New Orleans Hurricane Could Spell Disaster

Aug. 28, 2005 — -- It's not wind, but water that threatens New Orleans -- as the massive Hurricane Katrina circles in the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to hit the city.

New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city Sunday morning, saying Katrina would be "an unprecedented event in the history of the city of New Orleans, and we want everybody to get out."

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee was more blunt.

"You have an obligation to yourself and your family to haul ass and get out of here," he said, "and I'm telling you to get out now."

A National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration bulletin issued at 2 p.m. ET described Katrina as "potentially catastrophic." President Bush has declared states of emergency for Louisiana and Mississippi. And Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said people should not take those declarations lightly.

"This hurricane is lining up to potentially be the hurricane that would achieve our worst nightmares," Blanco told ABC News on "Good Morning America Weekend Edition."

"If we have 15 to 20 feet of water in the city of New Orleans, there aren't many safe places available," she added. "Power will be down. It will be a very difficult situation."

Below Sea Level

New Orleans sits in a bowl, most of it six feet below sea level, and is surrounded by water. Lake Ponchartrain lies to the north. On the south is the Mississippi River, which meanders through the city.

"I think New Orleans is completely different as a target for a hurricane than any other place in the nation," said Ret. Col. Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security for New Orleans.

The city is protected from both Lake Ponchartrain and the river by a series of levees, improved and heightened over the last 40 years.

But officials admit that the levee system, built to withstand a category 3 hurricane, could be easily breached by a stronger storm.

"If we had a direct hit of a category 4 or 5, or maybe even a slow moving cat 3, we would be totally inundated with water," said Geneve Grille, a levee engineer. "You couldn't pump it all out."

As Hurricane Katrina circled in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday morning, it was upgraded to a category 5 storm, the strongest category on the scale, with 175 mph sustained winds.

"With a storm of this size," said Victor Howell Sr., a spokesman for the American Red Cross in Louisiana, "we're not looking at your typical, 'Oh, a storm's coming through. It's gonna be here on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We'll clean up. On Thursday, we're back to work.' I'm afraid this is going to have long-term implications."

If such a strong storm strikes New Orleans, steady rain and surging water from the lake and river could submerge the city.

In the 1960s, just that happened, when hurricanes Betsy and Camille struck New Orleans.

Hurricane Betsy's winds topped 105 mph in 1965. The city quickly flooded, submerging pumps used to rid New Orleans of water even after a normal rainfall. Sixty thousand people were left homeless and more than 70 died.

In 1969, Hurricane Camille became one of only three recorded hurricanes to make landfall in the United States as a category 5 storm. The others were the Florida Keys hurricane of 1935 and Hurricane Andrew, which struck Florida in 1992.

Renita Hosler, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross in Washington, noted that nowadays, the New Orleans area has numerous manufacturing and chemical plants. If a flood contaminated drinking water or wells, it would be hard to fix.

Boiling water and other commonly used methods "may not be effective, because those measures do not remove chemicals," she said.

Evacuation Difficult

The only way to be certain of avoiding tragedy may be evacuation. But evacuations in New Orleans can be difficult.

There are 1.3 million people in the New Orleans metro area, which is situated on a delta. Roads out of the area can become clogged, as many were even as Nagin ordered the evacuation.

When an evacuation was ordered for the last big storm, Hurricane Georges in 1998, it took more than a day for just half the population to leave New Orleans.

Complicating matters further, many people in New Orleans don't even have cars — including some residents and tourists staying at hotels.

"We have exempted hotels [from the mandatory evacuation order]," Nagin said, "because what we're finding is a couple of airlines have canceled some flights, and the tourists that are in town are having a very difficult time finding rental cars. The rental cars are all gone. And they can't find flights."

Nagin said the Superdome, a domed football stadium in the city, could act as a shelter for those who can't get out.

"We have identified the Superdome as our primary designated center of last refuge," he said. "If the Superdome fills, there are other high-profile buildings that … are available that could provide us with additional shelter."

But evacuation should be the first choice, officials said, even for those who don't have cars.

"There'll be all sorts of modes of transportation available to those who have no transportation," Blanco said on "GMA." "City buses will be available. Other people are bringing buses in. We also, I believe, are lining up trains to move as many people out as possible."

'Hurricanes … Don't Scare Us'

Still, there are those who may be difficult to convince. Several Saturday revelers on New Orleans' Bourbon Street suggested to ABC News Radio that they may be more interested in drinking the cocktails called "hurricanes" than fleeing the real thing.

"We live in Louisiana," one man said. "Hurricanes really don't scare us."

"I ain't going nowhere," another local resident said Saturday. "Where you gonna hide at? You go on the highway you get killed on the highway, too. All that traffic, backed up traffic and everything."

But as the storm's intensity grew Sunday, some seemed to get more serious.

At Pat O'Brien's, the French Quarter restaurant known for its hurricane cocktail, none of the usual revelry was evident. Worker Wallace Nicaud was busy shutting down some of the operations in advance of hurrying out of town.

"We took the flaming fountain down, battened down the hatches, and we'll have someone staying here throughout the storm," he said. "But, uh, we're closed."

Cars jammed with personal possessions packed the roads out of the city.

"We have traffic backed up, but it's a steady flow of traffic," said Katrina Morales, at the T/A Travel Center in Slidell, La., about 25 miles north of New Orleans along Interstate 10. "It's a creep and a crawl."

ABC News' Bob Jamieson and Lenny Bourin in New York originally reported a version of this story for "World News Tonight" on Aug. 27, 2005. ABC News' Jim Ryan in Louisiana and Michael S. James in New York also contributed to this report.