Timeline Maps of Post-Katrina Deluge

Today nola.com has an animated slide show which shows the levee breaches and flooding of the city, down to the hour and minute. Many people outside New Orleans don't have a sense of what got flooded where, so maps help explain it all.

I think this animation shows, in particular, how the deluge wasn't confined to those who were most economically vulnerable before Katrina. I run into people all the time who don't realize the Lower Ninth Ward was filled with houses, not housing projects, and that people of various racial and economic backgrounds died in their attics or drowned in their houses.

Click here for slide show of how the deluge of New Orleans happened. It's a quick viewing.

I like maps

Two lab assistants from the Geography department, Tina and Katie, stayed late yesterday with me to prepare maps of Gentilly for my trip to New Orleans tomorrow.

I've noticed the past couple weeks how important it is to show a physical map of Gentilly, when I introduce this project. It makes what we are doing in Gentilly more concrete, even though the maps are real images. The Gentilly maps we produced and printed is a virtual representation - showing icons and labels indicating streets, schools, churchs, and cemetaries - yet it provides a useful prop to discuss what we are doing.

We made several copies, and I plan to leave them behind for keepsakes of those that I plan to meet with on Monday. And I may bring one with me to Washington D.C. on Tuesday.