I'd also bet that the suburbs will see worse flooding than NOLA itself.

It's the neutral grounds. The city itself has a lot of grassy areas in the middle of the main streets that'll soak up some of the water. The suburbs (especially in Jefferson Parish to the west) are all concrete -- no ground for the water to soak into.

Dylan's right, I just saw film from the Quarter. It's not submerged. It'll have some damage, but nothing it hasn't dealt with before.

* * *

I just read that parts of NO are submerged under 5-6 feet of water. Some (all?) of the pumps failed.

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Man, the picture on the front page of CNN is killing me.

There's also a slide show at nytimes.com that shows Canal Street with trees torn out.

Interesting x-posts. Sounds like parts of the city are whammied, and parts will be able to cope.

Sounds like parts of the city are whammied, and parts will be able to cope.

I'm going to guess when all is said and done, it'll be both all over -- everyplace will be whammied, and every one will cope. The flooding has only just begun, as far as I can tell.

Evil earworm begins: "We've only just begun ... to flooooood ..."

Damn you Jesse!

Whoops. Sorry.

East side of New Orleans under 5 to 6 feet of water

Oops - that's the Quarter/Marigny side. Unless it's up by the lake.

Unless it's up by the lake.

What I heard is 9th Ward, which my dad describes as "Franklin Avenue to St. Bernard, most of New Orleans East."

Okay, just saw some more live video footage from New Orleans. Streets are flooded, windows blown out, trees are down. But the water level isn't that high yet. It's definitely going to be damaged - it's just not apocalyptic. They showed all the outer layer of the Superdome where it'd peeled off. They're not worried about structural damage in the Dome but the people inside are getting pretty wet.

Dana, your family didn't evacuate to any of the other areas that are now threatened, right?

What I heard is 9th Ward,

That's north and east of the Quarter, for those of you unfamiliar with the area.