help understanding the hurricane's destruction

Poststructural Pub
1

I was listening to an interview yesterday, and the speaker had a great way of explaining how to “visualize” just how much destruction has occurred in the Hurricane.

Imagine driving along the highway to an area 100 miles (160km) away. The example here was driving from Cincinnati up I71 to Columbus. Looking at one side of the highway - imagine that ABSOLUTELY EVERY BUILDING, STRUCTURE, TREE, TOWER, ETC. for a 5 mile deep swath away from you is GONE. Nothing left but rubble and kindling. The building contents of a brick house scattered over 5 miles.
The next 5 miles inland might have structures still standing, but most have some type of damage. Trees are still down, but there are some still standing.

To understand what happened in New Orleans, plunk a 35 mile wide lake down AFTER all that destruction, say, from behind the area from Cincinnati to Kings Island, and think about a good portion of that lake coming in and flooding that 10 mile long area back to the highway for a lot of those 35 miles.

THAT is what happened.

2

Another comparison I heard is that the area designated for disaster relief is equal in size to the entire United Kingdom.

3

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM
another interactive website with awesome pictures.

4

I have also heard that multiple times. It puts a lot into perspective of why the relief effort is taking so long/will take so long, because the UK is a rather large area. It’s not just a building or two or even a street or block, it’s a much larger area.