August 30, 2005
The Philadelphia Inquirer
New Orleans — They always said it would happen.
Doomsday, experts predicted, would roar into this below-sea-level city and its neighboring area on the winds of a strong hurricane, turning southeastern Louisiana into an Atlantis.
Homes and businesses would be washed away, the death toll could number in the thousands and as many as a million could be left homeless.
It would, they said, suddenly end life in the Big Easy as many know and love it.
But when that day arrived — as it did this week — it was much quieter, much less dramatic.
It came as a byproduct of Hurricane Katrina, a Category 4 storm that barreled through the Gulf Coast Monday, shifting in the early morning so New Orleans was no longer its direct target.
For the first time in days, elected officials had a chance to exhale and told residents to do likewise. People grabbed their kids, put their dogs on leashes, and played sightseers in their own city, walking the soggy streets and looking at the fallen branches and bricks and blocked roads.
Like so many times before, New Orleanians thought they had been spared. And they were wrong.
Doom came slowly, seeping through the city overnight Tuesday under clear and calm skies. It seemed like a disaster filmed in slow motion: the water rising first to the tops of curbs, then covering grass, then approaching homes.
Along the Lake Pontchartrain, a two-block long breach in the protective levee system allowed the brackish water to begin its steady flow into the city.
“It’s the lake. The lake is in the city,” one woman whispered in a horrified voice yesterday as she watched the waters cover formerly dry land. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers confirmed at least three breaches in the levee system.
In a television interview today, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin predicted as much as 80 percent of the city was under water. In some places, the water was as high as 20 feet.
More than 24 hours after the storm first hit, people and animals remained trapped on the roofs of their homes. Some flicked flashlights to attract rescuers’ attention. Others plaintively asked journalists and other observers for help.
One witness said he watched firefighters use a boat to get people in one neighborhood from their roofs to the crest of a nearby bridge — which was also surrounded by water. The theory was they would be safer there, but they still had nowhere to go.
Even those people who were in safe locations are in danger. The water supply could be contaminated and a lack of water pressure has prevented sewage in many areas.
On the radio this morning, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard told residents to use plastic bags for their waste as the toilets aren’t working. He also said that he bathed out of a waste paper basket this morning.
Also in Jefferson Parish, which lies directly to the west of New Orleans, Broussard said he saw people begging for food in the streets. In New Orleans today and yesterday, there were reports of people breaking into grocery stores for food.
The death toll remains unknown, although at a press briefing Monday, Nagin said there were reports of “several” bodies floating in the water. Hardest hit may have been the city’s 9th Ward, home to some of its poorest residents, although tallies won’t be available until the water recedes.
It is unclear if that will happen anytime soon. This is a city that stays dry thanks to the system of levees protecting it from the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, and to a pumping system that is both praised and maligned. But this week, the levees failed. The pumping system failed.
Even if the pumping system – which has helped humans defy nature here for generations – was working smoothly, there is nowhere for the water to go. The lake and the river are full.
It seems that, finally, the waters around New Orleans, the same ones that made it a thriving port and prompted two French brothers to found the city hundreds of years ago, have turned against it.
Adding to the city’s woes, it’s unclear what affect the storm will have on the economy. With the exception of rescue workers, no one is allowed to enter the state, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has said. Ironic, as Blanco’s job was once promoting tourism, the state’s largest industry.
Before Katrina hit, National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield told the media that Katrina was “capable of causing catastrophic damage.”
Turns out, he was right. He also noted: “New Orleans may never be the same.”
Sadly, he may be right again.