Time For Action
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Mayor Landrieu and Governor Jindal are set to speak within the next 90 minutes or so. I hope what they have to say involves words like evacuations, buses and contraflow, based on an orderly plan starting immediatelya. It’s still very, frustratingly unclear where Isaac will go and how strong it will get — much more unclear than Katrina was — but New Orleans is very much one of the places in danger, and certainty will now come too late. New Orleans takes time to evacuate. Prudent precaution demands that they act NOW. Better safe than sorry.
Time to Get The Hell Out, folks.
I’ll post more once my girls are in bed for naptime (likely after the governor’s and mayor’s pressers).
As a native Louisianan and a hurricane watcher, I don’t get into panic mode over a hurricane. As a long-time cop, I love early notifications and timely evacuations so that we don’t have to get to panic mode. New Orleans is not the same city it was in 2005, and the residents have learned how to get out. Landrieu is a better mayor than Nagin, and I’m sure that he’ll do what is necessary.
The plain truth is that New Orleans doesn’t make sense anymore. With normal geologic change, the place will be uninhabitable in another hundred years. The city is sinking, is indeed below sea level and if the pumps go out, they’re screwed. The Mississippi river wants to change course, to take the Atchafalaya river on a shorter route to the sea. One of these day that will happen and N’Awlins will become a horrible place to live. No fresh water, salt encroaching, and one day the water gets in. It’ll become part of Ponchartrain Lake and a hazard to navigation. The one upside is that all the buildings will provide good fishing to the sportsmen in the area.