Floodwalls and Levees

A little while ago, water began pouring over the floodwall at the Industrial Street Canal. Did I mention that Gustav was a Cat. 2 hurricane. Oh, I didn't, well then.

Hurricane Gustav is a Category 2 hurricane. These shiny new reinforced supposedly better floodwalls I believe are supposed to withstand a Cat. 3 hurricane, which Gustave was right before it made landfall, and which they originally predicated would be a 4 or 5 at landfall. But why dont' you see what FEMA had to say about the levee situation. I really truly thought that the plan was to build them high enough and strong enough (though breakage of the levee is not an issue right now, someone reported on the channel 6 website that she thought there was water coming under one of the floodgates) to withstand a Cat. 3. I can't get over this, seriously.

As the reporter is watching the water coming over "like a waterfall" they ask one of their "experts" what he thinks about the situation. Basically his response (not an exact quote) "They weren't built high enough. They must be about 15 feet, and they should be around 18 -20." But he was estimating, so I'm not saying that the levees are not high enough I don't know enough about how that works - what I am saying is that whatever they did they managed to still screw up the the wall somehow b/c Gustav is only a 2.

Updated to Add: I might have overreacted a little bit, as of right now the water is no longer pouring over the wall, so I guess it is ok. But I stand by the fact that the scene of that water coming over made me really nervous, and I was completely justified in being upset about it :)

On a more personal note, can't call anyone. My mom swore she'd call me this morning well before the hurricane hit. She isn't is La, rather MS. and the weather was still fairly bad there, but nothing like where my father and brother are. Last I heard 35,000 people are without power in St. Tammany parish. This is to be expected. I'm sure their power is out, and cell phone coverage might be interupted for a bit, but also I think there is just an overload of people calling. I couldn't get in touch with my sister in Northern La., probably b/c of this last reason. She is too far from the storm for it to be due to power/cell outages.

One last thing, my friend who lives in St. Landry parish stayed. This makes me SUPER nervous b/c the eye of the storm was headed more in that western direction, around Lafayette. As of about an hour or maybe two ago only 50 people were w/o power in that parish, but I think that was more due to the fact that the storm hadn't quite made it there yet. Honestly of all the people down there that I know, I am most worried about her. She lives very near the Atchafalaya River and her parents live right across the levee over there.