4:05 PM Tue, Sep 27, 2005 | Permalink |
All of us have been stunned by the scope of the damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Sometimes small, personal images make the biggest impression: an elderly man evacuated by stretcher, a family stranded on their rooftop, a sodden, mud-encrusted stuffed animal that once gave a child comfort. But as powerful as those images can be, they can't give a sense of the immensity of the damage. The satellite image below stopped me cold when I ran across it on the web...
The photo at the bottom shows the western Louisiana Gulf coast prior to Rita, taken on September 21st. The coastline is clearly visible, marked by the contrast of dark blue water to the south, and the lush green of the late summer vegetation to the north. Now look at the photo above, taken just 4 days later, after Rita moved ashore. See how almost the entire coast for miles inland now appears a mottled brown-black. That's because that land is either partially or fully underwater, the result of the huge storm surge that pushed approximately 20 miles inland...and the heavy downpours released as the hurricane moved ashore.
Courtesy: NASA
That's a pretty amazing pic! Thanks for sharing.
Enjoyed the pictures,also great reporting on all the news.Very interesting.