Let’s clear this up for people who don’t understand hurricanes. The winds and storm surge wiped out the Mississippi towns of Lakeshore, Waveland, Bay Saint Louis, Long Beach, Gulfport, Biloxi, and Pascagoula, the Alabama towns of Bayou La Batre, Dauphin Island, and Gulf Shores, and the Louisiana parishes of Plaquemines and Saint Bernard. These were the areas that caught the eye and the Eastside of the storm. These places were pretty much leveled by Katrina, as the storm surge was like a tsunami, knocking down everything in its path. [I’m 250 miles East of landfall and we had an 8-foot storm surge.]

There was lesser damage as the storm moved inland because friction from the land slows the wind down.

The buildings in New Orleans sit behind the windbreaks of the levees and floodwalls. Many single story buildings were never subjected to hurricane force winds because of the protection of other buildings. The multistory buildings were the ones that were battered by the winds.

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Colorado authorities asked Emily Litella to tell the media that all charges have been dropped.

In the Florida Democratic primary things are starting to heat up. I just got a “hit piece” on Jim Davis that was sponsored by Florida’s Working Families, Inc.

According to The Center for Public Integrity this 527 group is funded by agribusiness, principally the citrus and sugar industries.

Knowing that Davis’s opponent, Rod Smith, is the chairman of the Florida Senate’s agriculture committee and a farmer might help people understand this piece.

The most current piece of legislation that this piece highlights is the Bankruptcy Bill [Senate bill 256, April 14, 2005]. I am not unhappy to learn that Davis voted against this bill, which FWF characterizes as a bill “limiting the amount of interest credit card companies can charge”, rather than a bill that makes it almost impossible to escape credit card companies.

Steve Bates of the Yellow Doggerel Democrat is moving to a new place: www.yellowdoggereldemocrat.org.

Adjust your blogroll and feeds.

A little more than a year after being the host of Katrina’s out-of-town try-out as a hurricane, Mustang Bobby of Bark Bark Woof Woof is looking at Ernesto’s current track with real concern.

Ernesto was weakened by Haiti’s mountains, and will be affected by Cuba’s, but the water is warm and the wind shear is down, so conditions are ripe for it to spin up before hitting the Florida peninsula.

People along the Atlantic coast should start paying attention because South Florida is too flat to really slow down hurricanes, and there is very warm water off the coast.