General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGen. Honore says new orleans needs to be evacuated due to massive infrastructure failure
no electricity for a million people, no water, no sewer system, no stores open due to lack of power.
all these issues will start to impact tomorrow when search and rescue is done.
(saw him on lawrence o'donnell)
SoCalDavidS
(9,998 posts)SergeStorms
(18,882 posts)Katrina, Ida, and countless other hurricanes hit the city, there's zero chance of evacuation afterward.
Wishful thinking is all it is.
DURHAM D
(32,595 posts)jimfields33
(15,456 posts)Maybe have it a destination that people go for short vacations. Its going to Cost another fortune to rebuild for what? The next major hurricane.
ancianita
(35,812 posts)Kaleva
(36,146 posts)I know there are those who cannot relocate because of they are not financially unable. Some choose not to move because of family ties and connections to the area so risking their lives and the lives of their loved ones is an acceptable risk.
Haggard Celine
(16,820 posts)the city is livable. People can live, uncomfortably, without electricity, but having no water or sewer system is too much. They need to get lots of extra help to get the water and sewer running again.
msongs
(67,193 posts)NCjack
(10,279 posts)of rescue. Send buses to New Orleans to collect people and take them to safe church buildings that can provide shelter, water, and food.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)NCjack
(10,279 posts)Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)Ilsa
(61,675 posts)How is this rebuild-hurricane cycle sustainable?
efhmc
(14,709 posts)It was gut wrenching. Horrible that it is happening again.
riversedge
(69,713 posts)Horrifying from the pics I saw.
998,000
Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the New Orleans metro area from 1950 to 2021. United Nations population projections are also included through the year 2035. The current metro area population of New Orleans in 2021 is 998,000, a 0.6% increase from 2020.
New Orleans Metro Area Population 1950-2021 | MacroTrends
https://www.macrotrends.net cities population
2naSalit
(86,048 posts)They are expecting triple digits for days, a lot of people will die from that with no AC. And with all that water, it's humid as hell.
Klaralven
(7,510 posts)Parish Councilman Byron Lee said the parish was working with the state transportation department Monday to finalize the plan, which would involve staging buses at the baseball stadium on Airline Drive in Metairie, then sending them around the parish to pick up residents at various locations, including the Alario Center in Westwego.
...
Almost the entire parish, however, was without power after a key Entergy transmission tower collapsed into the Mississippi River during the storm. All of New Orleans is without power as well, and it could take weeks for Entergy to restore service.
The hurricane also uprooted trees all across Jefferson, including ones that caused damage to the parishs water main, crippling the drinking water system. The system was lose 250,000 gallons per hour as of Sunday night, Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng said in an interview with WWL-TV.
https://www.nola.com/news/hurricane/article_31942430-09b2-11ec-af90-b3f01cfd9fe8.html
Population: 432,493 (2019)
wnylib
(21,146 posts)announcements, how do they get word out to people to not use the water? Or to meet at specified places for bus evacuations? Are cell phone towers working? Are they going around with megaphones making announcements?
Klaralven
(7,510 posts)Here, during an extended outage, all carriers worked for a while because they have battery backup at the cell tower. After several hours, two carriers went down and only one continued because they also had a backup generator at the cell tower.
The city hall and police station had backup generators, so they also put out extension cords and set up charging stations for the public to use. Some residents with generators also set up charging stations for their neighbors.
People who had old fashioned phones that work without AC power and which are connected by wires to the central office continued to have phone service, since that is all powered from the central office's backup battery and generator.
We've gone days without electricity due to storms and we've gone days without water due to a water main break. Being without water is worse.
wnylib
(21,146 posts)They can't be telephoning 900,000+ people.
Klaralven
(7,510 posts)You get it all on your smartphone.
LeftInTX
(24,546 posts)It's hot...residents are outside...word gets out...
Lots of boots on the ground...
It can be done
Word spreads...
Megaphones etc....
I don't think this huge evacuation is gonna happen...
However, there are some people who are gonna need to be evacuated...(Older people. People with health issues etc) They need to get those people out of there..
My hunch is most who stayed will probably stay..
You would be surprised what door to door can accomplish...
City of New Orleans has a population of 383,997. The focus for this type of operation is number of households...Which is usually no more than 1/2 the population...so we're down to 200,000 households within the city limits.
Some people live in apartments....
Some have already evacuated...
The larger population referred to is the metro area of For U.S. census purposes, the New OrleansMetairie metropolitan statistical area includes eight parishes: Jefferson, Orleans (coterminous with the city of New Orleans), Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist and St. Tammany.[10] Population 1.2 million..Number of households: 485,267
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_metropolitan_area
New Orleans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans
I live in Bexar County. Population: 2,003,554 Number of households: 646,352
Ferrets are Cool
(21,059 posts)liberal_mama
(1,495 posts)in Louisiana and I love taking road trips to New Orleans, even though it's a 20 hour drive from New York. It's a magical place. I hope this beautiful city will be okay.
ancianita
(35,812 posts)Evacuating is what the military needs to be the best in the world at, and now is the time to use its technical, logistical, manpower and machines to scale up evacuations for Americans, not just our troops in foreign lands.
I say go for it, General!
wnylib
(21,146 posts)Better than going to war somewhere. But, good grief. Biden will become known as the evacuation president.
Hope they can find places for the evacuees to go to. And plenty of masks.
Where will they put the people on ventilators? What a task, moving them and finding places for them.
ancianita
(35,812 posts)Climate change is here. Disasters all around. We have to wake up to the reality that there will never be a steady state time again. There will be constant transition for humans from here on out. That's the Anthropocene now. We need to look beyond now and prepare.
If human evacuations are what America does from here on out, so be it. We have a history of grateful nations in Europe because of that. We have a lot of nationalities of grateful people here, too. No one's had to evacuate us, but if Canada came to our aid, I'd leave the sunny dark covid hell of Florida and gratefully live there.
Anyway, what Biden is called is the last thing he worries about.
It's not what Biden is called. It's what Biden answers to.
I'm tired of leaders who just let humans down when it comes to the five basics -- food, shelter, clothing, medicine and education. To evacuate humans to those things after all the damage Big Corps has done on this planet makes the U.S. a good neighbor again.
Afghanistan is close in size to Texas. Look how Texans have been treated when a winter disaster hit. All seasons will intensify from now on. Look at how their corporate captured government fights against other state governments to stop their election processes. They have huge numbers of defense contractors who made careers in Afghanistan, just getting nothing done while sucking up the American tax dollar. The best way to foment fascism is to have non-troop baby cheneys running around helping corporations take over state houses.
We need to regain civilian command of this corporate contractor-infested military.
Republicans lost our civilian command and we need to make that command work.
If Biden does it because we are good at Big Scale Operations, so be it. If he does it through evacuations and through the maintaining or order on the high seas, we as a people are better off for that.
wnylib
(21,146 posts)being called the evacuation president and I am sure that he isn't either. My comment was tongue-in-cheek. I should have used an emoji.
Agree about the corporate military and the need to regain civilian control. In my lifetime, this goes all the way back to at least JFK and his power struggles with the military over Cuba and then Vietnam.
I was only 11 when Ike left office, but what I learned in the years after that about the people he appointed and his dealings in Cuba and Guatemala made me believe that his farewell comments about the military industrial complex were disingenuous.
ancianita
(35,812 posts)I was just sharing my opinion about how we shouldn't worry about him, but support what he's trying to do with the scale of government power that he has.
We've gotten used to eating this facsist elephant, one bite at a time, for so long, that we may never again get the chance to get out in front of the disasters that will come if Republicans cheat their way into minority rule.
We can never get too comfortable, as I fear California Democrats are getting over this minority recall of Newson.
Heartstrings
(7,349 posts)They have no power or water. They do have gas for the stove and a Weber grill so shell be cooking up everything she can from her fridge and freezer. Luckily she, her husband and all fur babies are safe!
And shell be going back to work tomorrow morning at Tulane where her main function at this time was, and continues to be, finding beds for the unvaccinated covidiots. Its devastating and hot as hell.
Shell take any good vibes sent her way!
herding cats
(19,549 posts)She's an essential part of the city and she's in my thoughts. I wish her the best in the many trying days ahead.
Heartstrings
(7,349 posts)Haggard Celine
(16,820 posts)New Orleans can survive this like they have survived through all the awful epidemics they've had to deal with in their 300 year history. People who could afford it would leave the city when yellow fever, malaria, cholera, and smallpox outbreaks would happen, not to mention the fires and floods and hurricanes. If they stay without water or sewer for any length of time, diseases will spread and they'll have another plague. I wish your friend and the rest of the city all my good vibes.
Heartstrings
(7,349 posts)wnylib
(21,146 posts)Heartstrings
(7,349 posts)And Tulane is having plumbing issues as well. It was chaotic with unvaccinated covid hospitalizations before Ida, now itll be a disaster
..
My daughter and I were fortunate to have visited our friend for a few days the end of June. My daughter had never been to NOLA. We had much hesitation because of covid but we had each had both our vaccines and took masking seriously. Im glad she got to see the city before Ida hit.
TygrBright
(20,733 posts)National Guard and possibly active military are already being mobilized to assist in securing and locking down key assets and patrolling to keep looters out (they won't entirely succeed but they will do a good job and keep the worst at bay.)
Red Cross and other emergency services will be mobilized to bus people to holding facilities operated by FEMA, churches, charities, etc.
Phased evacuation of key vulnerable groups will be handed over to State and Federal authorities, with facilities in nearby and regional cities being cleared and made available.
FEMA will set up multiple sites for evacuees to register, connect with family, etc., file insurance claims and disaster assistance claims, etc.
Basically, we'll see what would have happened had there been competent people in charge back in 2005.
Things will be complicated by Covid, though.
And there will be a massive need for donations, volunteers, etc.
And all the while, the GOPpies and the RWNJs will be doing their damndest to submarine the process and make everything look bad so they have something to blame on Biden, Democrats, etc.
wearily,
Bright
ancianita
(35,812 posts)But none of that is sexy news to a media that loves infotainment dramas. News grooms people to not want to see the hard work; news itself loves glory seeker talk, not the hard work of fixing disasters.
When government goes in, more gets done and disaster capitalist opportunists can't muck around.
LeftInTX
(24,546 posts)They can hand out drinking water...They did that down here in Texas....It was well done too...People had burst pipes and there were no plumbers because they were in such high demand. Some people did not have water for almost a month....
The sewer and shower stuff will just have to suck and wait. You can use nonpotable water to flush...
herding cats
(19,549 posts)Unless it's a gravity feed system, which it appears due to their low elevation it is not, it just comes out either in a lower drain in the home or at best at an open clean out, or sewer main outside. They're looking at a lot of human waste backing up and flowing all over the city.
This is a sanitation nightmare.
LeftInTX
(24,546 posts)Yeah, we just dump water when it won't flush....
herding cats
(19,549 posts)Even with that if you're on a city system once the line fills up, at some point it will backup and flow out without pumps to move the waste into the treatment plants. There's only a finite amount the systems can handle before they're beyond capacity. There, considering the rain and flooding and lack of pumps already, I'd assume they're starting out full and every bit of waste is going to be overflow. It's a sanitation nightmare in a city of nearly a million people.
I read they lost the major transmission towers, not just the smaller lines within the electrical grids, but the main lines which feed each individual grid within the city. Once those are repaired then they begin the onerous work of repairing each individual grid outage. It's not a small endeavor they're facing by any means. It makes our winter outage look like a walk in the park as far as repairs to the transmission lines go. My heart breaks for the people there and what they're facing now.
dumbcat
(2,120 posts)I'm in a suburban area with one acre lots up on a hill of solid rock. We all have septic systems. Since I am on some particularly solid rock, we use a Low Pressure Dosing System for the outflow of our septic tanks. Our third tank, where the relatively clear liquids collect, is pumped by a sump pump up to a drainage field that seeps into the thin layer of soil and evaporates, rather than leaching down into the lower soil (rock). Without electricity for the sump pump, our septic system backs up and fails within a few days.
During the Texas Freeze in Feb we lost power for five days. It would have been a problem, but we also lost all water and the exterior septic tank feed froze up before lack of electricity became a problem. We ended up abandoning our house and going to my son's house after four days once the roads cleared up enough to risk a drive down the hill.
I'm working on being better prepared next time. I can't even imagine what the folks in New Orleans are going through.
IronLionZion
(45,256 posts)there are downed wires all over the place and they probably don't have sophisticated ability to shut it off only in specific locations. I don't know this for a fact, just speculating.
LeftInTX
(24,546 posts)Good news is that crews can get in, as opposed to Katrina where everything was flooded...
I watched a live feed from one of the local news...and there is a bunch of debri...NOLA has lots of vegetation and lots downed trees that need to be cleared..
One live feed showed a reporter with a dash cam driving around touring and surveying. He went over the Huey Long Bridge...He was driving past a WalMart, then on the other side, he was driving through what looked like a more rural, wooded area.....The roads were clear in both areas. He was on Hwy 90.
I didn't get to see more of the video, cuz I had a meeting...
IronLionZion
(45,256 posts)I lived in Maryland during the 2012 Derecho and we had no power in whole cities for 7 days. For similar reasons: downed trees and power lines all over the place. In some cases they could isolate it by neighborhood so a few streets over would have power. Not sure about the capabilities in NoLA for that.
wnylib
(21,146 posts)IronLionZion
(45,256 posts)If they have capabilities to identify which neighborhoods or streets are impacted to isolate, they shut it off just for them. But when it's a hurricane with downed trees and wires everywhere, they shut it off for the whole city and surrounding area to be safe until crews can check it out.
Jetheels
(991 posts)the aftermath could be even worse.
herding cats
(19,549 posts)The aftermath is long and gruesome for those left in the wake. Be it fire, flooding, tornado, hurricanes, or whatever. It's the aftermath which eats you bite by bit daily.
Rhiannon12866
(202,970 posts)Retired Lieutenant General Russel L. Honoré, former commander of the Joint Task Force for Hurricane Katrina, gives Lawrence O'Donnell his assessment of what the emergency response needs to be as Hurricane Ida left more than a million without power. Aired on 08/30/2021.
msongs
(67,193 posts)Rhiannon12866
(202,970 posts)LeftInTX
(24,546 posts)Until electricity can get restored. My friend worked for FEMA and well, they're basically "last resort"....They will probably provide large generators to shelters etc....
Even during Katrina, FEMA sent evacuees to military bases, not hotels...
https://factcheck.afp.com/us-emergency-agency-not-providing-free-hotel-rooms-storm-hit-texas
Rhiannon12866
(202,970 posts)But it sure sounds like it'll be a long process.
Joinfortmill
(14,235 posts)Our country's infrastructure is a mess.
Rhiannon12866
(202,970 posts)Treefrog
(4,170 posts)COVID will like this.
róisín_dubh
(11,784 posts)with the Dutch to sort this out. I know the New Orleans gov has worked with the Netherlands in the past...but you know, maybe move things along a little faster? I've spent a ton of time in the Netherlands and when there's a big winter storm, I go to bed knowing that maybe the trains won't run, but I likely won't die in floods. The Dutch government transformed the country after the '53 storms.
LeftInTX
(24,546 posts)&t=2s
I personally don't know how long it takes to "fix it", but I do know that some areas hit by hurricanes can be without power for weeks.
The power company that serves the region said it could be weeks before some hard-hit areas see power restored. The power company, New Orleans-based Entergy, says it is working to provide backup power for water and sewer services, and the city says it is using its own generators at drainage pumping stations, but its not clear how long those efforts can sustain.
More than 11,000 Entergy workers, supplemented by 25,000 workers from at least 32 states and the District of Columbia, were working to restore power. As officials begin to assess damage, power will restored in a way that gets service to the greatest number of customers as safely and quickly as possible, Entergy said.
But the company faces a massive challenge. As of early Monday, 216 substations, 207 transmission lines and more than 2,000 miles of transmission lines were out of service, the company said. One transmission tower that spans the Mississippi River and had withstood Hurricane Katrina was felled during Ida, Entergy said.
https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-and-nature-new-orleans-hurricane-matthew-396225921d3485d98dd94d32110ad42d