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Gone with the Water

From an article in the October 2004 issue of National Geographic magazine:

It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however?the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.

Sound familiar? Read on:

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

Fortunately the casualty rate doesn't seem to be this high for NOLA, but the rest sounds spot on.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't?yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.

Pretty good for a year in advance. Imagine what would have happened if the Louisiana state government, and the City of New Orleans had made some realistic emergency plans based on this sort of projection.

Like it should have been their priority, since they're the ones directly on the scene - right? As it turned out, wrong!

Doug Wiken has a post regarding the passing of Chief Justice William Rehnquist titled, Justice with Racing Stripes Croaks. Excerpt:This death unlike the thousands of deaths in New Orleans gives the Texas smirking weasel another opportunity to screw up another...

I'm home in Nebraska from South Dakota, and am feeling quite cruddy. When you combine not feeling well with a "catch up" day at work (and add in some household chores you've been letting slide), this is not the way...

Ryne McClaren has a nice piece on the pork that Federal dollars purchased in Louisiana, when they could have been spent, say, strengthening levees. I especially liked this one:Remember when then-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge recommended that people stockpile some...

Former Representative Tim Roemer is suggesting Jimmy Carter take over the New Orleans rebuilding effort. Judging by how ol' President Goofy Tooth operated as president, I am not so sure this is a good idea, unless this is a clever...

Just now during the Notre Dame - Pitt game, ABC broke in to announce that Chief Justice Rhenquist has died....

Good news from the Washington Post:The U.S. military pulled hundreds of troops out of the southern city of Najaf on Tuesday, transferring security duties to Iraqi forces and sticking to a schedule that the United States hopes will allow the...

This from Robert Scheer, the LATimes version Paul Krugman. Instead of the much-celebrated American can-do machine that promises to bring freedom and prosperity to less fortunate people abroad, we have seen a callous official incompetence that puts even Third World...

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