Check out the National Doppler Radar Loop and the Geostationary Satellite Northwest Atlantic Visible Loop to watch the remnants of Hurricane Katrina heading north, now a mere tropical depression.
We thought it would be a disaster, then we thought it was oversensationalized media hype, and after a bit of a delay, it turned out to be a disaster after all. Levees have broken, pumps and sandbags have failed, New Orleans is flooded, the water is rising, looters run rampant, martial law has been declared, and the city is being completely evacuated. The water will not stop rising until it is at level with Lake Pontchartrain.
Here in DC, all is quiet but for a strong wind and a few isolated tornado warnings. More weblog entries on the aftermath:
- Continued updates from The Times-Picayune and WWLTV.
- Capital Weather: The Day After.
- Metroblogging New Orleans: 1st-hand Account from Michael Siu, a New Orleans Photographer.
- Sacra Doctrina: Katrina Relief.
- OKCalvin: Some SMS Working. He’s gotten in touch with relatives in the area, and they’re safe.
- Michael Totten: Lake New Orleans.
- Boingboing.net has a superb collection of links.
- Kathryn Cramer has collected satellite imagery to compare against existing aerial photos of the affected regions. I was in the process of doing the same with Google Earth and Maps, but she and her collaborators have done it better.
- Buzzmachine: Should New Orleans be Rebuilt? Me, I think it should be rebuilt, but on thick stilts with deep pilings. Also, no more levees and pumps; perhaps Newer Orleans infrastructure can be at one with Lake Pontchartrain, with canals and gondolas, like Venice or Delft. Wouldn’t that be cool? You’d barely be able to tell where the city ends and the suburban bayous begin. You could call them suburbayous.
- Before-and-After satellite imagery of New Orleans.