Speculation on effects and response? I'm willing to bet response in Texas is a little better
Well, they've already got troops in the area, so yeah.
(Galveston is around 6 hours' drive from NO.)
Can this actually damage New Orleans more, or will it just rinse off the rubble a little?
Well, they've just finished repairing the levee breaks. A storm surge of less than 3 ft. (I think the mayor said this morning) will be enough for the river to top the levees again, causing more levee damage and flooding the city in new places as well as reflooding the areas they've just drained. And then there's the repairs that've just been made to power poles, water mains and gas lines... those that *have* been repaired, as opposed to those that haven't been dry long enough to fix.
It'll be a setback.
Is there any infrastructure left to evacuate the remaining people with? or is that city, and all its remaining inhabitants, just to be written off?
I doubt they're writing off New Orleans -- it's already attracting big money land speculators.
I also don't think Rita's winds will be a major component of any disaster in New Orleans, unless it jogs north a few miles (which can happen).
Can a disaster on that scale happen anywhere closer to Rita's eye, or is the topography of New Orleans to blame for this special case?
On that scale? Hard to say. If a Cat 5 storm hits directly on Galveston, it'll be wiped clean in a way New Orleans wasn't -- the wind and the storm surge will simply topple buildings and sweep them off the island. But Galveston is nowhere near as large as New Orleans.
Houston, on the other hand, is just on the other side of Galveston, and is a major metropolis -- and is already overburdened with refugees from New Orleans. If they can't get bussed out in time, and the storm maintains a Cat 4/Cat 3 strength that far inland (which could happen, I think, depending), there will be lots of unpleasantness, especially in the weeks after the storm when the power's out, the phones don't work and not all the highways are passable. Starvation, heat stroke, septicemia, looting.
I remember cruising around looking for food after Frances last year, and it was pretty post-apocalyptic -- that was glancing blow from a Cat 3 storm. Some parts of Houston would probably be OK, but others would be a real mess.
Thinking of topography, too, it's not like it's below water level and surrounded by water, but it's not very high ground, either. East Texas is pretty swampy... flooding? Yeah, some. Not like New Orleans, but not something that'll run off in a couple hours. |
