New Orleans bails out after 2 hurricanes

Monday, September 26, 2005

Much of New Orleans 9th Ward remains under as much as 15 feet of water, as New Orleans begins the tedious task of pumping the water out, and cleaning up what remains of The Big Easy.

Last Saturday, Hurricane Rita, the second major hurricane in under a month, and little sister to Hurricane Katrina, blasted through the region, overflowing the Industrial St. Levee, which had been hastily repaired after being hit by Hurricane Katrina on August 29th.

While the official death toll in Louisiana from Hurricane Katrina has risen past 1100, the official death toll so far for Hurricane Rita is only seven.

Early evacuation has been attributed to the low death toll for the Hurricane Rita, as well as it being a somewhat smaller tropical storm.

Hurricane Katrina was a category 4 storm at landfall, packing sustained winds of 155 miles per hour. Hurricane Rita, while she was a more powerful storm out in the Gulf of Mexico, was only a category 3 hurricane, with sustained winds of 115-125 miles per hour at landfall.

Many outlying townships and parishes in Gulf Coast areas of Louisiana and Texas were also hit hard by Hurricane Rita. Cameron Parish was particularly hard hit by Hurricane Rita. Piles of splinters and debris are all that remains where houses once stood, and between 4000 to 5000 cattle carcasses dotted the mostly rural parish.