Hurricane Isaac, he wrote...

Hurricane Isaac has come and gone, and Louisiana is more or less still here a week later.  

Isaac was a very slow moving storm, at times stationary and reversing course. Many of the destructive effects came from persistent winds that lasted for two or more days in areas on the east side of the storm.  In the flooded community of Braithwaite, the southerly winds from Isaac backed up the Mississippi river to such an extent that the levee was topped, flooding the community and forcing a number of rooftop rescues that brought to mind Hurricane Katrina.  This after the Mississippi was at a LOW level prior to the storm.  There were many power lines downed and the pace of restoring the power in the wake of Isaac may have caused the early retirement of the Entergy CEO after much criticism from frustrated residents of New Orleans.  

For our part, we evacuated our helicopter bases in far southern Louisiana and relocated ourselves and the aircraft to Lafayette, which experienced maybe 2" of rain and 30-40 knot winds during the peak of the storm on the west side.  We returned to most of our bases on Thursday, a day after the storm passed, but were on generator power for nearly a week, and very little aircraft activity is going on down the delta in places like Venice, which are still very much wind damaged and without power. 

Some very strange things happened due to the strength and the duration of the winds.  On the west side of the storm, persistent NORTH winds emptied out a canal in Delcambre and blew all the water out of Lake Peigneur.  It was somewhat surreal that as people were fleeing potential levee breaches on the east side, small children were driving their four-wheelers around on the bottom of a muddy lake bed on the west side.  

Much worse for Mississippi (and better for the marsh) was the killing of over 15,000 nutria rats that washed up on MS beaches and were being disposed of by contractors at the time of this writing.  

If you know anything about Louisiana and specifically New Orleans, you will not find it really surprising that residents are agitating for more taxpayer money for more levees to protect their below sea-level homesteads from a fourth or fifth hurricane induced destruction, and Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu stated recently that they have a "right to live there".  

Me, I'd move... but what do I know?  

For more on why the marsh will never come back and the state of LA has doomed itself to save the port of New Orleans, see my previous post on this topic.