The New Road

The Hurricane

I've been thinking about what to say about Hurricane Katrina. It's unlike anything I have ever seen. Which is saying something since my wife, family, and friends and I are all survivors of Andrew. But to say that we were survivors is a bit of an overstatement. We were just at the fringe of the destructive path and while it was noisy, scary and somewhat destructive. It was nothing like what happened further south. After the storm Lori and I were ok, so I went to work doing temporary roofing for University of Miami staff whose houses were further south. I saw the destruction there first hand. Life and property was essentially re-arranged as if by some enormous three year old on a temper tantrum.

And the worst of Andrew, I have to say, is nothing in comparison to Katrina. Basically if you lived through the storm with Andrew, you were going to make it. Katrina is a completely different story. The situation is actually getting worse as time goes on. The water is getting deeper and nastier. It's filled up with oil, gasoline, fire ants, dead people and sewage. And not only that there are gas leaks, and roving bands of looters who will kill you for defending your property.

This is like something out of Mad Max. Actually, it's worse than Mad Max. This is like the movie between the current time and the time of Mad Max, where the world goes to hell and a lot of good people die because they don't yet want to fight over gasoline with hand strapped crossbows. And to me, that movie would be scarier than Mad Max.

It's certainly the worst natural disaster I have seen in America in my life time. I've been to New Orleans, hell, just recently in fact. Most of what you seen in these pictures, below water or destroyed. And that sucks. I love New Orleans. It's a dirty, smelly, scary, mean and wonderful town. One of the last few interesting cities in America. And to me, the city with the most innate charm.

Will it come back? Certainly. It will take two to three years, but it will come back. It won't be the same. It will be a lot of the new New Orleans, which is typified by the gaudy downtown casino. Or, unfortunately, there could be another super storm. Which is possible, unfortunately, because we are only half way through the season and the gulf is very hot.