New Orleans: Emergency Declared - Levees?
BREAKING NEWS (7 PM): Louisiana has already declared a State of Emergency and has mobilzed the National Guard, according to CNN on-air and this Marketwatch article, at least five days in advance of the possible landfall of major Hurricane Gustav.
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New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was just interviewed on CNN. He stated:
- Evacuation, if declared, will be at 72 hours and it will be mandatory if the storm surge is above the levees (17 feet) and/or a Category 2 storm bound for the city.
- They won't repeat the mistake of thinking the Federal government will rescue citizens.
- While he is "catiously optimistic" about the levees, he has no idea whether they will hold
As of this hour, both the AccuWeather (red) and NHC (yellow) forecasts show the storm approaching New Orleans as a Category 3 storm on Labor Day (screenshot shown below from our Google tracker).
That first point disagrees with this article, which says Cat 3.
As to the levees, as you know, I've done many articles on this. In June, NOAA declared the city's levees could not withstand a Category 2 hurricane. While I'd say I'm less "cautiously optimistic" than the Mayor, it's still 5 days out and a lot could happen to the forecast before Labor Day (afterall, it was only 3 days out when Katrina was said to be bound for the city).
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