Now with 25% less doom

09 Jun

Posted by brightlight in the Everybody Panic department.

We’re not below sea level, so floodwaters would quickly slosh back into the bay and gulf. But damage would be done. - from “Would we Fail like New Orleans?”, St. Pete Times 06/09/07

This just in: The Tampa Bay area was not constructed under sea level and therefore does not owe its continued existed in an oxygen-rich environment to an antiquated system of dykes (giggity) and levees. Put a different way, St. Petersburg is not New Orleans. That’s right, you can stop making beignets now, but please, continue to panic.

One Response

Mark Folse

June 9th, 2007 at 10:11 pm

Your model is not New Orleans. Your model is Waveland and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi which was wiped down to the slabs by storm surges exceeding 30 feet. At least you won’t have to worry about debris removal.

Specifically, what is described in that article’s responses is pretty much the situation in New Orleans, with challenges of inter-departmental emergency communication, the theory that busses will keep running for the poor and the drivers won’t just leave to evacuate themselves, etc. etc. etc.

You wouldn’t end up a wasteland like New Orleans. You would end up a wasteland like Mississippi.

Any expectation that the government is capable of assisting you was pretty much exploded by Katrina.

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