Third of 9 emails describing the Christmann family's Katrina story

christmannemail3.txt

At last! After much frantic searching, my brother-in-law found this picture yesterday (again, from the NOAA website at http://www.noaa.gov). I've taken the liberty of adding some markings to it. http://dev.priorartisans.com/paul/katrina/24427024_markup.jpg The original picture with no markings is at http://dev.priorartisans.com/paul/katrina/24427024.jpg These images are rotated 90 degrees - North is to the right. The markings: #1 - Our house #2 - My brother-in-law Trey's house #3 - My father-in-law's house. As you can see, there is water everywhere. Near our house (just on the left) there is a white splotch which I'm pretty sure is my car. I can see my car, which tells me at least the *highest* point of the water - we can't have more than 2 feet in the house. My backyard is underwater, but our house is about 3 feet above the ground in the back. So - I'm fairly sure that we'll have water damage in the house, but we also know it is not catastrophic. My brother-in-law probably has less water. Unfortunately, we think my father-in-law probably has more. The other markings: Two purple lines heading North/South (right/left in the pic): This is the 17th street canal. The actual breach is about 5 miles to the north. One green line heading East/West (top/bottom in the pic): This is a raised railroad trestle that we hoped would keep water out of the neighborhood One yellow-ish line heading North/South (right/left in the pic): This is the border of a geographic feature called the "Metairie Ridge". As you may see, the land along this ridge is high and dry. We are about two blocks off of the ridge. What I've recently learned - currently, the Mississippi makes a big dip south around the city of New Orleans - forming the shape that created the nicname "The Crescent City". At the French Quarter, the river makes a sharp turn - finishing the crescent by heading North, then turning South to continue along to the Gulf. Many (thousands? I don't really know how long ago), the river did not make the crescent - it continued straight through what is now the city of New Orleans, before making the turn to the South at what is now the French Quarter. The "Metairie Ridge" is the old shore of the Mississippi River. Just like today, the shore of the river was the high point int he area. We always new we were near/on the edges of the Ridge, but this picture like no other I've ever seen truly illustrates that ridge. The total height difference between the peak of the ridge and our house (a distance of two blocks)? I dunno, but it can't be more than 5 feet - as we walk it, its a barely discernable slope. You can look at it and it appears to the naked eye that its level. But - obviously, its not. Our houses in Baton Rouge are arranged, but we're not sure when we're going. We thought we would leave on Tuesday. But now we're thinking of leaving tomorrow. Jefferson Parish (the other side of the 17th street canal from our house, where my father-in-law lives) is open for refugees on Monday, to return and get what they need from their house. So we're thinking of trying to go and retrieve some stuff from all 3 houses. But I'm sure that will be an adventure of the first order, given the chaos in the city and stream of supplies heading in and refugees heading out. And we still don't know for sure that the water in our neighborhoods has actually stopped rising. But still - we're still lucky and we know it. For those of you associated with Notre Dame, please visit the ND Alumni websites to see how you can help: http://www.ndkatrina.com http://alumni.nd.edu/commserv/hurricane_relief.html Hard for me to believe that we kickoff the season tonight. Just seems like another lifetime when I was awaiting that. For those of you not associated with Notre Dame, please visit those pages as well for any ideas of charities to contribute to (if you are looking for ideas). The Notre Dame community is important to me, and I believe strongly in the charities they are supporting and encouraging. More to come later, especially if we attempt to visit our house.

Citation Information:

Paul Christmann, " Third of 9 emails describing the Christmann family's Katrina story." Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, Object #34 (November 16 2005, 10:26 am)<http://www.hurricanearchive.org/object/34>