[StBernard] storm prep

[Westley Annis]

WWL reported yesterday that statistically, a cat 4 or 5 storm hits Louisiana
about every 33 years. Keeping in mind that it doesn't take a direct hit of
the eye to cause storm surge and wind damage, it sure changes the odds when
you think about that frequency versus the theory that Katrina was a once in
300 or 400 year storm. The best protection system the govt can afford has a
100 year probability and we won't have that til 2012 at best says the Corps.

Thankfully, that high pressure system kept Dean moving west at a location so
far south that LA was spared. Neither St. Bernard's levees, nor its drainage
pumps, nor its canals, nor the amount of debris piled in the neighborhoods
would have fared well even if Dean's eye would have been well east of the
New Orleans area.

If all pumps were working, if all canals were perfectly cleaned and mucked
out, if all storm drains were cleaned, the parishes are at their very best
designed for just a 10 year rainfall event which is 7.5 inches in 12 hours.
Erin exceeded that and it was just a tropical storm, so please remember in
your plans and preparations, flooding due to a very wet storm when our
system is not 100 percent operating, could mean serious street flooding and
canals overflowing.

At least Dean caused me to do the final packing of everything I want saved
to be put away into plastic containers where it will go elsewhere until Oct.
1. It's unfortunate that because of the potential for looting, anything of
sentimental or monetary value has to be stored elsewhere for an evacuation.
We weren't looted after Katrina as my neighbors were robbed, only because we
had a relative seek shelter in our house with other survivors when the
levees broke. The men took turns keeping a watch through the dormer windows
to scare off the intruders that came in boats the first few days. Also, we
emptied the entire second floor and whatever we could salvage out of the
muck on the first floor as soon as we could enter the parish after Rita.
Many of the residents who came back in October and November found that the
looters took whatever they could carry out from the second floor.

It says a lot about humanity when you have to worry about predators in
addition to natural disasters. ddk