28 August 2005

The Big One

Say a prayer for New Orleans and all the folks along the Gulf Coast there.

"I'm expecting to come back to a slab," said Robert Friday, who didn't bother boarding up his home in suburban Slidell, La., before driving north to Mississippi. "We may not be coming back to anything, but at least we'll be coming back."

Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard said some who have ridden out previous storms in the New Orleans area may not be so lucky this time.
``I'm expecting that some people who are die-hards will die hard,'' he said.

"I was going to the Superdome and then I saw the two-mile line," the 42-year-old musician said. "I figure if I'm going to die, I'm going to die with cold beer and my best buds."

Fred Wilson, a tourist from San Francisco, who was drinking a rum and fruit juice hurricane cocktail, said: "The only dangerous hurricanes so far are the ones we've been drinking. We can't get out, so we might as well have fun."

"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," Nagin said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime event."

This Nagin is New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin, who in a press conference this morning gave the order evacuating the city. In halting speech he read out the evacuation order--then looked up and said, "I wish I had better news." Later in an interview wih MSNBC, Nagin noted that he had packed his family off to Dallas, and had a cot set up in his office in city hall and a room in a hotel, and he'd go to whichever seemed safer. This blog tends to point out a lot of the selfish, unethical, and stupid things politicians do, so this is a good time to remember that at least occasionally they face difficult choices.

As Nagin said, God bless New Orleans.



2 comments:

Lucky Bob said...

I hope everyone survives as well. I would have to agree that flight is their best bet. I have a feeling this could get really bad.

This reminds me of one of your previous posts about insurance, and the comment I made. I wonder how many of these people have insurance that will cover the loss and how many expect federal money to bail them out. I'm waiting to see the damage done and wondering if it will be worth the risk to rebuild. It may be better in the long run to pay them all to move.

My cousin started buying a house about 4 months back. My aunt asked the realter and builder if the house was on a flood plain and was told that it wasn't. It flooded this month. All of the new house owners in that area are looking for a lawyer.

Anonymous said...

The northern gulf coast is in all of our thoughts...

Would you mind updating your link to my site? skipe the "blogspot" bortion, it's just http://sticksoffire.com now.