Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Reads like Clancy

I thought I was finished writing about the Gulf Coast Disaster, but I guess I saved the best for last.

This account is by a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force who was designated Shelter Commander for one of the disaster shelters on Keesler Air Force Base, near Biloxi MS, and on the dangerous right-front side of hurricane Katrina as the Storm of the Century made landfall.

For those who don't know, the Air Base was inundated by a storm surge of 20+ feet and suffered eyewall winds. There is little left of the base today besides the shelter, it's Command Post and the runway.

The shelter was in an older building that had been originally built (overbuilt!) with nuclear attack in mind. The building was damaged, but it and it's 731 occupants survived.

The story reads like an abbreviated Tom Clancy novel, and you won't turn away from it. It starts before the storm hit, and carries on, 24 hours a day for over six days until the shelter occupants were released to attend their personal needs.

There were no assaults, robberies, rapes or murders in the shelter. Those who got sick were cared for properly. The conditions in the shelter were probably worse than in the Super Dome in New Orleans, yet the character of the shelter occupants and the masterful way the Shelter Commander ran it were the difference, literally, between life and death.

Indigo brought this article to us, and deserves your serious support for doing so.

If you never read anything from my blog again, you are forgiven if you will just read her post.

Better late than never

So, the MSM finally gets the message that the word "rebuilding" means one thing to us taxpayers, and an entirely different thing to Louisiana (D)onk politicians.

I warned on Sept 12, that the Huey Long-inspired corrupt politicos in the disaster area would pad the bill.

Today, October 6, USA TODDay finally sees the light with an editorial that, in the same breath, accuses the LA politicos of corruption as usual, then forgives them (for they know no other way to act?).

The latest figures I see are $125-150 billion, but sane and un-bought engineers have yet to answer the primary question: is is wise to rebuild the city of New Orleans in it's sub-sea level bowl, or better to bulldoze it, breach the levees and let it return to swamp, rebuilding on better ground?

Until that question is answered in a straightforward, public way, with the politicos standing on the sidelines and engineers doing the deciding, I'm against spending another nickel past rescue and relocation expense.

Sir Aaron's Tale

Sir Aaron, Knight-Errant of the Kingdom of Mercy, Alliance of Western Culture, has returned from his mission and quest. As you will recall if you've been following his exploits here, here, here, and here, he was conducting a private relief mission into Katrina-damaged Mississippi.

The good news is that he is one of many who've seen fit to elevate their brotherhood and take direct action to help their fellow citizens recover from the terrible storms.

The bad news is that I can't talk him into starting his own blog. He's wary of the time it would take from his Knightly duties. He's right there, but I would point out to Sir Aaron that blogging is also one way of helping the culture. It is the Way of the Teacher, the way I follow. But, for every teacher, we need Knights of action.

Here is Sir Aaron's Tale:

Rita's Ashore

...and the initial assessments are being made as I write. It seems that the old whore was fairly well f**ked played out by the time she drug her sorry ass over the beach. Don't do any victory dances just yet though. Something curious is happening with the old gal.

Most hurricanes fall apart quickly after hitting land. Rita isn't. 10 hours after making landfall near Port Arthur, TX, she is still quite intact, and still has Cat 1 winds and good circulation.

She is dumping several inches of rain an hour in western Louisiana.

I think that I just wrote about this here, last night.

Let's wait and see if the diversion projects can keep that water out of the mainstem Mississippi, or if it will all wind up in New Orleans, inside the levees. The Mayor's boys may be celebrating a little too soon downriver from Rita's deluge.

Speaking of Nagin, I see he is jumping up and down hollering to the world that the French Quarter didn't get flooded in this latest round of levee breaches. WELL, IT DIDN'T FLOOD LAST TIME EITHER, DUMMY. Who are you talking to here, bozo? The rest of the country has considerably more education than your school system provides for YOUR constituents, Mayor, but we also know that the dollars from the French Quarter won't flow into your pockets again until you get the rest of the city running again, if ever. So go back to your seat on the stool in the corner, and put that pointy dunce cap back on top of the tinfoil hat you're wearing.

Travels of Sir Aaron

While I'm busy hosting my "Hurricane Party", which will turn into a tailgater tomorrow in time for the Oregon-USC football game, Sir Aaron, Knight Errant of the Knights of Mercy, is sending text messages on his quest to help family and church members in Katrina-ravaged Mississippi.

Sir Aaron is currently hauling off debris from Katrina somewhere in MS. His first message:

"8 trailersfull b4 lunch. about 1/5th done. Lovebug swarms insane. Tornado watches S of here. More updates later. Heard from Coastal NoR?"

then:

"Lost count of trailers (of debris) moved. Tornado warnings and flood warnings in So. MS counties. Cloudy & HUMID here. Is it beer-thirty yet? :-)"

then:

"Tornado watch in Hattiesburg now. NOLA flooding again. Raining here now, we're done for today. Bushed. 1531 09/23."

Sir Aaron's pickup with triler of debris. Moblogged by Rivrdog via cell phone text and photo.

I don't know about the reference to the "coastal NoR"

I presume he means certain Knights of the Culture who are hunkered down for Rita, but I don't have his exact reference. Anyone help me out here?

Fuel shortage

If you didn't read my Fuel post earlier, you might want to take a look now.

The cable network financial wizards are reporting that there will be an 11% shortfall of fuel vs consumption of it for a while. That will result in zooming prices and long lines at the gas stations, and not just in Houston, either.

I've already addressed that issue here, and here.

Read and heed.

Flood redux

...and for you Christians who've been telling me all my life that it was supposed to be the Fire and not the Flood next time, you're wrong.

At least in New Orleans. That benighted city is going under again as I blog, and fast. Proving that you can't patch a badly-constructed levee, the emergency patches aren't holding, but are failing, and as they do, more of the levee is going away.

AND IT'S GOING AWAY WITH THE HURRICANE STILL 200 MILES AWAY!!

If there's a surge now, it's no more than a few feet, but it could rise to easily double that when the 'cane swings by to the west. The winds now are no more than a strong breeze or half-gale, but they will rise much higher in the next 20 hours.

THEN THE HURRICANE IS PROGGED TO STALL OUT NORTH OF THE CITY FOR THREE DAYS.

North of New Orleans is a vast swamp that is the headwater of the Atchafalaya River. There has been debate for years about the role of the swamp and the Atchafalaya River in absorbing, then diverting flood waters away from the Mississippi to prevent N'Awlins from flooding. The FEDS built a controversial impoundment and diversion project there 50 years ago (and don't ask me whose administration built it, I don't care. It's built) to "assist" the swampy region to hold it's water or divert into the Atchafalaya and not dump it down the Big Muddy river and overtop the NOLA levees.

Ever since the Atchafalaya Project's construction, debate over it's usefulness has been heard, but worse, the evirowhackos got control of the Project and said that because it was ruining the coastal swamp where the Atchafalaya River dumps into the Gulf, the flood control structures had to be modified, so they were. This leaves an open question: will the modified flood control structures hold back rains from a stalled-out hurricane?

NOW IT WILL BE TESTED. RITA WILL STALL OVER THE SWAMP AND DUMP FROM A FOOT TO ALMOST THREE FEET OF RAIN.

If the Project fails to hold back or divert Rita's water, the resulting rise in the mainstem Mississippi will overtop all the NOLA levees, and with current added to the head of water, the levees will just go away, and New Orleans will become just another part of the bottom of a larger Lake Ponchartrain. The pumps will do no good, as they must work behind intact levees. After total levee failure, all the pumps could do, if they were started, would be to stir the mud on the bottom of the lake.

Rita will save us from our folly, by demonstrating to us once and for all why New Orleans can't be rebuilt on it's present site. The entire city will have to be either filled by about 25-30 feet of earth fill (probably the largest earth fill project ever attempted), or it will have to be relocated. All the wishful dreaming of a rebuilt city in the bowl it's in now is just that, a pipe dream, and Rita just took too big a toke and there's no more dope, so the politicians will just have to sober up and face the inevitable.

You can't fight Mother Nature, even though some still consider it.

Fools.

A microcosm of Hell

Was Jim's world. Fleeing from Galveston before the arrival of Hurricane Rita, he literally came within an inch of dying at the wheel of his wheezy old car.

His tale is a remarkable tale of survival in the Hell that is an uprooted population on the move.

It is also a tale of the absolute limits of endurance from all imaginable stresses upon a human body.

It is an amazing story.

It is a must read. You can either go to my preparedness blog, Paratus and read it or go to Jim's site and read it. Either way you will have been to school on a VERY important topic.

Go. Read. Now.

Sir Knight's tales

Sir Aaron has started sending me text messages from his quest into MS:

No new pics.  Saw many Tx Nat Guard convoys prepositiong ystrday.  Also saw TXU and FEMA convoys hding wst.

Then this followed:

Ellisville is ok now just lots of cleanup.  Pics to follow 2morrow. Possible Houston trip soon... Family there 2.

Cripes! The hurricane hasn't even struck and Sir Aaron is already contemplating a relief trip THERE. I'll bet a dollar to a donut that he's waaaaay ahead of FEMA on this one.

Rita takes aim

UPDATE: 092205 2045 PDT: Rita is moving more easterly than projected, and may actually spare the Galveston/Houston are much damage. The eastern TX coast is now in her gunsight, as is west and NW Louisiana. She could pass close enough to New Orleans to hammer that city flat for the second time.
Stay tuned. Here is the latest AccuWeather discussion.

*************************************************************************

...on Galveston, TX, and the Houston area, according to Accuweather. Galveston Island has a hurricane seawall structure, built after the Great Hurricane of 1900 leveled the island and killed thousands. At that time, the island, then only six feet above sea level, was raised to 16 feet. The seawall is supposed to be able to take a 15-foot storm surge and deflect most of the storm waves on top of that, but can it handle a 20-foot-plus surge and eyewall-wind-driven waves in the forties? Probably not.

Prepare your mind for a scene like New Orleans, only worse.

In the nightmare scenario, which is very close to becoming reality, that storm surge will roll up the Houston Ship Channel and create devastating damage there.

Not looking good.

FEMA better get this one right, or the Gulf Coast economy, ON WHICH EVERY ONE OF US DEPENDS, will be toast.