August 30, 2005
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“…whitecaps on Canal Street”
UPDATED below
That’s the news I heard on NPR when I turned on the radio this
morning. Hurricane Katrina breached two of the levees
protecting New Orleans. According to WWLTV.com,
the break in 17th Street Canal Levee is now 200 feet wide. Water
around the Superdome is a foot and a half to two feet deep and
rising. Thousands of people are trapped and downed power lines
and floating debris are making boating hazardous. Sandbags are
being hauled in, but some official sources don’t think they can stop
the flooding. They don’t expect the water level to stabilize
until the water in the city, which is built below sea level, reaches
the level of Lake Ponchartrain.Since I heard the news, I’ve had Led Zep running through my head, “When
the levee breaks, Mama you’ve got to move.” The ordeal is just
beginning for those affected by Katrina, and I don’t suppose there are
many in this country who won’t be affected one way or another.
Economists are talking about how this will raise gasoline prices even
faster and drive some airlines out of business. Those whitecaps
on Canal Street are just little waves, signaling a long series of wave
after wave of aftereffects. I’m reminded of what No Eyes
predicted, and Edgar Cayce. Are we ready for this? I
wonder….I have a little prediction of my own. Some of the survivors of
Katrina, homeless, jobless, and discouraged, will be looking for new
homes on higher ground. In the same way that common Alaskan
speech gained a little Texas-Oklahoma twang from the influx of
pipeliners in the 1970s, I’ll soon start hearing more of the soft drawl
of the South around here. I wonder how long it will be before
someone from New Orleans moves in at Felony Flats.**groan** **sigh** I just had another little memory flash, one of
the bumper stickers current in the ‘seventies when our state license
plates pictured a standing brown bear: “Welcome to Alaska,
pilgrim. The grizzlies need feed.” It’s not out of the
frying pan into the fire. More like out of the soup bowl into the
freezer.
UPDATES
10:45 AM Alaska time:“
Some six-thousand National Guard personnel from Louisiana and
Mississippi who would otherwise be available to help deal with the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are in Iraq.”
11:10 AM:
Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi says “this is
going to be the most expensive natural disaster that’s hit the United States
in history.”
WWLTV.comHurricane floods may boost West Nile virus.
NewScientist
Comments (7)
A students cousin was near Biloxi MI. They have no word from her since yesterday morning. I try to feel her and she seems far away, either in shock or traumatized or uncouncious. Not dead though. She decided that everyone was ‘trippin’ over nothin’ Dumbass. I guess the Universe decided to show her not to be such a headstrong stubborn fool.
I grew up in Galveston, a barrier island right off the coast of Texas (I think you’ve mentioned it in your memoirs so you probably know what I’m talking about). Most of it is below sea level, but storm surges like that kind of wash through. I can’t imagine it all just being standing water, that’s only adding in with the levee breaks and no real outlet. It’s going to be a long ordeal for them to fix it. And as you say there are many people there that were barely surviving before and won’t be able to put their lives & homes back together. I talked to some people that thought that the mandatory evacuations meant that they’d gotten everyone out. They didn’t really understand that there are many people that had nowhere to go and no way to get there. New Orleans is such a uniquely beautiful (shabby in a many ways but still so interesting to me) place. I just don’t know.
How horrible.
Local gas prices are up already–up to $2.599/gallon, which is about a nickel more than it was a few days ago.
watched CNN at lunch time, saw footage of a lot of places I’ve been around New Orleans and Biloxi. just tottally devastated. the I-10 span leading out of New Orleans, that’s usually over swamp land, is just totally broken to pieces, parts submerged or just barely above water. couple of abandoned cars sitting on pieces that aren’t connected anymore. building i’ve been in that have floors of them just blown out. crazy. things are going to get much worse there before it gets better. not as much nat’l guard help, more standing water in a place already susceptible to those sorts of illness outbreaks. just not good.
Thank you. I had not made the connection, the rippled effect here.
