damaged and flooded, but not converted into a basin full of dirty flood waters, windblown debris, floating bodies from cemeteries, and sewage from ruined septic systems. So far the pumps and levees failed only in the Lower 9th Ward, but even there the flooding reached five to six feet of water, rather than the previously predicted ten or more feet.
The city was spared by a mere 35 miles of directional change by the hurricane, just enough to put New Orleans on the less destructive western side of the eyewall.
Meanwhile, parts of Mobile, Alabama and Gulfport, Mississippi are under eight to ten feet of water.
ETA 10.29pm: I understand that the 9th Ward is full of water up to the eaves and rooftops now, with bodies floating in the flood and people stranded.
Jen has family and friends in New Orleans, not to mention houses there. Thank God, no one was injured, but her and her grandparents' houses are severely damaged, if not completely destroyed. Her boyfriend is anticipating moving to Philly with her, as there's probably nothing left of their Southern home.
O God, Lord of heaven and earth, protect and comfort those amidst danger and destruction.
O Virgin, Star of the Sea, our Mother, pray for us.
| 10:47 AM |
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