Isaac steers clear of direct blow on New Orleans
Updated 3:28 a.m. ET
(CBS/AP) NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Isaac sidestepped New Orleans on Wednesday, sending the worst of its howling wind and heavy rain into a cluster of rural fishing villages that had few defenses against the slow-moving storm that could bring days of unending rain.
Isaac arrived exactly seven years after Hurricane Katrina and passed slightly to the west of New Orleans, where the city's fortified levee system easily handled the assault.
According to a National Weather Service advisory issued at 2:00 a.m. ET on Thursday morning, Isaac had top sustained winds of 50 mph, and was moving northwest at 5 mph.
The city's biggest problems seemed to be downed power lines, scattered tree limbs and minor flooding. Just one person was reported killed, compared with 1,800 deaths from Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi. And police reported few problems with looting. Mayor Mitch Landrieu ordered a dusk-to-dawn curfew just to be sure.
President Obama signed declarations of disaster in Louisiana and Mississippi and has authorized federal aid to help those states impacted by Isaac, according to statements issued by the White House on Wednesday.
The highlighted red area is the rough border of the levee district in Plaquemines Parish that Louisiana officials are considering flooding to relieve the pressure put on the area by Tropical Storm Isaac's rain and storm surge.
/ Google/CBSNewsBut in Plaquemines Parish, a sparsely populated area south of the city that is outside the federal levee system, dozens of people were stranded in flooded coastal areas and had to be rescued. The storm pushed water over an 18-mile levee and put so much pressure on it that authorities planned to intentionally puncture the floodwall to relieve the strain.
Intentional breach weighed as Isaac batters La.
Earlier, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said as many as 40 people are reportedly in need of rescue in the area. CBS affiliate WWL-TV reports that 75 people were rescued from flooded homes and rooftops from Braithwaite, La., and that dozens people were still reportedly awaiting rescue on the parish's east bank on rooftops and in attics.
. "I'm getting text messages from all over asking for help," said Joshua Brockhaus, an electrician who was rescuing neighbors in his boat. "I'm dropping my dogs off, and I'm going back out there."By midafternoon, Isaac had been downgraded to a tropical storm and the Louisiana National Guard wrapped up rescue operations in Plaquemines Parish, saying they felt confident they had gotten everyone out and there were no serious injuries.
"That should be everyone," National Guard spokesman Capt. Lance Cagnolatti said. "We're pulling out."
Even at its strongest, Isaac was far weaker than Hurricane Katrina, which crippled New Orleans in 2005. Because Isaac's coiled bands of rain and wind were moving at only 5 mph -- about the pace of a brisk walk -- the threat of storm surges and flooding was expected to last into a second night as the immense comma-shaped system crawled across Louisiana.
Hurricane Isaac and its aftermath
"We didn't think it was going to be like that," Brockhaus said. "The storm stayed over the top of us. For Katrina, we got 8 inches of water. Now we have 13 feet."
In Plaquemines Parish, about two dozen people who defied evacuation orders needed to be rescued. The stranded included two police officers whose car became stuck.
"I think a lot of people were caught with their pants down," said Jerry Larpenter, sheriff in nearby Terrebonne Parish. "This storm was never predicted right since it entered the Gulf. It was supposed to go to Florida, Panama City, Biloxi, New Orleans. We hope it loses its punch once it comes in all the way."
At left, watch video of a levee in Plaquemines Parish being overtopped as filmed by storm chaser Jeff Piotrowski
The storm knocked out power to as many as 700,000 people, stripped branches off trees and flattened fields of sugar cane so completely that they looked as if a tank had driven over them.
Plaquemines Parish ordered a mandatory evacuation for the west bank of the Mississippi below Belle Chasse because of worries about a storm surge. The order affected about 3,000 people, including a nursing home with 112 residents. In Jefferson Parish, the sheriff ordered a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
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I've done a lot of traveling in this country, but one of the few places I'd never been was New Orleans. Until May of 2011, when I went and spent two full weeks there. I stayed at the (rebuilt) home of a friend of mine in the lower 9th ward. One of the things that really struck me was the amount of damage still visible 6 years after Katrina.
You could travel down a street and see completely rebuilt homes with demolished homes, still with their X's in a circle (denoting the number of survivors/fatalities in the building when the house-by-house search was done in the days after Katrina), on either side. Many of the homes destroyed by Katrina had been bulldozed and only the foundation slabs remained.
Basically everybody in the lower 9th ward had cell phones because all of the land-lines got ripped up in Katrina. And it seemed like it was a Catch-22 situation. People had cell phones because they couldn't get land-lines, and the phone company didn't seem in any rush to replace the land-lines because people had cell phones.
A LOT of people in the flooded areas don't have internet access. The New Orleans branch libraries do a booming business with patrons coming in to use the library computers to access the internet. Or people come in with their own laptops and use the library's open network.
There is still so much devastation in the area but, staying with "a native" instead of at some tourist hotel, I had a lot of good opportunities to get the local take on the situation, as well.
A lot of people evacuated before Katrina but never came back. If their homes weren't considered a hazard, they are still there, mold growing rampant. Even if their homes have been bulldozed, nobody can buy the lot and build again because nobody knows where the owner is. Obviously they aren't paying property taxes on their demolished homes, so the parishes are losing out on a lot of property tax money.
Why do people stay and live in a town below sea level?
Well, first of all, a lot of people simply can't afford to move. It's home and they have no where else to go.
But, in addition, I discovered, during my two weeks there, that New Orleans is incredibly unique, and if you are paying any attention at all, you can't help but fall in love with the place. After two weeks, I was very conflicted. On the one hand, I was ready to go back home and sleep in my own bed again. On the other hand, I could have spent another two months in New Orleans, just spending each day walking around and soaking up the city.
If we don't do anything about global warming, Manhattan is going to be below sea level in our grandchildren's lifetime. Do we just abandon Manhattan? Much of the Netherlands is below sea level. Should we just abandon the Netherlands and let it return to the sea floor?
This country would be a much poorer place without New Orleans. The improvements to the levies worked. Why throw such a wonderful place away when we don't have to?
YES, Netherldands is flooding, but they have nowhere to go - Sweden? People in New Orleans have plenty of states to go to, or other parts of Louisiana to go to, why must they insist on living in the delta? And you are absolutely correct about NYC - if water rises 10 feet over the next 50 years, NYC would be unlivable and that's that. DC would be underwater as well, but what are you going to do? Build a man made island? No, just move to higher ground. Sheeesh.
Abandon all of New Orleans that is below sea level. It is untenable.
Get away from the riverbanks and out of the depressions and floodplains.
Once you do that, then you can complain. Anyone in those areas? They are getting what they deserve. And they don't deserve one cent of taxpayer money unless their houses are built in such a way that they won't flood. So, if they have stilts that raise them above flood level, that's okay. Outside of that?
Tough luck.
Actually, I shouldn't say that like all Americans have no compassion. It's one particular group of people I'm talking about.
Hey don't knock it gonna retire there after 26 year military service - but - does it matter?
I mean-Louisiana!