Katrina

Up here in the Pacific Northwest, it's easy to tune out the hurricane coverage in the news, since they seem to keep having them down there. But there have been few hurricanes in my life to rival Katrina, currently headed straight for New Orleans.

For a long time, officials in Lousiana have been talking about what would happen if the Big One came. Guess what? It's here.

The wind will blow out windows and explode many homes, even those built to the existing 110-mph building-code standards. People seeking refuge from the floodwaters in high-rise buildings won't be very safe, recent research indicates, because wind speed in a hurricane gets greater with height. If the winds are 155 mph at ground level, scientists say, they may be 50 mph stronger 100 feet above street level.

Buildings also will have to withstand pummeling by debris picked up by water surging from the lakefront toward downtown, with larger pieces acting like battering rams.

Ninety percent of the structures in the city are likely to be destroyed by the combination of water and wind accompanying a Category 5 storm, said Robert Eichorn, former director of the New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness. The LSU Hurricane Center surveyed numerous large public buildings in Jefferson Parish in hopes of identifying those that might withstand such catastrophic winds. They found none.

Amid this maelstrom, the estimated 200,000 or more people left behind in an evacuation will be struggling to survive. Some will be housed at the Superdome, the designated shelter in New Orleans for people too sick or infirm to leave the city. Others will end up in last-minute emergency refuges that will offer minimal safety. But many will simply be on their own, in homes or looking for high ground.

A short while ago, the Weather Channel was predicting storm surges of 20 to 25 feet in the area of the city. Hurricane force winds may extend over a hundred miles from the center. Subsidiary tornados are likely. I've seen reports suggesting that the place is likely to be flooded for weeks or months.

It's a major disaster in progress, even if the storm loses intensity to category 4 before it hits.

The long-term effects will extend beyond the Gulf states. If the Port of New Orleans is shut down, how will the midwest ship its grain and other products? What will happen to the price of gasoline while those area refineries are out of action? What's going to happen to the evacuees, who won't have places to go back to, and who have their worldly belongings reduced to what they brought with them?

My heart goes out to those who are going to have to experience this storm first-hand, now and in the months to come.