And we thought Katrina was bad....they tried to nuke us!

Just saw this story in the Guardian. Apparently the Pentagon really dropped the ball on this one but luckily for us didn't drop anything else!!! Someone accidentally (apparently) fixed nuclear warheads to the wings of a B-52 bomber and flew it from the Canadian border to Southern Louisiana!!

So the Federal flood was not enough - they wanted to finish the job in a big way......

Would someone please rescue us from this insanity and incompetence - maybe we need to be invaded and under go "regime change" - pleeease - we'll come into the streets cheering and meet the invading army with flowers (as long as they agree not to nuke us!!!).

Two Year Anniversary of Katrina

This is one of the public housing "ghettos" that I pass almost on a daily basis and every time it makes me reflect. It reminds me of the empty Warsaw ghettos from the 1940s. It makes me question what the observers of those ghettos thought about where its previous inhabitants had gone.

The inhabitants of this ghetto have not been sent to such a horrific fate but they have still been shipped away. When I talked to a NOPD cop a few months back he said that when the army was brought in, the way they treated people reminded him of Poland in the 1940s.

This ghetto reminds me that there are 90,000 New Orleanians now resident in Houston. This ghetto reminds me that there are people who called this place home for generations and had never left it until Katrina forced them out. I look at the empty gaping windows and wonder who lived there and what they brought to the city they belonged to. There were no doubt criminals and drug lords in this ghetto and whether it was a pleasant or unpleasant place to live is a whole other discussion on American public housing, but there must have been plenty of people who were not those things, who were trying to scrape by, trying to make ends meet anyway they could. There must have been some people who helped create the chants of the Mardi Gras Indians, who encouraged their kids to learn the brass band music of generations and who cooked red beans and rice on a Monday. Where are these New Orleanians now and how to they feel today?

I always wonder how these people coped after what happened to them at the superdome and the convention center. I wonder what they thought as they couldn't get out and faced surviving that huge storm. These are the people this country abandoned, the people who were not important enough to get water to in five days. I always wonder if these people have been offered the chance to return home to this city or not. I wonder if their hearts have been broken living in the total other universe outside of New Orleans.

WEDNESDAY

This Wednesday is the 2nd year anniversary of Katrina. I hope the world takes time to reflect on what happened, is happening and has still to happen here.

I will be posting a series of photos that say something of what is missing here.

Meanwhile please read the Time articles here.

Bush Go Home You are NOT Welcome!!

Bush is going to dare to come to New Orleans this Wednesday on the 2nd anniversary of the federal flood and failure of Katrina. How DARE he!!! I hope everyone turns their back on this man. He disgusts me.

Go to Rising Tide 2!!!!!!

I wish I could but I have work..... so if you are in New Orleans this weekend and not working you should go in my sted - go to Rising Tide 2 and find out what is really going on with the rebuilding of this unique city!!!

Pump Engineer

I had an unusual encounter yesterday. I met two engineers who designed the pumps that are installed in New Orleans to help prevent another federal flood. They were in the grocery store picking up some cheese cake for the hungry workers testing the pumps.

One of the men was the actual engineer who designed the pumps. He described them as "his" pumps. Having read so much about failing pumps and the city (or state or feds - can't remember who, so don't quote me!) buying faulty pumps from a dodgy Bush family connection in Florida, I took the opportunity to ask these gentlemen some questions. I asked about the dodgy pumps and I touched a nerve. The primary engineer told me that those pumps were agricultural pumps, for farmers and never designed to be relied upon (a farmer with a broken pump can wait a day to get it fixed but not a city in the midst of a hurricane!!). He was quite angry about it - which pleased me!! He then told me that his pumps could pump over a million gallons of water in a minute!!! I thought that sounded very impressive.

I am not mechanically minded and explanations of the kind normally tie my little brain in knots. However from what he was explaining, the engineers have designed the flood walls and pumps in such a way that should a storm surge happen (perish the thought...) then they can ensure that the volume of water in the canals can be controlled and prevent pressure building up on the canal flood walls. The result should be that a flood wall should never break under too much pressure as it did in Katrina. I hope this engineer is right. I need him to be right. This city needs him to be right. He was a really nice guy and extremely proud of his job and his pumps. It made me feel a little safer having met him.

The Hurricane Made me into a Bad Person!!

Dean is looking like he wants some serious shots of Tequila in Mexico and will leave Louisiana and Texas alone. Good news for us but bad news for Mexico. One of the most disturbing things about hurricanes and living with the threat of one, is that as soon as one pops up you wish it to go anywhere but where you are. So I find myself wishing harm on my friends (one of my best friends lives in Corpus Christi, Texas) and other human beings (Mexico). I don't like the fact that hurricane season turns me into a less caring individual.....