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Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Friday, September 09, 2005

So, nobody could have predicted the New Orleans disaster, eh?

At least, that's what our Commander in Chief (sigh) said last week during one of his damage-control TV appearances. Well, check out the link to an article that appeared in October 2004 in National Geographic. Below is an exerpt, which really needs no additional commentary on my part.

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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.

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 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.

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.

7 comments:

  1. I think this post falls under the "DUH" heading. I don't think ANYONE* would argue with the fact that Bush was an idiot for saying that it could not have been predicted.

    * Any rational person at least.

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  2. Eric, that wasn't my main point. The eerie thing is how accurately the article describes the devastation, almost a year before it happened.

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  3. Could you actually post the link?

    The better evidence is Pam, the theoretical cat 5 hurrican senario that FEMA played out laster year in NO.

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  4. Eric, the link is embedded in the title of the post.

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  5. Wow, I'd read that article and yet I hadn't thought of it this entire time. I must be getting old.

    Good find.

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  6. My mistake, the title link usually goes to the permalink version of the story.

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  7. I find it ironic that the president who started a war based on weapons that weren’t there screwed up a natural disaster relief effort because he ignored information that was there.

    Rick

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