It is definitely sad what has happened to the people living on the Mississippi and Louisiana coast lines. The power of something as simple as water and wind is amazing. Many people are in the situation of rebuilding a significant portion of their lives. That being said, I don't understand why people didn't open the windows.

As the news has shown film looking through downtown New Orleans one thing you notice is that the buildings have a large percentage of the windows blown out. Shouldn't this be expected? Hurricanes have a large (very large in Katrina's case) low pressure region. The pressure drastically changes as the hurricane moves through, the buildings can't adjust and there is high pressure stuck on the inside. Thus, the windows blow out to equalize the pressure. Wouldn't opening the windows, allowing the pressure inside to be release faster, cause significantly less damage?

I'm curious what would happen if a stadium with an air-supported fabric roof was in the same situation. These use air pressure to keep the roof up creating an even higher pressure inside. Would it just pop like a giant pimple?


posted Sep 1, 2005 | permanent link