Aftermath of Isaac. Where is the Compassion for Plaquemines Parish, Braitewaite & Kentsville? And, WORRIES ON LESLIE

Isaac's Legacy

"Fears more bodies could be found" said the Coroner with reference to the bodies of two people found in their kitchen in a flooded home after some of the waters had receded. There is sadly, a big chance that more bodies will indeed be found when the waters recede and the search for bodies is over.

Isaac's Legacy is the same legacy of most large, wet hurricanes that slam into the Upper Gulf Coast, one of flooded homes, bayous and levee failures.

No, it was not Katrina. The 9th Ward did not flood. Plaquesmines Parish flooded... and that is just as tragic. Lives were washed away, homes were destroyed, businesses that JUST opened still recovering from Katrina were destroyed again.......   Braithwaite, a nice little town is now a National name.... as is Jesse Shaffer who with the help of his father rescued people at the height of the storm.

 http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2012/08/hurricane_isaac_rescues_in_pla.html

What does bother me and bothers me a lot is that many newsmen and people on TWC while covering the story sanctimoniously kept reminding the viewers that these people had been told to leave. Shepherd  Smith went on a rant while interviewing Jesse Shaffer as to why he stayed, why did people stay, etc... etc... the same way several women on camera mets at TWC that I can't remember their names kept reminding the viewing public "they were told to evacuate" in sort of a smug voice as if to say "well it's their fault" rather than showing compassion.

The people in Nola in low lying areas were told to evacuate also. There was a lot of compassion shown for them, less for the poor, hard working, simple folk who live and have spent their whole lives in places like Plaquemines Parish and other nearby parishes.

I'll never understand why Mayor Nagin was practically crucified after Katrina. I watched that speech live on my TV. I'm sorry, when the Mayor of a big city tells the viewers IF they stay to keep an axe in their house so they can hack through the rooftops and get to the roof to call for help... I think he made it pretty clear. When people were told IF they stayed in New Orleans, a city with many parts below sea level, to write their social security number on their arm with a waterproof marker so next of kin could be notified when their bodies were found...  I think they made it really clear and yet the world felt terrible for the 9th Ward and other areas in New Orleans where people lost homes and many lost their lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d06LvCboKrU   Nagin speaking in an interview..

Why is there less compassion for simple, creole folk who stayed in a much smaller storm than Katrina in homes that had never flooded in a storm the strength of Isaac?

Katrina was a Major Hurricane.
Isaac was a minor hurricane, barely a hurricane.

People stayed based on many reasons and got to tell you it's a lot harder and more costly to get to higher ground from the very tip of the Mississippi River than it was to get out of New Orleans north of I-10. A friend who was upset that so many people were staying in New Orleans in the face of a Major Hurricane told me around 2 AM the night before Katrina he would have gotten his family and walked out, towards safety if he had to in search of help rather than stay. I argued the point at the time, I know what it is to be a single mother, preparing for a hurricane without money and feeling overwhelmed. He kept saying "people can walk if they have to, get OUT" and looking back he was right. He really was.... All things considered you can walk out of New Orleans towards the I-10 and find a hurricane shelter. It is a much shorter walk. I've been to New Orleans a lot, I know it well. To be at the tip of the Mississippi River, surrounded for miles and miles by bayou country is a different story.

So, my question here is where is the compassion for those people down in the bayou?

Is there some bias against simple, country folk vs big city people? New Orleans is glamorous and one of America's favorite cities... vs little towns like Braitwaite or Waveland in Mississippi who took the brunt of Katrina's winds and rain vs a levee failure in New Orleans.  Had the levees worked the way the people hoped and trusted, there would have been no Katrina tragedy in New Orleans.

I think Mayor Nagin gave one heck of a speech before Katrina, he scared the living daylights out of me and I was in Miami at the time.

I just find the way we view things differently somehow.

Even after Katrina I heard people living in Miami... talking on how stupid people are to live in a city that is below sea level. I stared a lot... afraid to open my mouth up to idiots lest I become one as the saying goes. But, even so there was compassion and concern.

I'm concerned there is a lack of concern for people in Braithwaite and places like Leakesville that are still being threatened with floods and a dam failure.

We spent close to a gazillion dollars repairing  the levees in New Orleans, yet all the other small towns nearby have projects on "back order" to fix theirs ... and what about those towns up river and far from the coastline?

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/30/13565654-evacuations-continue-as-isaac-is-downgraded-to-tropical-depression?lite

Picture from the link above:



This sad image of two children waiting to go to a shelter is an example of how disaster will find you anywhere.

Kentsville is far inland as the crow flies in Bayou county. Way up north of New Orleans, where they should have been safe from Isaac's wrath. Should their parents have evacuated? Should all of Louisiana moved to Wyoming for the hurricane season?

Do we care about the people who live in Kentsville as much as we worry on the people who live in New Orleans, New York and those big glamorous cities?

Logically it was a safe place to ride out a storm far up in Kentsville and logically a Category 1, a very minimal weak Category 1 should not have done the destruction it did to Plaquemines Parish even being so far to the south in a spit of land sticking out into the Gulf of Mexico.

Would you have evacuated for a Category 1 Hurricane that most of the time people were preparing was only a Tropical Storm? It's a long ride out of there I may add..

Maybe the fault lies with the way we cover these storms. Isaac had the lowest barometric pressure of a tropical storm/category 1 hurricane practically on record yet the winds were not seen as being that strong. It was attributed to the size and not to the strength. And, in reality it was about the size and the tons of water he had been carrying with him half way across the world..or a good third of the way it seemed... from Africa. 

Maybe we need to stop hyping old storms and start focusing on the dangers inherent in each new storm.

Maybe we need to be less judgemental and more forgiving across the board, be it in a small bayou town or a town way up river that should have been a safe haven for people who didn't want to live along the coast.

Maybe we should get it better next time... you think?

I know I was worried on the flooding, but I am just a small voice writing on my blog.

Others in the media should better prepare people for the reality and rather than compare Isaac to Katrina with all it's inherent hype, they should have compared it to Allison. But, then again most people don't remember the tragedy of Tropical Storm Allison, a wet, slow moving tropical storm... and it's easier to scream KATRINA and get everyone's attention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Allison

A small quote from the story on wikipedia:

"Tropical Storm Allison was a tropical storm that devastated southeast Texas in June of the 2001 Atlantic hurricane season. The first storm of the season, Allison lasted unusually long for a June storm, remaining tropical or subtropical for 15 days. The storm developed from a tropical wave in the northern Gulf of Mexico on June 4, 2001, and struck the upper Texas coast shortly thereafter. It drifted northward through the state, turned back to the south, and re-entered the Gulf of Mexico. The storm continued to the east-northeast, made landfall on Louisiana, then moved across the southeast United States and Mid-Atlantic. Allison was the first storm since Tropical Storm Frances in 1998 to strike the northern Texas coastline.^[1]

The storm dropped heavy rainfall along its path, peaking at over 40 inches (1,000 mm) in Texas. The worst flooding occurred in Houston, where most of Allison's damage occurred: 30,000 became homeless after the storm flooded over 70,000 houses and destroyed 2,744 homes. Downtown Houston was inundated with flooding, causing severe damage to hospitals and businesses. Twenty-three people died in Texas. Along its entire path, Allison caused $5.5 billion ($7.1 billion 2012 USD) in damage and 41 deaths. Aside from Texas, the places worst hit were Louisiana and southeasternPennsylvania."

We need to get it better next time. And, even then it's hard to say which small town up river will be the one that has the worst flooding.

So, that's my "rant" on Isaac and the media coverage of Isaac and what I perceive as a lack of compassion for the people in the small bayou towns who stayed for a borderline Hurricane and for people up the river far from the dangerous storm surge. Also, remember... Key West did not order a mandatory evacuation for Isaac, based on it's size and many other things. And, Key West would not have had the damage they had in Louisiana and parts of Key West are ironically much higher than most people realize. That's why the cemetery was moved inland to higher ground, after the original one was washed away on the southern edge of the island years and years ago.

As for Tropical Storm Leslie... I am worried. lt's hard to trust a five day forecast graphic when the wind probs are listed for islands to the west in the Caribbean far form the five day cone.

Discussion shows they are worried too, I highlighted quotes from their own discussion.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT2+shtml/310849.shtml?

"BECAUSE OF THE COLLAPSE IN THE STEERING FLOW...LESLIE

IS EXPECTED TO TURN NORTHWARD BUT SLOW DOWN CONSIDERABLY BY DAYS 4
AND 5.  THE TRACK GUIDANCE IS IN GOOD AGREEMENT ON THIS SCENARIO...
BUT THERE HAS BEEN A NOTICEABLE SOUTHWESTWARD SHIFT ON DAYS 4 AND
5.  THE NEW NHC FORECAST IS THEREFORE SLOWER AND FARTHER WEST OF
THE PREVIOUS FORECAST AT THE LATTER END OF THE FORECAST PERIOD...
BUT IT IS STILL EAST OF THE MODEL CONSENSUS TVCA ON DAY 5."

PROBABILITIES ARE GIVEN IN PERCENT                                  
X INDICATES PROBABILITIES LESS THAN 1 PERCENT                       
PROBABILITIES FOR 34 KT AND 50 KT ARE SHOWN AT A GIVEN LOCATION WHEN
THE 5-DAY CUMULATIVE PROBABILITY IS AT LEAST 3 PERCENT.             
PROBABILITIES FOR 64 KT ARE SHOWN WHEN THE 5-DAY CUMULATIVE         
PROBABILITY IS AT LEAST 1 PERCENT.                                  


  - - - - WIND SPEED PROBABILITIES FOR SELECTED  LOCATIONS - - - -  

               FROM    FROM    FROM    FROM    FROM    FROM    FROM 
  TIME       06Z FRI 18Z FRI 06Z SAT 18Z SAT 06Z SUN 06Z MON 06Z TUE
PERIODS         TO      TO      TO      TO      TO      TO      TO  
             18Z FRI 06Z SAT 18Z SAT 06Z SUN 06Z MON 06Z TUE 06Z WED

FORECAST HOUR    (12)   (24)    (36)    (48)    (72)    (96)   (120)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
LOCATION       KT                                                   

BERMUDA        34  X   X( X)   X( X)   X( X)   X( X)   1( 1)   4( 5)

SAINT MAARTEN  34  X   X( X)   X( X)   1( 1)   3( 4)   1( 5)   X( 5)

ST KITTS-NEVIS 34  X   X( X)   X( X)   X( X)   3( 3)   X( 3)   X( 3)

BARBUDA        34  X   X( X)   X( X)   2( 2)   3( 5)   X( 5)   1( 6)

ANTIGUA        34  X   X( X)   X( X)   1( 1)   3( 4)   X( 4)   X( 4)

GUADELOUPE     34  X   X( X)   X( X)   1( 1)   2( 3)   X( 3)   X( 3)

$$                                                                  
FORECASTER BERG                                                   

See what I mean?

Makes me go hmmmm... ummmmmnn and then I worry.

That's a big storm size wise moving WNW and everyone better watch it carefully not because it is Isaac or Allison or Katrina... because it is Leslie.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPU8OAjjS4k (an old favorite song to listen to while watching Leslie loop)

Besos Bobbi