Boomer On The Ground: Dispatches from the Eye of Katrina - 12:00 08-28-2005 T Minus Katrina 24 hrs and Counting

By

Thomas B. Wallace

            I am sitting on my sofa, listening to the talking heads belabor the obvious and give us first hand videos of the pre-math of the storm. My home is located about 40 miles north of the “soup bowl” they are calling New Orleans, about 8 miles north of Lake Pntchartrain, which is a shallow lake – average depth about 14’ – and is also about the size of the State of Rhode Island. Just taking this opportunity to provide the reader with some sense of the topography around me, the lay of the land so-to-speak.

            Between my home and the lake, seven miles south there is a major interstate highway I-12 that has a bed that has an average height of 10 – 12 feet over the surrounding areas. In short, I am about 25 feet above sea level with a barrier between me and the largest body of water in the area of an additional 10-12 feet. Of course I say all this by way of excusing the inexcusable notion that I am planning to wait out this storm right where I am.

            There are, of course, several reasons for this. First is that before Katrina redefined hurricane intensity ratings by bumping up to 175 mph sustained surface winds, and becoming the first storm in recorded history that could conceivably be lassified a Category 6,  I had already made that decision since I had been released from my drilling rig to go home. Of course I have battened things down as much as I could given that the local Home Depot had a line about four hundred yards long of pickup trucks waiting to pick up slabs of plywood. Since I have no pickup truck, and since my windows are actually sectionals, I decided to settle for some duct tape to the insides, to act as sort of a safety catch should the winds build sufficiently to actually break the windows. Of course should a tornado embedded in the storm come my way this will do absolutely no good at all, but hey, its all a crapshoot in the end is it not?

            Where I live I am actually worried more about a tree falling on the house than I am either direct wind damage or flooding. The description above should show why I don’t worry so much about the flooding, but say nothing about why I am not especially worried about direct wind damage. That has to do with how my home is situated in the woods. I have a heavily wooded one acre lot that has, on its north side a line of trees about forty feet wide and roughly eighty feet tall. To the west is a similar line of trees only it is about a hundred yards through and eighty feet tall, while to the east there is a larger, intermittent series of forested breaks that stretches for approximately a mile; and finally, to the south is a similarly forested wind break of approximately one-half mile through. Specifically this means that my most vulnerable side is just north of me and between my main house and this line of trees there is a cottage that I rent out – currently vacant – that would more than likely break the fall of any of the larger trees that might fall. I have dwelt here now for 14 years and so far been through about 3 – 4 hurricanes and the surface winds right around my house have never reached more than about 35 mph. That being said, there is always a chance that a tornado can be spawned in the area and can track in my direction, but there will be absolutely nothing I can do about that were it to happen.

            This does not mean that I am totally sanguine about the possibilities that lie ahead. Neither New Orleans, nor the communities on the north shore have ever experienced a storm of this magnitude. As far as I can tell, no one in the continental United States has experienced a storm of this size and strength, so we are all going to be in this one together I am afraid.

            I plan, for as long as I can, to send out dispatches that describe this process, at least from my perspective. Now that may be interrupted by power outages, as well as a need to go back to my drilling rig for work, or even possibly to try and help those who have been devastated by this monster. However, I want to make one thing absolutely clear out front. There is no effort on the part of anyone in TPTB to either minimize or pretend that we are not confronting a major disaster at this point. Disaster preparedness officials from the President of the United States on down to the Mayor of New Orleans have pulled out all the stops to get people out of harms way and to provide them with adequate shelter if they cannot get out of the city. I say this because I want it to be absolutely clear that those who suffer at the hands of this storm do so because they chose to remain in harms way, including myself. The only regret I have is that my son, his wife and his children as trying to make it from the gulf coast over to either my place, or my daughter-in-law's mother's place in Baton Rouge. They are of course, since they could not get released early, fighting evacuation traffic to the north, then they will try to get to Bogalusa, then either continue on to Natchez, MS, then south to Baton Roufe, or they will come south from Bogalusa into Covington and come to my place. I honestly hope that is not a mistake but it is so hard to tell in this stage of the process. By no means do people want to get trapped on the highways when 150 mph winds come through the area.

            It is inevitable, in my opinion, that those who have made a psychosocial decision to question and second guess the decisions of any and all authority structures in our society,  will quickly begin to try to assign blame for this disaster, if it results in significant loss of life, on those who are responsible for directing evacuations and disaster planning. The fact is, aside from a decent evacuation plan, and trust me the evacuation plan that has been instituted is decent – roughly three quarters of New Orleans has already left – there is little that anyone can do to prepare for a storm like this.

            What happens from now, until this storm weakens, will be in the hands of God and those who remain in its path. At this point I want only to wish all those who are remaining behind because they are essential to providing shelters and hospitals, and the national guard that is assisting with evacuation, the police who are doing likewise, the essential workers to the hotels that are being used as shelters, God’s Speed, God’s Grace and God’s hedge against their injury. I will be posting more as the storm approaches and as it passes. I hope what readers I have will spread these dispatches around, so the real truth is available throughout.

            Right now, here the sun is shining and there is a freshening breeze from the east as the leading edges of the storm begin to approach us here. I ask everyone reading to pray for the people in this region. We will be praying for you as well…