Katrina Update #9

August 29, 2005; 10:16 PM

We heard from Coop. He rode out the storm in the apartment above the bar's kitchen.

I found the following online, which is the closest clue I have found as to what the area around our house might be like:

Driving through uptown
Monday, 1 p.m.

Uptown did not see the magnitude of flooding that struck other parts of the city, although the lack of operable pumping stations revealed the usual drainage weaknesses in areas such as Fontainebleau and Napoleon Avenue near Memorial Medical Center. Large bodies of water gathered in those areas, making them impassable by vehicle, with a number of automobiles flooded to the top of the doors.

The rest of Uptown did not suffer much street flooding, but was hammered by Katrina's winds. A driving tour of Uptown is very difficult in a truck and impossible in a car. Large trees block every major thoroughfare at some point, as they do the vast majority of neighborhood side streets. At many corners, trees block three of four options, forcing a driver to turn back and try another route. Negotiating a route through neighborhoods is frustrating and time-consuming, requiring stops to move everything from tree limbs to portable toilets knocked over in the middle of the road. Some homes even lost brick chimneys, which lay shattered in the street.

Most routes into Uptown are severely blocked at some point. We made it up Napoleon by driving the wrong way, but were cut off by fallen trees. Ducking into neighborhoods was no better, requiring more abandonment of one-way signs in an effort to get through. The tree debris is reminiscent of Tropical Storm Cindy, although in Katrina virtually every street is blocked in more than one place by large, uprooted trees.

But those streets that are passable carry another risk: large numbers of roofing nails on the ground. While there were few Uptown homes to lose their rooftops completely, a number had substantial shingle damage and many had large tree branches resting on the roof. The nails are everywhere and one family said they had been picking them up all day.

We worked our way down streets such as Cadiz and Jena, finally making it to Prytania. Businesses in the small downtown near Prytania and Upperline suffered moderate damage, mainly to large windows. Some, such as the Kingpin Bar, lost a large number of shingles.

Compared to the trees, houses did fare much better, with some suffering almost no damage while on other streets almost every house had at least minimal roof damage. We only saw one home completely destroyed, an old home under renovation on Constance near Bellecastle.

Power lines are down everywhere or were sheared off and are twisting in the wind. Power poles were cracked in half near Audubon Park, where a massive oak uprooted, pulling up part of the street as it fell on a large home on Audubon Street. While the lines did not seem that dangerous Monday with the entire power grid knocked out, they could present a serious risk as more power comes back online. We saw one man on Dublin Street simply grab a powerline hanging down over the middle of the street, which, at another time, could be fatal.
We noted that street flooding picked up again headed up Carrollton as we got closer to Claiborne, but it only extended about four blocks from Claiborne into the Carrollton area neighborhoods. Still, the power lines were a mess and the trees were just as bad. The limited blocks of flooding are deep enough to stall a vehicle - and water is not subsiding due to the pumping stations not operating. Unless that problem is solved, water could linger for days blocking Uptown thoroughfares.

Crossing from Uptown into Mid-City is not possible at Carrollton, Jefferson Davis or Broad. The Carrollton underpass at Interstate 10 is flooded, as are the approaches to the Jeff Davis and Broad Street overpasses. On the lake side of I-10, those approaches are indeed lakes.

Our current plan is to sit tight for at least the next couple of days and see what happens. Due to the path of the storm, the soonest we would think about heading south would be Wednesday - but I doubt they will allow people back in the city by then. More likely is that we will meet up with Janis at her friend's house near St. Louis on Saturday and possibly head to our friend Keith's house near Hammond, LA once we can get hold of him and know he has electricity. From there, we can scoot in and out of the city (or crawl, more likely) as necessary.

I'll probably only send an update in the evenings from now on, unless something newsworthy happens other than what you can hear on the cable channels. For any of you who need to get hold of me, I am staying with Dan Cruz in Racine. His phone number is (262) 898-0427. My cell phone works fine for outgoing calls, but not so good for incoming, since those get routed through switches in Louisiana.

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