Thursday, June 21, 2007

Just plane stopped


(Note: the photo is a montage)


We were heading back to Beaumont this weekend but got stuck on the I-10 bridge over the Bonne Carre spillway. It took us 2 hours to get across the 10-mile bridge. There was an accident up ahead -- I suspect more than one.

The Bonne Carre is an interesting stretch of land -- this low swath of ground is used to take the burden off the levees in New Orleans. Every few summers there is a flood of water coming down the Mississippi. The river rises and puts pressure on the levees for days or weeks at a time. So they open the Bonne Carre, upriver from New Orleans and bypass the city -- spilling the water into Lake Pontchartrain and from there to the Gulf.

So what do you do on a lazy summer evening -- I started taking pictures of planes flying over and into New Orleans' airport. After about an hour the planes stopped coming past. Eventually I was curious enough to look around and saw that the winds had shifted and they were bringing the planes in on another runway.

Below, a lane of traffic trying to merge onto the I-10 from the I-310 suffers the same fate. But apparently they had a better view from up there.

7 comments:

Beetle said...

Wow...am I dream? by seeing those planes together...I can't believe my eyes...Talk about traffic jam,this one is not annoying for me...Amazing Shot!...Please,tell me that is not real ;o)

NorthBayPhoto said...

Traffic jam in the air!! Although it isn't nice to sit in traffic, it must have been pleasant to view all of the planes flying overhead.

IamtheMom said...

Did you photoshop that first picture?

Dina said...

We get planes coming down and going up from where i live, infact the runway is not far from my house and we get to see the underneath of the plane if we go and look outside from the balcony and the roof. The same is with wind, we know where it is blowing by the planes, if they land from our side we have northerly winds and if they fly out from our side we have southerly winds,

Tara said...

I would not like to be the air traffic controller with that configuration in the sky! Nice montage!

Ming the Merciless said...

I remember driving along I-10. Wait, is this the elevated highway across the Ponchatrain??

Carraol said...

This is a great view of what the traffic air jam looks like, very well done!