by bryanna, 9/5/05 16:30 ET
i walked out of the city on sunday at noon --- just to let everyone in my mid city area know, water levels at that time were:bud's broiler and towards delgado, approx. 1 foot in the middle of the street, 2 feet at the curbs. delgado down city park ave to allard, totally dry but lots of debris and trash. allard to the corner of city park ave and n carrollton, rising from a few inches of (hot stinky) water to approx. 2 feet at the corner. n carrollton ave was approx 2 feet high from the city park ave corner to the snowball stand, then rising slightly til it was approx five feet high in front of winn dixie. continued rising from winn dixie until approx 6 feet high at the corner of canal and n carrollton. overpass near rock and bowl/thrift city still flooded up to the overpass. orleans ave from n carrollton approx 3-4 feet of water but going down fast (thanks neutral ground!), orleans was pretty low to dry as you hit city park ave corner. bayou st john had originally overflowed the banks, but was pretty contained yesterday, with grass around most parts of the bayou near city park ave/carrollton/park esplanade home area. still 1 and a half feet of water in the street around that area of the bayou, trapped on the street. water starting to stink, very oily, gassy, many large dead floating fish, many happy eating bugs birds on the banks. blue metal bridge over the bayou still not kayak-able under... esplanade ave has two enormous trees blocking the mouth of esplanade (near the shell station) but dump trucks cleared the rest of the debris to allow the army, etc to come up that street (they were holed up at delgado univ). esplanade at whole foods/fair grinds had approx 2-3 feet of water, slowly lessening the closer to the quarter, but quite high at broad neighborhood. we walked out over the train tracks and the cemetary, found our pre-parked truck on the high way, and caravanned out with a group of cox communications trucks, guns pointed at us, driving fast under the lifting up helicoptors. it was harrowing, but so good to leave. the city got crazy once the "help" arrived - forcible evacs for people who wanted to stay, suddenly mid city felt unsafe. felt okay, but wet, before.