corrente

Expanding on Riggsveda's earlier post (back) read to the end to get the real nightmare scenario:

The problems caused by floodwaters will only get worse, according to [Louisiana State University Hurricane Center researcher Ivor van Heerden] and the earlier tabletop exercises. For one, if the water in the city does rise to the height of levees along the lakefront, it may be difficult to open floodgates designed to keep the lake out that would now be needed to allow the lake to leave. Van Heerden said the rising floodwaters also would cause major pollution problems in coming days, as they float dozens of fuel and chemical storage tanks off their fittings, severing pipelines and allowing the material to seep into the floodwaters.

"In our surveys of the parish, a lot of the storage tanks we looked at weren't bolted down with big bolts," he said. "They rely on gravity to hold them down. If an industrial property is 5 feet below sea level and the water gets to 5 feet above sea level, that's 10 feet of water, and I'm certain many we looked at will float free.

"You'll see a lot of highly volatile stuff on the surface, and one spark and we'll have a major fire," he said.
(via Times Picayune)

Savage irony, eh?

Bush fights a war in Iraq for oil (back), and the port of New Orleans floods because Bush cut the flood control money to pay for the war (back). And then, the same oil we fought so hard to seize in the Mideast, floating on the floodwaters, catches fire...

Bringing the war back home...