Living With Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond

When Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi the morning of August 29, 2005, the storm caused absolutely devastating large-scale destruction. The levees failed and their collapse flooded 80 percent of the city of New Orleans. By the time the waters receded and the survivors regrouped, Katrina, and then Hurricane Rita, had claimed more than 1,400 lives and the dreams of hundreds of thousands.

Now five years later a new, $7.5 million, 6,700 square-foot exhibit titled Living With Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond, will tell the stories of real people caught in the hurricane’s wrath. It tells of their rescue, recovery, rebuilding and renewal in a way that is certain to move both those who survived the storms and those who watched them unfold on television.

The exhibit will have a series of galleries featuring sound, video and computer graphics, and it opens this fall (October 26) at the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans.

Check out this promotional, yet very moving clip of coastal Louisiana's history and the events that led to the idea as well a what to expect when you visit the exhibit.



For me this is an absolute must-see! I hope you'll also make it a point to visit the exhibit should your travels take you there.

Feared Environmental Tragedy of Gulf Oil Spill Slowly Becoming Reality

Estimates of oil leaking from the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico have risen from 42,000 gallons a day to 210,000 gallons a day, with some indications that the flow may even be much greater. This situation now threatens wide-scale coastal damage for four Gulf Coast states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Weather Plays a Role

Over the past couple weeks since the spill occurred the weather had been somewhat favorable in containing the oil over open waters, keeping it from making landfall, but with an onshore wind shift and a reversing weather patten, the scale of the oil spill is rapidly multiplying and could very well become an environmental tragedy.

Here are the facts from NOAA:

• Winds are forecast to become strong (20+ kts) and blow from the southeast starting tomorrow and continuing through the weekend, which will continue to push surface oil towards shore.
  
  
• Oil-spill trajectory analyses indicate that oil continues to move towards shore.
  
  
• Oil-containment booms (or floating barriers) have been deployed as a precaution to protect sensitive areas in the Louisiana area.
  
  
• The effects of oil on sensitive habitats and shorelines in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida are being evaluated should oil from the incident make landfall in appreciable quantities.
  
  
• NOAA’s Assessment and Restoration Division is evaluating concerns about potential injuries of oil and dispersants to fish, human use of fisheries, marine mammals, turtles, and sensitive resources.

Tragic Environmental Impacts

Following are some possible impacts on the Gulf environment, commercial fisheries, wildlife and tourism:

• Fisheris – A number of fisheries could suffer as a result of the spill. The northern Gulf of Mexico is a crucial spawning ground at this time of the year for the Atlantic population of Bluefin Tuna, which is critically endangered. Their eggs float near the surface and the larvae stay there after they first hatch. So, the spill has occurred at a critical time in their life-cycle. The spill could dramatically decrease the amount of Bluefin Tuna larvae that are surviving. Losses could also be inflicted on the shrimp and oyster industries in Louisiana. Oysters are filter feeders and cannot swim to escape the slick.
  
  
• Birdlife – Several areas that are important to bird populations could be potentially affected. According to the National Audubon Society, places it has designated as "Important Bird Areas" or IBAs that could be threatened by the slick include, Chandeleur Islands IBA and Gulf Islands National Seashore IBA in Louisiana and Mississippi; also in Louisiana, the Delta National Wildlife Refuge and Pass-a-Loutre Wildlife Management Area. Species at risk include, Louisiana's state bird, the Brown Pelican, which was only removed from the U.S. Endangered Species Act last year. They nest on barrier islands and feed near shore.
  
  
• Tourism – Depending on where the slick goes, a number of beaches could be adversely impacted in areas such as the northwestern part of Florida, which has been running televised ads aimed at attracting tourists to the area.
  
  
• Others - Several species of sea turtles are currently moving through the Gulf, as their spring nesting seasons commences and they need to surface to breathe, so the slick at the water's top could damage their populations.

Environmental Disaster Looms for Gulf of Mexico

Officials Fear Oil Leak from Sunken Rig Could Damage Gulf Coast Beaches, Barrier Islands and Wetland Habitats

Efforts to clear up an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of last week's explosion and sinking of BP's offshore rig have been suspended because of bad weather, sparking further concern of an environmental disaster. Even though BP is using a robot submarine and dozens of clean-up vessels and aircraft to try to slow and stop the leaking oil, the company estimates that 1,000 barrels (or 42,000 gallons) of oil a day are now polluting the northern Gulf, and the oil is slowly spreading towards the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines.

According to the joint U.S. Government and Oil Industry Task Force, it could take months to stop the leak. Although the oil is not flowing directly from the well, but from the damaged rig pipes, and is therefore being released at a somewhat constrained rate, the effort to stop it will be complex and difficult. If current operations fail, the next option is to drill a relief well — a process that would take at least two to three months. Experts are also looking at the "Katrina Solution." After the 2005 mega-hurricane slammed into the Gulf Coast blasting through the same set of oil rigs, a dome or cone-shaped structure to corral the oil before it could make its way to the Gulf Coast was put in place.

The spill now covers about one-fifth of a remote national wildlife refuge near the mouth of the Mississippi River, and another 120 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico. Although the ultimate environmental impact is yet to be determined, the goal of the U.S. Coast Guard is to continue securing the source of the subsurface oil emanating from the well, clean the oil on the surface of the water, and keep the response well offshore — therefore trying to eliminate any impact at the coast.