So a little rain in Uptown today --

[sr]

[TUPF]

Who else remembers walking to class barefoot through ankle deep water and not paying any mind?

[MattK]

Who else remembers walking to class barefoot through ankle deep water and not paying any mind?

We walked to Elio's on those days instead.

[sr]

Who else remembers walking to class barefoot through ankle deep water and not paying any mind?

Exactly, had pontoons on my bike.

[PeteRasche]

Who else remembers walking to class barefoot through ankle deep water and not paying any mind?

I had a summer job downtown one year, and it started raining around 4:30 pm one day and kept going. By 6:30 the waters had risen, but one summer clerk at the firm had an SUV and decided to make a run for it, and since he lived Uptown he offered me a ride. After an adventurous drive (a whole separate long story), he dropped me at the corner of Willow and Broadway. I took off my socks and shoes, rolled up my work pants as best I could, and walked down Willow (on the sidewalk) to Butler Hall where the team was staying while taking summer classes. Some parts of Willow were mid-thigh on me (mid-chest on most folks?)

In retrospect, I can't imagine what was in that water and I'm really glad I had no open wounds on my legs or feet (and that the water didn't reach any, ahem, natural openings).

I know this is probably "the norm" for natives, but it was quite memorable for me.

We had 5 inches of rain in one day here a couple of weeks ago, which was the second highest single day ever here. We've had several other three day rains totaling 2 to 3 each in the past few months, which is also very unusual. Since Monday we've had about 1.5 with more expected tomorrow. But here, it all just runs to the river and goes away...

[AO Sig]

I remember studying for my Organic chem final while watching 9 inches fall in about 5 hours; I would suspect TUPF remembers the "May 3rd flood." The wake in front of the Freret Jet as it approached Stern hall was amazing. Thigh deep water on Willow St. at about noon, was completely dry by 5.

[Cheerleader]

I remember many times walking to class with shorts and flip flops through ponds like this. Except we called them Jesus slippers in those days. Just part of going to school in New Orleans.

[PeteRasche]

I remember studying for my Organic chem final while watching 9 inches fall in about 5 hours; I would suspect TUPF remembers the "May 3rd flood." The wake in front of the Freret Jet as it approached Stern hall was amazing. Thigh deep water on Willow St. at about noon, was completely dry by 5.

I didn't even mention the "notable" flood which occurred a couple of years later. Put "May 1995 flood" into Wikipedia, it's got its own page! 24.5 inches measured at Tulane.

[TUPF]

One of the reasons I went NROTC Tulane instead of taking an appointment to Annapolis...

the Marine drill instructor in the unit was having us seniors do some prep for something or other on stage at McAlister on one of those campus wet days and I walked on stage barefoot, wet up to my calves and did whatever it was we were doing. The Gunny looks at me, looks at my shorts and bare feet and just gives me a smirk. At Annapolis this would have been grounds for keel hauling.

And having served in submarine wardrooms which were equally split between Boat School and NROTC I saw no better or no worse from either source. Makes you wonder what the taxpayer is paying for. And I got the same officer commission!

[windywave]

One of the reasons I went NROTC Tulane instead of taking an appointment to Annapolis...

the Marine drill instructor in the unit was having us seniors do some prep for something or other on stage at McAlister on one of those campus wet days and I walked on stage barefoot, wet up to my calves and did whatever it was we were doing. The Gunny looks at me, looks at my shorts and bare feet and just gives me a smirk. At Annapolis this would have been grounds for keel hauling.

And having served in submarine wardrooms which were equally split between Boat School and NROTC I saw no better or no worse from either source. Makes you wonder what the taxpayer is paying for. And I got the same officer commission!

A dairy farm, saving money on AC (not really anymore), a really nice chapel.

[Roller]

I remember studying for my Organic chem final while watching 9 inches fall in about 5 hours; I would suspect TUPF remembers the "May 3rd flood." The wake in front of the Freret Jet as it approached Stern hall was amazing. Thigh deep water on Willow St. at about noon, was completely dry by 5.

I didn't even mention the "notable" flood which occurred a couple of years later. Put "May 1995 flood" into Wikipedia, it's got its own page! 24.5 inches measured at Tulane.

That event is deeply emblazoned on my mind, Pete.

The Corps of Engineers, FEMA, NWS, Coast Guard, and the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Arkansas Including Counties and Parishes) teamed up for a large scale exercise to test the agencies' cooperation efforts in a hypothetical "worst case" scenario. The premise as a rainfall event in South Louisiana and Mississippi that would drop 17 inches of rain in 24 hours. It was a big deal: The Weather Channel and CNN even made up 48-hour tapes of staged broadcasts covering the "event," so that operations center personnel were tuned in and watching the contrived broadcasts as the "situation" developed.

I was the overnight team leader in the Corps' Emergency Operations Center in Washington, and we were totally immersed in the scenario. I told my deputy that, as far as I was concerned, I didn't think they had devised an actual "worst" case, since I had seen may events in New Orleans that approached that.

What actually happened in the real world was more than 25 inches of rain in roughly 12 hours! And, since the Emergency Operations Center of all the participants were caught up in the phony scenario, it quickly became impossible to differentiate between what was really happening and what we were seeing on our fake CNN and Weather Channel broadcasts. As a result, we were immediately flooded with conflicting reports of who needed assistance--some of the assistance requests that were part of the drill were eerily similar to actual requests for help being submitted by those who were actually facing the rainfall. (For instance, our scenario had a hospital in Plaquemines calling for emergency generator units. In the real world, St. Joseph's Hospital in Thibodaux lost power and their generators were flooded out, so they needed emergency units while we mulled over which one was real and which was just part of the drill.

Those of us manning the various Emergency Operations Centers were trying to shut down the exercise so that we could sort out what was really happening. Early on, I called the Chief of Engineers and got him out of bed. He contacted the Director of FEMA, and they began calling Governors. Eventually, after several hours of "battle confusion," the Governor of Mississippi pulled his people out of the exercise. Louisiana followed almost immediately, and the other states followed suit over the next half hour (The states were the cornerstone of the exercise, and we needed them to drop out first). Then the Chief of Engineers and Director of FEMA gave the stand-down order to the Feds, and directed us to concentrate on getting rid of all the fake information in the system. The entire decision process took about 4 hours, during which time, life in the Ops Center was holy hell. It wasn't until well after daybreak that everything got sorted out.

[PeteRasche]

Roller, that's crazy. You were doing a drill while the real thing happened? Wow.

First thought: what genius had the idea to set up a drill during the season when it was likely to actually occur? You couldn't have done it in the winter?

That was a crazy night. I was both very smart and also lucky with regards to coming out unscathed. Long story for another time.

[TUPF]

Great job Roller. The only thing I have close was when my submarine was deployed to the Mediterranean in May 1987 and we were running an exercise with NATO assets. Nothing special, we exercised all the time.

We get FLASH traffic saying that the USS Stark had been attacked. I happen to be in the Radio Room when the message comes in since the RMs worked for me and I was looking at some records. I had to read the message many times because I first thought it was part of the exercise. It was not.

Even worse, all the message said was the attack had happened. Too soon to tell by whom, if it was part of a bigger move, etc. I picked up the 1MC and uttered the magic words...”Captain to the Conn” which you only do when the poop is hitting the fan. The CO, XO and I briefly discussed the potential that we were at war and the CO put the ship at battle stations. We loaded warshots in all torpedo tubes and went on wartime footing for several hours until later messages clarified the situation. Many skivvies were cleaned that day.