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Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris
Aug. 28th, 2005 08:46 pmI've been thinking about Katrina; not so much for the imminent destruction of New Orleans (a tradegy almost beyond comprehension) but rather for the secondary effects I am afraid of happening.
I look upstream and I see the bend at Old River, where the Mississippi has been trying to shift its bed for the past fifty years:
Old River is a distinctive river with a remarkable history. Fifty miles northwest of Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, it connects the Red, Atchafalaya, and Mississippi Rivers. Like all alluvial rivers, the
Mississippi winds through its valleys, caving banks and topping them during floods.
Occasionally, as it meanders across its floodplain it creates or obtains a steeper route to its
ultimate outlet. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Atchafalaya River offered the
Mississippi River a shorter outlet to the Gulf of Mexico – 142 miles compared to 315. By 1951,
it was apparent that, unless man intervened, the Mississippi would take the course of the
Atchafalaya. If the Mississippi changed course, it would turn the present river channel into a
saltwater estuary and the effects on southern Louisiana would be catastrophic. Likewise, the
Atchafalaya River could not accept the Mississippi flow without massive flooding, extensive
relocations, and the upheaval of the social and economic patterns of that area.
The only thing keeping the Mississippi in her present course is the unflagging effort of the US Army Corps of Engineers (and several bouts of luck). As I recall, from To Control Nature by John McPhee, if the river gets to more than 27 feet above normal, Old River is gone, and the port of New Orleans stops having anyway to move goods upstream.
So, the surge, the rain, and the Lower Mississippi Drainage Basin as well as what the predicted 3-day storm path makes me afraid for the basin holding (it's a given that someday the river will move, the only questions are when, and with what damage as it carves a new path), because there's going to be a lot of water piling into the river.
If that happens, well New Orleans happens to bring in something like 1/3rd of the oil the US imports; to deal with all that oil (and the stuff we pump in the Gulf of Mexico, there's a lot of refinery infrastructure. Even if the river stays put that's probably going to take a hit. The water is running something like 20 kts, all the way to the bottom (which is going to affect the fishery) and a lot of the rigs are old. This storm moved from Cat 3 to Cat 5 in the blink of an eye, so most of the rigs didn't have time to do much more than get the people out. Some of them aren't going to make it. I don't know what happens to the wells if the rigs get ripped off of them. I also don't know how much oil might still be in the pipelines running to shore. It could get really dirty, as well as ugly (not only the loss of a huge amount of the oil we need to run the country, but a huge oil-slick in the Gulf.
I pray the 30 percent chance being predicted for New Orleans to not be flooded (because 20 percent of the city wasn't able to leave, and the Superdome is big, but I can see people panicking when the lights are gone and the water gets in) but I'm also praying that the other problems I'm seeing fail to come to pass.
But still I hear the tolling of a bell.
Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must die.
As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all;
If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
I look upstream and I see the bend at Old River, where the Mississippi has been trying to shift its bed for the past fifty years:
Old River is a distinctive river with a remarkable history. Fifty miles northwest of Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, it connects the Red, Atchafalaya, and Mississippi Rivers. Like all alluvial rivers, the
Mississippi winds through its valleys, caving banks and topping them during floods.
Occasionally, as it meanders across its floodplain it creates or obtains a steeper route to its
ultimate outlet. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Atchafalaya River offered the
Mississippi River a shorter outlet to the Gulf of Mexico – 142 miles compared to 315. By 1951,
it was apparent that, unless man intervened, the Mississippi would take the course of the
Atchafalaya. If the Mississippi changed course, it would turn the present river channel into a
saltwater estuary and the effects on southern Louisiana would be catastrophic. Likewise, the
Atchafalaya River could not accept the Mississippi flow without massive flooding, extensive
relocations, and the upheaval of the social and economic patterns of that area.
The only thing keeping the Mississippi in her present course is the unflagging effort of the US Army Corps of Engineers (and several bouts of luck). As I recall, from To Control Nature by John McPhee, if the river gets to more than 27 feet above normal, Old River is gone, and the port of New Orleans stops having anyway to move goods upstream.
So, the surge, the rain, and the Lower Mississippi Drainage Basin as well as what the predicted 3-day storm path makes me afraid for the basin holding (it's a given that someday the river will move, the only questions are when, and with what damage as it carves a new path), because there's going to be a lot of water piling into the river.
If that happens, well New Orleans happens to bring in something like 1/3rd of the oil the US imports; to deal with all that oil (and the stuff we pump in the Gulf of Mexico, there's a lot of refinery infrastructure. Even if the river stays put that's probably going to take a hit. The water is running something like 20 kts, all the way to the bottom (which is going to affect the fishery) and a lot of the rigs are old. This storm moved from Cat 3 to Cat 5 in the blink of an eye, so most of the rigs didn't have time to do much more than get the people out. Some of them aren't going to make it. I don't know what happens to the wells if the rigs get ripped off of them. I also don't know how much oil might still be in the pipelines running to shore. It could get really dirty, as well as ugly (not only the loss of a huge amount of the oil we need to run the country, but a huge oil-slick in the Gulf.
I pray the 30 percent chance being predicted for New Orleans to not be flooded (because 20 percent of the city wasn't able to leave, and the Superdome is big, but I can see people panicking when the lights are gone and the water gets in) but I'm also praying that the other problems I'm seeing fail to come to pass.
But still I hear the tolling of a bell.
Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must die.
As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all;
If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
