2008 Woodie Awards
Louisiana, New Orleans brace against cresting of flooded Mississippi
Louisiana National Guard, hospitals and police are on high alert in case of more flooding.
By Martin R. Herrera
Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: Back Page
Originally published: 4/10/08 at 7:26 PM CSTLast update: 4/11/08 at 10:31 AM CST
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Teeming with all of the rainfall, the Mississippi River has swelled in its banks, reaching flood levels throughout its run to the Gulf of Mexico.
In anticipation, the city of New Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississippi, is carefully monitoring the situation even as several Louisiana parishes have declared a state of emergency.
The river is expected to crest 17 feet along the levees of the city on Wednesday.
Built to handle a maximum capacity of 20 feet, the levees' failure during Hurricane Katrina buried the city under water, causing widespread damage and loss of life.
In a prepared statement released April 7, Mayor Ray Nagin said the New Orleans Office of Emergency Management "is diligently monitoring the flood stages of the Mississippi River as well as the New Orleans levee system."
"Based on the current information ... there appears to be no notable threat to the New Orleans area at this time," the statement continued.
Orleans Parish, equivalent to a county, has not declared a state of emergency. At an April 6 press conference of the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, Gov. Bobby Jindall announced nine parishes had declared a state of emergency prompting the state to ready resources.
The declarations are a mere formality in the process to get assistance from the state should a local government need it.
In response, the Louisiana National Guard has been placed on alert, hospital readiness has been assessed and the Louisiana state police is providing aerial surveillance capabilities of the Mississippi River and levee systems. The governor also announced increased monitoring of the levee system by the Army Corps of Engineers, from three days a week to seven.
Although the declarations have been made, official requests for assistance have yet to come in.
In New Orleans, officials seemed comfortable with the situation. "Everyone is OK with the predicted levee levels," an official with the city's Office of Emergency Preparedness said by phone Monday.
The comment was repeated later in the mayor's statement that evening.
"All forecast models are predicting the river will crest at 17 feet on April 16, well below the maximum protection height of the New Orleans levees," the statement said.
Even though the data suggests this town, still recovering from the devastating effects of flooding in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, will be spared, officials are encouraging citizens to monitor media reports in the coming days.
Megan Harms with the Southeast Louisiana chapter of the American Red Cross echoed state and local officials that no official requests for assistance had been made, but the relief organization will be ready to respond if needed.
"It's always good to be prepared and, in the American Red Cross, that's what we do," she said.
For more information, go to http://www.redcross.org and click on preparedeness or http://www.ready.gov.
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Pam
posted 4/11/08 @ 6:07 AM CST
I heard on the radio today that they were going to open the spillway for the first time in 20 some odd years.
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