Images of Hurricane Katrina's devastating blow to New Orleans strike close to home for many safety and health professionals. The city has been a favorite location for many national safety and health meetings. Just this past June the Big Easy hosted the annual American Society of Safety Engineers meeting, and last fall the National Safety Congress & Expo was forced to shut down early when threatened by Hurricane Ivan, which veered to the east and left the city dry.
This time New Orleans wasn't so lucky. Eighty percent of the city is under water; the convention center, intended to be the emergency response command center, is inaccessible. The Louis Armstrong airport is also flooded, and Interstate 10, the main route conventioneers take to reach downtown, has had sections lost and other stretches submerged beneath floodwaters.