Katrina foretold?

The passage below is from the October ’04 issue of National Geographic magazine:

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.

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet (two meters) below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

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.

Click through and you’ll be taken to a page with an abbreviated version of the article, some great pictures and some really interesting links.

After watching the coverage of Katrina over the last two days, I got to thinking about Russ.

You know how you just get a feeling about something? Well, I was thinking about Russ before Katrina ran up onto southern Florida. There’s just been this nasty habit the last couple of years of storms making it into the gulf and then taking a shot at Russ’ neck of the woods.

So, while there was a whole bunch of coverage about New Orleans getting hit and everything, in a way I was hoping the thing would go even further west (although that was pretty unlikely).

Russ has a bookstore in downtown Mobile. It’s about a block or two up from the Mobile river. I sent Russ an email this morning and was surprised when I heard back from him. He was there, camped out in his store. He had power, a window was blown out and he could see the water from the store. I was surprised to hear back from him but I think that was before the power went out. I’m wondering just how high the water got by the time everything was through.

In the interim, I’m flipping channels today going back and forth between fly-overs of flooding and news-guy (person) accounts on the scene. It’s then a couple of things occur to me:

First off, we’re really a nation of rubber-neckers. I think cable television and all these news channels have desensitized us to these horrible, horrible events. The networks are looking to fill airtime and these disasters are the news channel equivalent of a blockbuster film. I’m not diminishing the level of damage and post hurricane suffering that is going to go on but, how many times am I going to have to see some idiot out in the middle of a hurricane with a microphone telling the folks back in the studio how horrible the wind is? It’s like, nitwit! It’s a hurricane! Hello!? That’s what they do. Common sense tells us to find high ground in some really well built structure to ride the thing out not to go out with a satellite truck and park where we’ll be able to see the most damage. The next step will be for some network to put one of these idiots out in a dingy with a camera or videophone so that the jerk can report on the wave heights. Plus having all these schmucks in the middle of storm central probably gives people the mistaken impression somehow they can ride the thing out instead of hightailing it to someplace safe.

Second, president Junior is on the tube today giving a speech about the war on terror. Somebody please wake this moron up. This is not a moment to go on tv and justify your policies because the polls say your numbers are low on the War in Iraq. It’s a time for you to get off your ass and make sure that the federal government is using each and every bit of its resources to alleviate and ease any discomfort citizens affected by a huge natural disaster are enduring. The big news today is Junior is cutting short his month long vaykay and returning to Washington tomorrow to “personally oversee relief efforts.” Newsflash dumbass! People are suffering right now! Get your ass back there today and get a move on.

I generally try to couch what I say and step back a little but, I’m just not patient enough at this moment to endure some stupid spin doctoring. Besides, I’ve got to imagine that all the people in the affected areas are going to be thinking how much more of a response there would be if National Guard troops weren’t on the other side of the planet making the streets safe to pump oil.