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Fury creeps to New Orleans
By TERRY TOMALIN, BRYAN GILMER and DAVID BARSTOW © St. Petersburg Times, published September 27, 1998 "The situation is serious," New Orleans Mayor Marc H. Murial said. "It is grave. But we know that in the last 12 hours the path and course have changed. In the next 12 hours the path and course may change again." The National Weather Service expressed no such optimism. It called Georges "an immediate threat to life in New Orleans." The concern here was heightened because Georges is expected to stall at the worst possible moment -- just as it reaches New Orleans. With much of the city below sea level, a stalled hurricane could mean severe flooding. Yet many of the 1.6-million residents in greater New Orleans will be unable to evacuate because of jammed roads. At 11 p.m., Georges was 275 miles southeast of New Orleans, continuing its west-northwest trek across the Gulf of Mexico with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph. Georges' center was expected to reach the mouth of the Mississippi River, 90 miles southeast of New Orleans, early Monday. By then, the hurricane is expected to be a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 115 mph. Forecasters predicted seas of 15 to 20 feet. On Canal Street, 4 feet above sea level, Bobby Eason, 56, pounded plywood over the windows of his 75-year-old house Saturday. A university professor, Eason has lived on the gulf for 31 years. He has watched many a hurricane come and go. "They always miss where I live," Eason said, driving another nail. "But I have a bad feeling about this one. This storm is mystical. It seems destined to hit this city." New Orleans officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for a few thousand people living outside the city's protective levees. Residents within the levee system were asked to consider evacuating, too. "Those citizens who have a way are urged to evacuate Orleans Parish," Murial said at a City Hall news conference. "We can't delay any longer. We urge you to leave now." But it appeared too late for a large-scale evacuation. There simply is no way to quickly move 1.6-million people out of harm's way on the city's limited, flood-prone highway system. Bordered by salt-water swamps, lakes and the Mississippi River, New Orleans has few major escape routes, and two of them have major problems to begin with. Interstate 10 to Baton Rouge is under construction, and parts of U.S. 90 remained flooded from heavy rains last weekend. By late Saturday, traffic was jammed on both routes, though 175 state troopers were called in to keep things flowing. David and Wendy Brier, visiting for a medical convention, were among those trapped in New Orleans. Their flight home to Massachusetts was canceled. "The interstate is packed, so what else can we do?" David Brier asked. Some major escape routes, including I-10, were to be closed altogether this afternoon. With evacuation going slow, city leaders focused on defensive measures. Bridges over canals were sandbagged. Levee floodgates were closed tight. Five shelters opened. A state of emergency was declared. Gay Pride Fest was cut short. A convention for 10,000 petroleum engineers was canceled. City offices and schools were ordered closed Monday. The archbishop of New Orleans announced that Roman Catholics were relieved of their obligation to attend Mass today. In 1965, a Category 3 hurricane named Betsy made landfall within 20 miles of New Orleans, killing 75 people. Since then New Orleans has worked to strengthen its levee system, which dates back to the late 19th century. Today, 130 miles of concrete and earthen levees protect New Orleans from the Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain and several major canals. In places, the levees are 30 feet high, broken only by steel floodgates. Some 21 huge pumping stations can suck a half-inch of water an hour from the city. "The city is like a teacup. When it floods we have to pump our own water out," said Capt. Craig Boudreaux of the New Orleans Parish Levee District. Many residents here, such as Wynell Henry, 41, have rock-solid faith in the levee system. "I'm not worried about this storm," said Henry, out for a Saturday evening stroll with his wife and son. "I've lived through Betsy and Camille and our levees are in much better shape now." Or perhaps not. Disaster officials here are gambling that Georges will not slow down as it makes landfall. Computer models have shown that a Category 3 storm moving at 5 to 7 mph would leave much of New Orleans under eight feet of water. "Remember, New Orleans can handle a fast (moving) Category 3 storm, but if it slowed down we could be in real trouble," said Charlie Ireland, a senior emergency official here. And that's the problem: Forecasters expect Georges to slow significantly as it nears land and runs into interference from two high pressure systems. From its current speed of 12 mph, Georges was expected to slow to about 7 mph after landfall. If so, New Orleans would be subjected to more than 24 hours of intense pounding and rain -- the very scenario that computer models suggest will cause major failures in the levee defenses. With hurricane-force winds extending outward up to 125 miles from Georges' eye, hundreds of other communities along the north coast of the Gulf of Mexico made storm preparations. Hurricane warnings were posted from Morgan City, La., to Panama City, Fla. Tropical storm warnings extended as far east as St. Marks, Fla. In Mississippi and Alabama, coastline evacuations along the coastline were well under way. Many on the Gulf Coast have a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder from the invasions of other storms. Hurricane Frederic struck Sept. 13, 1979, its center coming ashore in Mobile, Ala., crippling the city's shipyards and wrecking homes and businesses in three states. In tiny Fort Morgan, at the mouth of Mobile Bay, Fire Chief Bob McCarthy said officers were going door to door to alert everyone to evacuate. If anyone refuses to leave, he said, "We tell them to give us the name of their next-of-kin." Over the past five years, Mississippi's coastal counties have been transformed by the arrival of 11 shoreline casinos, an investment of billions of dollars. On any given day, 40,000 or so tourists come to gamble. The casinos were closed Thursday, but this could be the first test of how they withstand a major hurricane. The Copa Casino in Gulfport is on a 503-foot cruise ship. The other 10 are built on enormous barges, some three football fields long. Some are moored to steel pilings, a design that theoretically allows each barge to rise some 20 feet but stay in place during even a Category 4 hurricane. "It's called physics," said Rob Wyre, general manager of the Grand Casino in Gulfport. "We have to get ready to let the barge rise with what is going to be a fairly large storm surge." Even so, no one was quite sure how the casinos would fare against huge waves and high winds. Further to the east, Florida Panhandle residents felt increasing confidence Saturday that they would escape the Georges' worst. Many ignored calls for evacuation. "The weather guys, they use the computers to build a lot of models, but they never actually know what it's going to do," said Doug Booker, 30, sipping Jack Daniels and Coke at Dirty Joe's on Pensacola Beach. "You stay aware. You plan what you're going to do if it comes. But you don't lose it."
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EW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Georges today took aim at this city, where hundreds of thousands of residents could only hope that a century-old system of levees would protect them from forecasted 120-mph winds, 15-foot storm surges and up to 20 inches of rain.
