The above may work if the level of the lake is currently above its "normal" level due to the effects of the hurricane and will "drop" with time. Under this senario, the water level in the city will never drop below the "normal" level of the lake and still leave water in the streets. I guess the theory is that the pumps will be able to handle it from that point. However, you cannot change the fact that New Orleans is a bowl. As posted previously:
Well I would like to think that they thought about it realized that it might not work and it would be better to save those that they could. Thats what I would like to think.
They have limited time to drop water levels. People trapped are dying right now. A human can go how many days without water. Very sad. Let's pray they plug that gap and get those pumps pumping asap.
It looks like there was some miscommunication about what the helicopters were suppose to be doing. http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_08.html#075278 The expected surge stems from a failure to execute a plan to dump sandbags via helicopter into the 200 yard wide breach. Nagin offered up no culprit but promised to investigate the matter. "I thought everyone understood this morning that that was the highest priority," the mayor said. "It didn’t get done. Now there’s nothing to slow down the pace of the water." http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/31/katrina.levees/index.html "There is way too many fricking ... cooks in the kitchen," Nagin said in a phone interview with WAPT-TV in Jackson, Miss., fuming over what he said were scuttled plans to plug a 200-yard breach near the 17th Street Canal, allowing Lake Pontchartrain to spill into the central business district. An earlier breach occurred along the Industrial Canal in the city's Lower 9th Ward. The rising flood waters overwhelmed pumping stations that would normally keep the city dry. About 80 percent of the city was flooded with water up to 20 feet deep after the two levees collapsed. .... But Nagin said a repair attempt was supposed to have been made Tuesday. According to the mayor, Blackhawk helicopters were scheduled to pick up and drop massive 3,000-pound sandbags in the 17th Street Canal breach, but were diverted on rescue missions. Nagin said neglecting to fix the problem has set the city behind by at least a month. "I had laid out like an eight week to ten week timeline where we could get the city back in semblance of order. It's probably been pushed back another four weeks as a result of this," Nagin said. "That four weeks is going to stop all commerce in the city of New Orleans. It also impacts the nation, because no domestic oil production will happen in southeast Louisiana." Nagin said he expects relief efforts in the city to improve as New Orleans, the National Guard and FEMA combine their command centers for better communication, followup and accountability.
A full day after the Big Easy thought it had escaped Katrina's full fury, two levees broke and spilled water into the streets on Tuesday, swamping an estimated 80 percent of the bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city, inundating miles and miles of homes and rendering much of New Orleans uninhabitable for weeks or months. "We are looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in," Mayor Ray Nagin said on ABC's "Good Morning America,
On the bottem ticker on Fox News this morning i read this statement. Refugees being taken to Astrodome in Houston Texas, New Orleans is Abandoned.
