Posts from — August 2005

The roads that seem to end are because of the switch to two lanes. You will notice that there are few North-South roads and too many roads run right along the coast. You will also see the number of bridges required to cross the bays, rivers, and lakes.

It is 200 miles as the crow flies from Fort Walton Beach to New Orleans.

Update: I’ve put up the wind map for Katrina from the National Hurricane Center.

Congress allocated all kinds of money for hurricane relief last year, but it never got here. When FEMA said it was going to cover 90% of approved costs, you missed the part about “approved”, which doesn’t cover much of anything.

I remember Opal in 1995 and things started out rocky, but they came through in the end and hung in for the long haul. After Opal things got fixed and people were made whole.

Duncan wonders why there is so much said about the Mississippi casinos, so I’ll tell him: they are the largest single source of income for the state and the largest source of jobs in the area that was struck. The state is in pain and until those casinos are up and operating the state cannot recover. State law required the actual casinos to be on barges on the water, which is why they were lost. There is no guarantee that the corporations won’t take their insurance money and abandon Mississippi.

For those who don’t live in this area: the losses will almost all have to be covered by government-operated flood insurance, private insurance losses will actually be minimal. The damage was done by the tidal surge and property insurance doesn’t cover it. You may have been paying for class 1A homeowner’s insurance for 20 years and find out you aren’t covered for your losses. Most people discover this when they apply to their insurance company and have their claims rejected.

When your rates for homeowners insurance go up this year, keep in mind that probably 90% of the losses in New Orleans are not covered by a homeowner’s policy. Insurance companies will probably pay for damage above the second floor for some of the high rises.

The real fun part is that you can’t get flood insurance unless you are in a flood prone area because it is a last resort government program.

None of this is a problem in Florida any more, no one is writing any new policies. There’s no problem because there’s no new insurance available.

Regarding gasoline: $5/gallon in Atlanta for what’s left in the system. Until there’s some power restored the gasoline pipelines that feed the center of the country are down. Alabama is asking people to avoid all unnecessary travel and is keeping schools closed until next week to hopefully preserve enough fuel for emergency services and the military.

Maybe Cheney should call together his super-secret energy panel to work out what they are going to do. Oh, when they complain about “environmentalist” blocking new refineries, you need to ask why no one has even applied to build one. This is the same dodge used for the California energy crisis: no new plants were built because no one even started the process. The “environmentalists” haven’t been afforded the opportunity to oppose refineries, any more than they had an opportunity to oppose California power plants. Corporations aren’t interested in spending money on new facilities when they can milk profits from the old ones.

For those people claiming this was “G-d’s judgment on the wickedness of New Orleans”, excuse me, but New Orleans was spared devastation by the hurricane and felled by the known weakness of a levee. The Corps of Engineers identified the problem, but the Federal government cut their matching funds from the project. The state came up with their money but the Feds realized that tax cuts were more important than protecting America’s largest port and major source of natural gas.

Exactly how much do you think he could see from a 747 flying over?

In 1980 a group of workers at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland challenged the government and formed a union to negotiate for better working conditions. Led by Lech Walesa, Solidarity not only forced the Communist regime to improve working conditions, it eventually forced the Communists out of power.

You have to wonder what might have happened in Iraq if the Coalition Provisional Authority hadn’t maintained Saddam’s ban on labor unions.

I haven’t heard a single Emergency Management official mention it to the local media down here on the Gulf Coast.

All of the diseases that mosquitoes carry are present in the “Big Easy” and, with holes in the roof, they certainly have entry to the Super Dome. The sewage system is out and you have to assume that it is backing up and mixing with the floodwaters. Contaminants from the industrial area and the oil leaking from a damaged tanker are also in that water.

Snakes and fire ants will go for higher ground, even if it is a building to avoid the water.

With high temperatures, high humidity, no functioning sanitary facilities, hospitals shut down, scarce drinking water, and the other problems – it is a potential epidemic.

Jillian mentioned Direct Relief as an organization that specializes in medical assistance to disaster areas.

Realistically, as a result of this storm we are going to have tens or hundreds of thousands of refugees for months. Forget Mardi Gras 2006.

JEB! tells us that 70% of the gas stations on Interstate 10 have gas, but fails to mention that the 30% that don’t have gas are all on the western end.

Lt. Governor Toni Jennings, who was the spokesweasel that told us there was plenty of gasoline before the storm, has said that people shouldn’t worry about the gas situation and continue with their Labor Day plans.

Gee Toni, I don’t think that going to see the concrete slab that formerly held a casino in Biloxi is much of a plan, especially since all of the roads are ripped up. Has any one told this woman that we are in the middle of a damn disaster and many of us are not concerned with how much money The Mouse makes in Orlando.

Why not start telling people to stay home and not using gasoline unless they have to so it will be available to use in the generators that are powering breathing machines and other medically necessary devices for the disabled?

Why not ask private pilots to stand down so there will aviation fuel for the aircraft needed for search and rescue operations?

Why can’t they ask people who have a home and a job to consume less to help those who have neither?

Update: I’ve put the links on the sidebar, because this is going to be a long hard slog.

Karen at Dark Bilious Vapors has discovered the reality of Shrubbery’s “Noble Cause” in a Jim Morin cartoon.

Mark Fiore presents the future of education.

Via The Yellow Dog Blog the Pentagon’s numbers for Deployed National Guard and Reserve. [Warning PDF]

Louisiana – 4,109
Mississippi – 4,793
Alabama – 2,432
Florida – 2,985

They and the people on the Gulf Coast would really like them back now! We need them and their equipment.

CNN/Money looks at the effects of Katrina on oil and gasoline.

Our oilman pResident is apparently unaware that even if the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve isn’t under floodwaters in the Louisiana salt mines where it’s stored, you have to have working refineries to use it. I guess no one, like our oilman Vice pResident, bothered to tell him that 9% of our refining capacity is in three units at New Orleans.

While the rest of the country is worrying about the coming increase in price of gasoline, the Gulf Coast wonders when we will get some at any price. Before the storm the pResident’s brother had a spokeweasel tell us that there was no problem with gasoline supplies on the Panhandle; it wasn’t 24 hours later that we ran out.

53^rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron [USAFR]
403^rd Wing, Keesler AFB, Biloxi, Mississippi

Hurricane Katrina Discussion Number 27

Special thanks are extended to the United States Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter crews stationed at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi Mississippi…who have been flying continuous missions through Katrina even as their families and homes are being seriously impacted by this hurricane.Forecaster Pasch

Roger that and fly safe.

Tropical Storm Warning in effect…
Hurricane Watch in effect…
Tornado Watch in effect until noon CDT today…
Flash Flood Watch in effect until Tuesday morning…

If you can afford it, they both do good work during hurricane recovery. It would be wonderful if they had less to do.

Update: If you wouldn’t mind, could you send some good thoughts to the men and women of the Louisiana and Mississippi Guard who have been deployed to the Persian Gulf. From personal experience it is really tough to know your family and friends need your help and you can’t be there.

At the moment, I’m reminded of Hurricane Camille in August of 1969. My Dad was in Biloxi, Mississippi when it hit and I drove through a month or so later. It looked like carpet bombing with destruction continuing well inland.

Katrina is now a Category Five with sustained winds at 175 miles per hour. There will be massive waves and a storm surge. New Orleans is six feet below sea level on average and needs levees and pumps to keep from flooding in normal times. If this storm comes anywhere close it will flood.

Katrina is a larger storm than Camille and will affect a wider area. Local officials are asking the Federal government to move MASH units into the area for assistance after the storm moves through.

Pensacola is still closing down and buttoning up because of this storm. It is due in 200 miles West of me, but there will be effects felt here.

We can hope that it will lose some strength before making landfall tomorrow, but you can’t count on it.

Update: the fourth most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record. Miles O’Brien of CNN is moving to Baton Rouge. He concluded his satellite truck would be under water if he stayed.

Update: [8PM CDT] The first rain/storm bands are coming on shore at my place.

My point is that these people don’t have a compass. There is no course to stay. Their only goal is to make a lot of money for their friends. Bush has no great belief or goal in his life; he borrows beliefs from others without ever bothering to understand them.

Only a great writer or total hack would have scheduled the “Mission Accomplished” speech on May Day.

I would note that they want to make them bigger [and more expensive] than I would think necessary, but then I’m a believer in Jerry Pournelle’s concept of “Good Enough” – it doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to get the job done.