Hurricane Katrina Aftermath (and other stuff I find interesting)

I'll be out a lot with all of the Mardi Gras festivities, so please be patient with the blog for the next week or so. In my absence, you can check out Aurthur Hardy's website for breaking Mardi Gras news and parade routes.

In my absence, I will require you to read the following article. It's about the Mardi Gras indians, their tradition, and how they are still marching this year. It's an incredibly powerful and moving piece about the spirit of New Orleans, and should be shared far and wide. To me, this is much more what Mardi Gras is about than parades and beer (which are great too). It's really about everybody in the city, forgetting their troubles, and coming together to have a good time.

Injuns Here Dey Come

As it prepares for its annual Mardi Gras parade, the Krewe of Zulu has announced that its honorary grand marshal this year will be New Orleans Saints running back Deuce McAllister.

More here

If you ever get an invitation that says "Costume de Rigeur", it means white bow tie, white vest, and tails. Just a friendly bit of info there. Don't go wearing something else, they might not let you in.

Anyhow, here's the rest of the stuff I have learned the past few days.

New Orleans East has its own website, and it's pretty good. Good info, and presented in an interesting manner.

The Broadmoor neighborhood has its own website too, and it is pretty well done. If you live in this neighborhood, please register on the site with your intentions regarding repopulation, etc.

Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives found the time to make it down for a visit. One also found it in them to send an aide along for the trip, so count three members as getting more info and a first-hand look. It's a start, though, and I hear that more are planning on making the trip in March.

The New York times weighs in with a pretty good piece about Mardi Gras, but I find the writing lacking, especially towards the end of the article. Illustrated by the ending quote in the article:

The route said: A lot of work remains for this city with no money. But the
parades said: Yes, but this is Mardi Gras. Grab yourself some beads.

Huh? Wtf was that? There is a picture in there of my good friend's dad and their kids in it, so scroll through the slideshow if you've got a few moments.

Slidell feels like the forgotten city. I've read a lot about this from the Mississippi gulf coast, too, and you know what? Too bad. If it weren't for New Orleans getting flooded as severely as it did, the world would have never really noticed in the first place, simply because the news cycle would have ended. Destruction, then over. There's very little noteworthy about cleanup, ask Homestead, FL. The story in New Orleans was hurricane, then flooding, then Superdome and Convention Center, then busses, then flooding again, you get the idea. The news cycle here developed and changed.

You know, you have New Orleans Style Mardi Gras, New Orleans Style Food, New Orleans Style architecture, New Orleans Style politics, all common themes that have entered the American lexicon.

I guess we can now add another: New Orleans Style Flooding.

I hadn't considered it until I read this article this morning from the Arizona Daily Star. Here's the quote:

Concentrated development in flood-prone parts of Missouri, California and other states has significantly raised the risk of New Orleans-style flooding as people snap up new homes even in areas recently deluged, researchers said Saturday.

Well, of course I should have realized it was coming. I can certainly see how people would be stretching for words to describe a tragedy of Katrina's scope in their part of the country. I think it's also quite interesting the list of places that could be affected by a similar flood event, according to researchers from the University of Maryland:

St. Louis

Dallas

San Francisco

Kansas City

Los Angeles

Omaha

Sacramento

Some of the scientist's predictions are quite scary, indeed.

Mount estimates a two-in-three probability over the next 50 years of a catastrophic levee failure in the massive delta region east of San Francisco.

Even a moderate flood could breech the delta's levee system while a larger one, perhaps following an earthquake, would inundate the region, Mount said.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin delta, which covers 738,000 acres, receives runoff from more than 40 percent of California. Much of the land is below sea level and relies on more than 1,000 miles of levees for protection against flooding, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

Something to think about indeed. I hope the residents of all of these areas realize the affect the decisions made down here are going to affect the aftermath of their own future disasters. The American people have given in large numbers, and I'm sure they would in a future disaster. It is our governing bodies that have let us down.

Anyhow, life goes on. In the aftermath of a disaster, we all have to remember that the last thing that got out of Pandora's box was hope, and I am hopeful that soon, we can make a new adition to the "New Orleans Style" list from the top of the article.

"New Orleans Style Recovery"