Archbishop calls hurricane’s timing, on Katrina’s anniversary, ‘eerie’

On the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina Aug. 29, Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond offered prayers for people in the Archdiocese of New Orleans impacted by slow-moving Hurricane Isaac.

The storm dumped more than 15 inches of rain on southeast Louisiana and caused widespread flooding but spared New Orleans from major damage.

In a conference call with the leadership team of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans the archbishop acknowledged the suffering of thousands of people in south Louisiana from flooding.

“We consciously place ourselves in God’s presence and ask him to give us his protection,” he said in an opening prayer. “God has always promised to protect us in challenging times, and we ask that God does that now, especially with those who are struggling.”

Retired New Orleans Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes, who was archbishop of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, rode out Isaac at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. He called the timing of Isaac, on the same day, seven years later, from Hurricane Katrina, “rather eerie.”

“We have to be grateful that it was only a Category 1,” Archbishop Hughes told The Clarion Herald, archdiocesan newspaper of New Orleans. “The pumps seem to be working, although we’ve had some flash flooding. But there’s no serious flooding (in the city) that I’m aware of.”

Seven years ago on Aug. 29, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans by blowing holes in the city’s levee system, filling more than 80 percent of the city with water.

This time, the more than $10 billion in high-tech hurricane defenses and massive pumps installed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the wake of Katrina kept New Orleans mostly unscathed. But surrounding areas sustained massive flooding from the creeping storm, which took 36 hours to clear.On Aug. 30, areas of St. Tammany civil parish north of New Orleans reported rising water.

Archbishop Aymond could not confirm immediate damages to archdiocesan property, but parishioners of Assumption of Our Lady Mission in Braithwaite, south of New Orleans, said their parish sustained heavy flooding. [More]

SOURCE

CNS