New Orleans, in shambles, looked at the bright side late yesterday, figuring the city had dodged a bullet when Hurricane Katrina jogged to the east before heading north around the eastern edge of Lake Pontchartrain...
Today, city officials are reassessing the situation... Levees that appeared to have held back the storm's waters are now breaking and the downtown is flooding, forcing WWL-TV to evacuate their headquarters on Rampart Street, 5 blocks from the Mississippi. The station crew has temporarily moved to the station's antenna facility in Gretna.
The 17th Street Canal levee has also broken. Marshal law has been declared in Jefferson Parish and there is word that new flooding has made all roads into and out of the city of New Orleans impassable.
Hundreds still are trapped on roof tops and waters are rising around the Louisiana Superdome, forcing rescue workers to take refuge on the upper decks of neighboring I-10.
Meanwhile, 300 airboats that are normally housed off the Florida Everglades are headed for New Orleans to help with water rescues.
PROFILE
- Explorer at Large
- Casey is a freelance adventure/travel writer and photographer. He was born in New Orleans and has lived and worked in Florida, South Carolina, Colorado, the Caribbean and British Columbia’s Gulf Islands. His eclectic background includes stints in radio and television as a news director, talk-show host and play-by-play announcer. His travels have taken him throughout the Caribbean — most notably the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Turks & Caicos and Haiti. His articles and photos have appeared in numerous national and international publications. He currently is working on a novel and on a history of Florida's barrier islands. Casey is married and has four children. He, his wife and two youngest children live in the Leeward Islands and spend time between northern Arizona and Washington State's Olympic Peninsula.