The Blog

2021-

2021-08-27 g
HOMICIDAL REALITY

The forecast track for Tropical Depression 9, now Hurricane Ida, issued with Advisory #1 at 11 AM on 26 August 2021 showed it reaching hurricane strength before making landfall in Louisiana. Mayor LaToya was not paying attention to Gulf of Mexico surface water temperature.

(If I lived in New Orleans, I'd get in my internal combustion engine vehicle (with family, pets and important papers), fill up the tank at the first open gas station, and head northwest immediately. I would not take IH 10 east or west because everyone else will be doing that. Even with heavy traffic, I'd reach Texas before dawn on Saturday (18 hours before the storm makes landfall) and then keep driving west or northwest to higher ground.)

New Orleans to hunker down for Ida as it's too late for mandatory evacuations, mayor says

"We do not want to have people on the road, and therefore in greater danger,” Mayor LaToya Cantrell said

Mayor LaToya Cantrell on Friday said that with little time left before Hurricane Ida reaches Louisiana, residents should get ready to hunker down and ride out the storm.

She told a news conference there wasn't enough time to establish the highway contraflow procedures necessary to move all residents out of the city before the storm's expected landfall Sunday afternoon.

"We are not calling for a mandatory evacuation because the time simply is not on our side. We do not want to have people on the road, and therefore in greater danger,” Cantrell said.

She reiterated that New Orleanians inside the city's levee protection system are safe, but said that residents outside of the levees were under a mandatory evacuation order and should get out as soon as possible.

"The situation is much more serious than it was six hours ago," said Cantrell, referring to the increasing intensity forecast of Ida, which is on a path to smash into the central Louisiana coast as a potentially catastrophic Category 4 storm.

Earlier Friday, Cantrell had issued mandatory evacuation orders for Venetian Isles and other parts of New Orleans outside of the hurricane protection system, while issuing a voluntary evacuation for the rest of city that sits inside of the levees.

Residents across southern Louisiana were taking precautions and in many cases leaving the area. Mandatory evacuation orders were in place in LaFourche, Terrebonne, St. Charles parishes and parts of Plaquemines and Jefferson parishes.

Cantrell said a shelter location is being prepared for people who cannot evacuate but who do not want to shelter in their homes. Cantrell said she would share more details on the location of that shelter soon.

Cantrell said the state had signed contracts with 125 coach buses in the event of a post-storm evacuation, which could be triggered by a combination of infrastructure damage and power outages.

Mindful of the disastrous post-storm evacuations in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, city and state officials are planning for "a very robust, very quick, post-storm evacuation," said Collin Arnold, the city's emergency preparedness director.

“That’s the biggest lesson learned, Katrina,” Arnold said. "That is on everybody's mind." (read more)

Time is not on our side,” Mayor Cantrell says contraflow cannot be set up so a mandatory
evacuation cannot be issued, but to shelter-in-place and hunker down. pic.twitter.com/GCgAtEvKAS

— FOX 8 New Orleans (@FOX8NOLA) August 27, 2021

______________________

Permission is hereby granted to any and all to copy and paste any entry on this page and convey it electronically along with its URL,
______________________