New Orleans Ladder: 5/8/11

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Corps will begin opening Morganza Floodway today~Mark Schleifstein
~Process should reduce BR crest~Some Simmesport-area residents flee flood threat from Atchafalaya River
~Waiting for the flood in Stephensville
~State closes 2 oyster harvest areas
~Volunteers help with Vicksburg flood preparations

State Agency Flooding Response and Preparation Actions

Live camera of Morganza Spillway being opened - should start at 3 pm

Levees.org’s Civil Engineer on the Mississippi River Levees in N.O.

Excellent Satellite shots and Maps of the Louisiana Flood Fight
~Working Definitions

~Retweet @Editilla the Pun~Gulf Coast Rising is also putting together a nice photo page http://bit.ly/lwZ9MW #Flooding #Flood #FloodFight #Nola

Road closures due to Morganza opening

Louisiana-made Hesco baskets crucial in flood fight

Shrimp season presents old, new worries~John DeSantis

I wonder, did the GCCF’s methodology take into account the opening of the Bonnet Carre?
~Disenfranchised Citizen

Oil Ways on my Mind
~Gulf Restoration Network

Hood needs a whistleblower on BP claims: A politician running for re-election update ~Slabbed

Same Message, Bigger Megaphone
~SaveCharityHospital.com

Another Poem with Moon & You
~John Hayes

Friday, May 13, 2011

H.J. Bosworth, engineer for Levees.org on Fox 8 about river levee safety

Map reveals timeline of Morganza floodway travel
~The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has released a map that illustrates what residents in the path of flood waters can expect over the next week.
Six hours after the Morganza floodway is opened, water will reach Melville near the Atchafalaya River. Six hours after that, water will move through Krotz Springs and across Hwy. 190. By the end of the day, the water will reach areas near I-10 on the west side of Baton Rouge, covering a path roughly five miles wide
At the 72 hour mark, the water will be closing in on Morgan City, covering an area from Patterson to Schriever.
Eight days after the floodway is opened, the water will reach areas near Cutoff, Larose, Chauvin and Dulac.
Just because a community is in the path of the water does not mean there will be catastrophic flooding. Stay with FOX 8 for the latest on the rising river.

Jindal: Morganza Opening 'Extremely Likely' This Weekend ~WDSU

America's Achilles' heel: the MS River's Old River Control Structure
~Dr. Jeff Master's Wunderblog
~Right: The Army Corps of Engineers' view of Mississippi River peak flow rates during a maximum 1-in-500 year "Project Flood" (U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, 1958.) The places outlined in dotted lines are where the Corps has built "fuse levee" flood control structures capable of diverting a portion of the Mississippi's flow.

Algiers landmark could be destroyed in fight against Mississippi River flooding

High and still rising in Baton Rouge
~Also~Flood Fighting Info from around the state:
~Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness
~Office of the Mayor, New Orleans
~River Watch, WWLTV
~Retweet @Editilla the Pun~@NOLAnews http://www.nola.com/rivercam/ #Flooding #nola
~Houma, Daily Comet
~Lafayette / Morgan City, Daily Advertiser
~Alexandria, The Town Talk
~Editilla Notellas~ This list will hopefully grow. Please submit other sites in the comments section and we'll post and tweet them.

Corps says if Morganza Floodway is opened, flow may only be a fourth of its capacity~Mark Schleifstein

Mississippi Flood Threatens Louisiana Oil, Gas Output

Clichés, Levees and Federal Funds
~Michael Grunwald

~Stolen from our friends at Slabbed

Largest Gathering of Food Professionals to Convene in New Orleans, June 11-14

Maple Street Book Shop expanding
~Kevin Allman, Gambit

~"Cindy's Garden", acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16"~Polly Jackson

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Explainer: Controlling path of Mississippi River part of problem
~Laura Buchtel, WWL ~Hat Tweet @CanalStreetCar

Floods are a reminder of the Mississippi River's power
~John Barry

~In 1927, the entire Mississippi River system — which stretches from near Buffalo, N.Y., to the Rockies, from Taos, N.M., deep into North Carolina — was in flood. It killed people from West Virginia to Oklahoma, but along the lower Mississippi it simply shouldered aside all human efforts to control it.

The Importance of the Morganza Spillway~Tim Ballisty
~Hat Tweet @judyb1954

Sandbags Line Riverfront New Orleans

Workers race to raise levees in downtown BR ~Amy Wold

Flood News Lafayette / Morgan City
~Also~ Daily Comet, Houma
~The Town Talk, Alexandria

Best Show in Town~American Zombie

Why the secrecy? Gert Town community agency won’t show how it’s spending lawsuit windfall
~Jessica Williams, The Lens

~Retweet @facingsouth~Sen. Landrieu (D-LA) defends oil company tax breaks after taking $3 million from oil industry http://huff.to/j18bsB #moneyinpolitics

Sylvain~Blackened Out

Plaquemines Parish Seafood Festival is this weekend

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Morganza Spillway both helps and hurts ~Amy Wold

~Will you flood?
Citizens can locate their elevation here.

A LOOK BACK: 'Levees-only' policy crumbles after flood
~James Savage wrote this story, about flooding in Louisiana's basin, in 2002 for The Daily Advertiser. As the state braces for what could be more record-breaking flooding from a bulging Mississippi River, this story adds a glimpse into the past

Bracing for floods, Louisiana faces hard choices~Facing South

Mississippi River's flood a battle for all on the river's edge ~James O'Byrne

Mississippi River flooding in New Orleans area could be massive if Morganza spillway stays closed
~Mark Schleifstein

~If the Morganza Floodway is not opened to funnel 300,000 cubic feet per second of water from the Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya River basin, the additional water could cause levees to fail along the river from Morganza to Plaquemines Parish, including all of the New Orleans area, resulting in as much as 25 feet of floodwater, according to a map provided to state officials by the Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday.

~Memphis, May 10th, 2011~More satellite images of historic flooding
~Editilla Geotellas~ I live just above the word Memphis, in Midtown.
Now y'all see why I call this a Pig In A Python.

Is the New York Times already blowing the Corps of Engineers horn of SUCCESS with this year's flooding?
~Editilla Notellas~ Just axin. The author of this piece is an American History professor from the University of Central Arkansas and author of The Thousand-Year Flood: The Ohio-Mississippi Disaster of 1937.

Commentary on St Pierre Trial ~American Zombie

Jim Brown makes interesting points; some are even his own
~Mark Moseley, The Lens

Summertime and the living is…easy?
~He Said/She Said NOLA

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Mississippi Rising: Critics Say High Water Result of Man Not Mother Nature ~ABC
~"This is largely a man-made disaster -- to point it only to rainfall is naive," said H.J. Bosworth Jr., civil engineer and director of research for Levees.org. "Yes, there was lots of rainfall, but there was also lots of development. Every time you build a parking lot or a Walmart you add to the burden of the drainage system and all that drainage goes into the Mississippi River."
Both Bosworth and Robert Criss, professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis agree that part of the problem is inaccurate assessments by the Corps. "There are plenty of people living in designated 100-year flood plain areas and by government standards that's more like 10-year flood estimates," said Criss. "Every year is a 10-year flood now or worse. ... In terms of the Army Corps of Engineers' flood statistics I was able to show that there's not one chance in a thousand that their statistics are correct."
~Hat Tip~ Levees.org

Harahan Workers Watch Water Rise ~WDSU~John Barry, author of "River Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, said "the levees in the metro area are about seven to eight times stronger than those further north. "The levees we have in the lower portion of the Mississippi are by far the strongest in the U.S.," he said.
~Hat Tweet @skooks

Three Million Acres May Be Flooded in Louisiana, Governor Says ~Bloomberg

High Waters along the MS River

~Hat Tweet @fofalex
~Mississippi River Crests At Nearly 48 Feet In Memphis, TN

The Pig in a Python

~Hat Tweet @Liprap High Water: my Flickr set of Mississippi River pics, taken yesterday. http://flic.kr/s/aHsjuJuvEj

Flow to trigger Morganza use

Voluntary evacuation order issued
~St. Landry Parish President Don Menard issued a voluntary evacuation of residents east of Port Barre and a mandatory evacuation of all livestock on the levee and surrounding areas Monday. Both Menard and Gov. Bobby Jindal encouraged emergency officials and community members gathered at an emergency preparedness meeting in Krotz Springs on Monday to prepare for the worst."Whether they open the (Morganza) Spillway or not, water's coming over the spillway," Jindal said. "That's just the way it's built, the way it's designed."

Floods along the MS River lead to renewed calls for a change in strategy

Tulane erases scandal-plagued frat house; cop station to rise on cleared Broadway lot ~The Lens

Bigmouth Strikes Again~moosedenied

Am I the only person that is happy Vaggie Bush is time limited with the Saints? ~Slabbed

For Argument’s Sake ~Nola Notes

Cochon chef Stephen Stryjewski wins James Beard Award as Best Chef: South

A Statement of Position(s)
~Blackened Out

New Orleans Oyster Festival

Tuba Fats Tuesday festival in Treme
~Red Cotton, Gambit

Monday, May 9, 2011

Levees.org and Irvin Mayfield Jr to Dedicate Historic Plaque at Breach Site

Matt at Fix the Pumps finds woody debris in the new levees and a Fred Heebe in the woodpile ~Slabbed

Jeremy Alford on how a cash-poor state is planning to deal with potential record floodwaters on the MS River

Map of Mississippi River flooding estimate for Louisiana released

~The Army Corps of Engineers has released a map showing their latest estimate of the inudation which can be expected in Louisiana along the Mississippi River and Atchafalaya River basins if the Morganza Spillway is opened.

Corps working on maps to detail flooding from opening Morganza Spillway to ease pressure on Mississippi River

Bonnet Carre Spillway opening draws large crowd

New flood brings old fears
~Cain Burdeau

The King is Dead; Long Live the King: Jazzfest 2011 Poll
~He Said/She Said NOLA

Sinn Féin

New Orleans Ladder
Chere'yat Bourgeois Nievete?
Every goodbye ain't gone.
Every shut eye ain't sleep.
Gonna' build up this Living Ladder.
Gonna lean it up against the world, so we can pass over our damn nation, so we can always find the long road back home.
Stitch-hiking the Web for Daily New Orleans News, Bloggery, Videos, Poetry, Photography, Music and Humor, yeah where'yat, post Kafkatrina Recovery for the City That Care Forgot and Presidente Bush left for dead.
The New Orleans Ladder accepts no advertising revenue.
To contact or submit articles please leave a comment.
Anything goes on the Ladder, except no kiddy- porn ~{which will be forwarded immediately to someone who can track you down quicker (if you're lucky) than I (if you're not), no lie, believe it, faster than a speeding bullet and with as much regard as a dragon fly, perched upon the head of a water moccasin, waiting for its prey} --and no gratuitous profanity.
Just paste the articles' url in the comments.
Contact me directly on Twitter.
Please tell your friends about the Ladder.
Lassezes Le Bon Temp Roule'!!! Who Dat!
Thank You All,
Editilla the Pun.

A note to advertising types
~From your ho'ho homble
Editilla the Pun,
thank you for asking.
Here's the Deal: what we hang upon this Ladder we do so with LOVE, HONOR and AFFECTION. Heart'stopping Awe and Adoration...Aw'dat
--especially this right side.

Of what we hang here I want our Gentle'rillas to know: We accept no ad revenue,only Blessings of Thanks -and Tons-O-Traffic!- from All Youz who'z contacted us with Notes of Glee at finding yourselves thusly hero'hung --by this Ladder with Care-- and we hope y'all get some Gat'zillion hits there!
Please put ya'Finger on'em...
--let'em know we're here!

New Orleans...
a courtesan, not old and yet no longer young, who shuns the sunlight that the illusion of her former glory be preserved.

The mirrors in her house are dim and the frames are tarnished;
all her house is dim and beautiful with age. She reclines gracefully upon a dull brocaded chaise- longue, there is the scent of incense about her, and her draperies are arranged in formal folds. She lives
in an atmosphere of a bygone
and more gracious age.

And those whom she receives
are few in number, and they come to her through an eternal twilight.
She does not talk much herself,
yet she seems to dominate the conversation, which is low-toned but never dull, artificial but not brilliant. And those who are not of the elect must stand forever without her portals.

New Orleans… a courtesan whose hold is strong upon the mature,
to whose charm the young must respond. And all who leave her, seeking the virgin’s unbrown, ungold hair and her blanched and icy breast where no lover has died, return to her when she smiles across her languid fan…

New Orleans.

William Faulkner~1925

My Name Is Burma

Please check out my friend Moe Swe, who emailed me wonderful Burmese Music after we met through my online work with the Burma News Ladder, during the Democracy Crackdown in that country in September-October '07.
I had just joined in New Orleans with Rising Tide, btw, at the 2nd Flood Anniversary. Synchronicity?
One song's lyric: "A drop of rain is now a Raging Tide. Burma How Long?" You tell me. Heads or Tails?
Lotta music there. Take your time.
Use the pause button. Fang though the playlist. Tell yer friends. Enjoy!
As with my love for New Orleans,
I cannot think of a better, quicker way to know Burma than through her music: the song of her soul, the instrument of her dreams, the expression of her hopes & fears.
Burma Sinn Féin!
Burma Rocks World Boogie!
Please shout'out and say hello to
Moe Swe--Let'em know we care.
Kyay Zoo Pyu Pea...Koo NyiBar
Kyay Zoo Tin Bar Dae
8-08-88~~8-08-08
8-28-08

Crucifixion Road

by Karl Demolay

This is for the city that care forgot...
the city that forgot to care.
This city, carelessly forgotten,
our party time's behind us now, sensual drums in the dank and virile heat. City of culinary delights, musical giants, simple pleasures, squalid splendors.
A city of dust, now shrouded in mold, forever succumbing to entropic bliss on pause.
This city of history, a living archive of revelry and regret. The past and the future collide in slow motion. This is the city that must be remembered and rebuilt, this bastion of visceral pleasures and historic decadence. All to our collective delight and nagging melancholia.

This is for the ones that evacuated...
the people who left it all behind. The ones that lost almost everything, or maybe just the one thing they cared about most of all. The ones marooned on highways for far too long, no way home, even as the storm unleashed its initial fury. Those left deserted, no place to rest their heads, thoughts still heavy with guilt or fear or resignation.
This is for the people that won't go back, can't go back, afraid of possibility and all of its attendant pitfalls.
This is for those that have nothing to return to at all, not one single thing.
This is for the ones that relocated, expatriates forced into strange lands with odd customs.
This is for the terminally restless,
the suddenly homeless,
the penniless brave.

This is for the ones that stayed...
the insane, the stranded, the curious tribes, erstwhile survivors and civic warriors alike.
Those souls who stayed calm and true despite the chaos, or lost their minds to apocalyptic fancy.
Battened down and hunkered low, sipping bottled water with hushed first glances, suspicious demeanors and flashlights at the ready.
Proud and defiant holders of the line, sometimes criminal in intent, quick movement on the perimeters, shoot to kill orders...
For all those who were trapped in makeshift shelters, replete with suicides, murders, and rapes: victimization rank and feral.
For the bitter end of salvation, acrid tastes on parched tongues dry, even as bids for escape were made.

This is for the politicians...
Federal, State and Local, at once inept and indispensable, some more than others, caught unprepared, unconcerned, unshaven---Playing cat and mouse in a city of smoldering ruins, screams from the darkness of urgent plight, atavism gone awry. Ignorance and obviousness, the slow motion train wreck broadcast for all to see and discuss, obfuscate and ignore. Declarations of me and mine, you and yours, pitted squarely against they and them. This is for too little, too late, the same old song played at precisely the wrong time, over and over. Nagin, Blanco, Brown, Bush, please report center stage to assume the mantle of scorn and blame, everyone gets their turn.
This is for the ones that try to rewrite history or deny it outright, we wish we could deny it all so easily.

This is for the ones that died...
for the loved ones, the foolish ones, the forgotten and cumbersome alike. For the elderly, the infirmed, Vera in her cobblestone grave, the unidentified ones that received no such memorials.
And our beloved household pets, loyal until the end.
The parks and neighborhood greens, flora and fauna turned to a sepia-tone static gray. The houses, once renowned for their architecture, are reborn as new testaments to the destructive coupling of Mother nature and Human Folly. To the spray-painted X's, harsh and unrelenting, omnipresent in their emergency orange hue: 1 dog dead, 1 person saved.
This is for the newest necropolis to rise, our once proud city, our interrupted way of life, breaks in the line of comfortable static. For the evidence of our empire, washed away in the eye of the storm and the turgid, toxic waters that followed.

This is for the ones that rescued...
the Firefighters, EMT's, Police Officers, National Guard. For the people from far and near that just appeared out of nowhere, just wanting to help any way they could, using anything waterborne. And for the locals brave and true, risking life and limb to save just one more person, over and over and over. For all of the endless, tireless, selfless sacrifices and tear jerking humanity. For their shining light of salvation into the boundless dark, onto rooftops, inside of hacked-out attics, out of harms way to higher ground. For beaming from all directions, these beacons of hope, springing eternal and true.
This is for all those who lent a hand, however small or large. Our gratitude, more than could ever be conveyed, is all we have to offer in return.

This is for the media...
the good, the bad, the ugly, for the rescuers and the soothsayers, the shelterers and the kind words, for the dispassionate, the doubters, the cynical and the apathetic.
The pundits and pontificators, their talking points and bad haircuts, feigning interest at all the scripted moments. For the smiles as the makeup is applied, the vacant suppression of harsh, unforgiving reality in plentiful evidence. The ones that control the present controlling the past controlled the future; as always, blissfully unaware of the consequences...
For the sidebars and scrutiny, the breaking news and tight focus close-ups, hands and mouths reacting in opposite directions, in equal amounts, all from the outside looking in. This is for updates at every quarter of the hour.

This is for the hospitals...
the nursing homes and hospices unprotected and ignored. Piling the dead or leaving them where they lay, morgues and freezers packed tight. This is for the generators that failed too quickly. No sleep or food or water or sanity or safety or hope. For our doctors and nurses, in hellish conditions, against impossible odds, this is for the ultimate and undying respect they deserve. This is for the thugs storming the gates for drugs and evil kicks on top of everything else happening, brash and ignorant of their crime...
For the hotels and hostels, kicking guest out to fend for themselves in our city gone mad. Inundation and tragedy, fragility and breakdown, the worst vacation, convention, honeymoon ever.

This is for the looters...
for the desperate, the prescient, the survivalist hordes. Scavenging and pilfering, salvaging and hoarding anything and everything of use in seemingly useless times.
This is for the business owners, opening their doors wide to allow retrieval of water, food, diapers and formula, keeping their cool and doing the right thing. And for the pharmacies, their good intentions torn asunder by destructive addicts and wasteful ignorance like so many store display shelves.
This is for the home invasions, the armed intrusions, for making a bad situation worse, for spreading the fear...
This is for the ones that made it easier even while others made it ever harder by the minute.

This is for the children...
the lost or outright abandoned, the marginalized or used, for the separation anxiety, trauma and tears on long hot nights that just got worse and worse.
The unfamiliar and the dangerous, the abusive and profane, forsaking even common sense, for the lack of decency, for the bad examples and poor supervision. This is for the countless orphaned souls, forced to bear an adults pain with no advance warning, no preparation or guidance...
This is for the countless smiles, the innocence and playfulness, the ability to make it all disappear, if only for a moment at a time. And for their will, unbreakable and resolute in its purest form and function. This is for what we owe them, first and foremost; their satisfaction will be our compensation over time.

This is for the survivors...
all of us, if any of us, also still, the huge debt owed to those who didn't. This is for all of us in our sad, sad group, no matter where we are at the moment, home or abroad. For the hopes and dreams, reborn from the ashes of the ones previous, for our Phoenix on the bayou. For the nightmares and shock and ennui, the blank stares and paranoia deep into the night. And the helplessness, constricting, paralyzing, numbing...
This is for finding a way to get out of bed in the morning to go to work, gut your houses and reassemble your lives. This is for those that mourn their dead, their missing, their damaged. This is for all of us that are left to find their way back to some semblance of normalcy and well being in these dark times.

This is for the rest of the country...
witnesses to our plight, shelters in the storm, final arbiters of our collective destiny. This is for all of the numerous benefits and donations, the concerns and the heartfelt sorrow. The letters and emails, the long talks on the phone into those September nights and beyond, the shoulders to cry on and beds to sleep in. As well as the showers and food, simple things like ice and clean clothes. For the religious intolerance, the thought that somehow, we deserved this,
that this was God's doing...
This is for the stupidity and hypocrisy, for throwing the first stone when we were down and out. This is for their fatigue, their need to move on, not towards a better understanding, but only to the next sad refrain. For helping us stand, then forcing us to walk away stronger and more assured. This is for those that are rebuilding with us, as well as for the ones that make us want to now more than ever.

This is for the world...
the governments and their citizens, for the superpowers and third-world nations alike.
For their offers and advice, their engineers and city planners, the visits of rebuilding and improved protection. This is for the feeling that we weren't alone, that this has happened before elsewhere, only much worse, that it does get better with hard work and cooperation. For the lessons learned and experience shared; the first real promises of something good in uncertain times. This is for the most that we can share, our lessons, our triumphs and defeats, our heartbreaks and celebrations. This is for an open welcome to the grand rebuilding, our glorious comeback and their involvement in all that promises.

This is for the past...
and how not to repeat it. This is for shoddy levees and interrupted communications, driverless buses and improper shelters. For the wild ride to here, the respite in its warming memories, stories and legends yet to be told.
The anecdotes and folktales, the ghost stories and the pirates' songs, for history and the curious wisdom it imparts. For the good times, the bad times, the in-between times, we all had them here in this place we called home, no matter if you're local or not. This is for why we still call it home today, even if we won't, or can't be here now. This is for the sacrifices, the sweat and blood, the personal tales of reward and loss. This is for the chance to finally get it right, to learn form our mistakes one more time, to teach others the same as well; it's that precious and rare.

This is for the future...
and the promise that it holds.
For the chances in abundance, the endless, limitless boundaries presented. This is for the process of starting over, no matter how long or tough it turns out to be.
For the ways to see beauty in the ugliness, to fashion something new and exciting out of something broken and in a state of disrepair.
This is for our city, its legacy, our neighborhoods and families, friends and foes alike.
For our scenes and cliques, parishes and wards, businesses and hangouts, for the determination to rebuild them all, damn the engines.
Our wishes for a better way are here and now, ready and waiting, the concept of building better, stronger, and more secure. All we have to do is make it happen.
This is for the here and the here from now on.

So this is for you, in your own private way. For peace, contentment, steadfast resolve in trying times. For dignity and patience, reassuring calm after the storm. This is for the knowledge that you are not alone, no matter how lonely it may seem right now. For your hopeful return to the place we call home, if not now,
then in due time...
For the knowledge that she will wait for you, she always has,
she always will...
This is for our fair lady,
our New Orleans,
Past, Present and Future...