Thank you for your prayers during Hurricane Isaac. We appreciate your praying for us and request that you continue to do so.
Here are the results of Hurricane Isaac.
This is one of the strangest hurricanes on record. Though it was only a Category One storm, it produced a great deal of destruction.
Through the years, people in Southeast Louisiana have been concerned with a hurricane that basically traveled up the Mississippi River. This is essentially what Hurricane Isaac did. The result was putting New Orleans and the Northshore (where I live) on the “bad” side of the storm. That pushed water from the Gulf of Mexico into the marshes of South Louisiana and into Lake Pontchartrain. The results have been devastating.
During the dayTuesday those of us with access to television listened in horror as families from the Braithwaite community (south of New Orleans) called to TV stations to let someone know they were trapped in their attics by the storm surge. Though those people lost everything, first responders risked their own live to rescue those trapped in their attics. We also watched as flood waters from Lake Pontchartrain covered the seawall on the Southshore.
On Wednesday, the winds shifted and pushed water from the Southshore to the Northshore. The storm surge breached a small levee protecting a residential community at Guste Island. The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Department had to overcome five foot waves to rescue the residents trapped by the waters of Lake Pontchartrain. At the same time, the commercial district of the city of Madisonville had water up to seven feet along the Tchefuncte River and the Mandeville lakefront also had a significant amount of water.
Now all the rivers are rising and threatening to flood homes in the Slidell area and along all of the rivers that empty into Lake Pontchartrain.
While the worst of the storm is over, we will be dealing with its effects for several more days. Most people in our area are still without power, although the utility employees are working around the clock to get power back to the population.
I can’t help but wonder how bad it would have been if the storm had been a Category Three or Four like Katrina. The US Geological Survey recorded an amazing fact during the height of the storm. The Mississippi River actually flowed backward from the mouth of the river to Baton Rouge at a rate faster than its normal flow! We are truly thankful for our blessings.
Thanks again for your prayers. I’ll do my best to give you another update tomorrow.
Thanks to my daughter Anna for typing this at my dictation (though I now have electricity, I don’t have internet service).
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4 Responses
Good job.
This is not the first time the river ran “upstream.” It did for Georges and others. When I served with Mayor Ronnie Harris of Grena, he told me how scary it was to see ships in the Mississippi River with their water line marks (plimsoll) above the levees outside his office in Katrina.
Perhaps more will understand that protecting the marsh and barrier islands will protect them. But like Hurricane Betsy’s lessons, people will be animated for awhile; and then gilts and glitter will dominate resources. Then there is the concept of volumetrics. The water just went where it was channeled. With those slick walls, it just went there quicker.
I worked a number of inland barges and flew over most of the Louisiana coast in my oil field days. I remember the coast before the inner coastal waterway and the stands of cypress before the salt water intrusion from that Federal “commercial” development. I remember entire eco systems destroyed. Too bad those ++***### environmentalists were not around then. People sow, people reap, people look for someone else to pay. Someone may be thinking, after all, didn’t God lay upon Him the iniquity of us all? That’s not what was intended. How “we the people” can change or omit context for our own justification! Micro to Macro, Faithful in little to faithful in much, even a child is known by his doings. Go figure! Before it hits us in the face, for eternity.
Blessings.
We have all been watching this storm in WI; and continue to pray for you . I had assumed the north shore would be spared and now I find that all is not well. They have been unsure what path the rain will take; we have had a drought most of the summer with most crops lost. I pray that conditions will improve for all those that have had to endure this storm and know that our prayers and assistance will continue.
Praying for you also.
We have been thinking and praying for everyone on the Northshore as well as those on the Southshore and surrounding areas. The pictures we see on TV bring back the memories of when we were living in Mandeville when Katrina struck. God is in control and knows our needs and we thank Him for His faithfulness. We received a welcome 2 1/2″ of rain from Isaac. While it did not remedy our drought situation in AR, we are very thankful for the refreshing rain and no high wind.