Don't Build Below Sea Level

It seems that God finally got irritated with the Gulf Coast and decided to erase it. I haven't been able to watch much of the coverage, but what I have seen of Katrina's damage is stunning. I have to agree with Barry that the mayor who compared it to the recent tsunami was being a bit shallow, but he wasn't far off. The human cost will not be anywhere near as high, but the damage won't be far off even with all of the warning. Who has seen recently 80% of a major metro area submerged and continuing to flood over a day after the initial storm as well as a number of smaller metro areas all but erased from the map where even the basic services we take for granted are gone? Not even Andrew had this kind of lingering effect. The impact of the storm looks like it will actually affect us across the country--not something that happens often--as if gas prices weren't high enough. The idea of having refugee camps on the scale that this has created that will likely have to house people for many months here in the US is certainly unpleasant. Shoot, we complain when it takes a couple of days to have power restored and they are looking at 4-6 weeks to restore power in New Orleans. At the same time everything will have to be completely rebuilt--absolutely mind-numbing.

The part that truly displays human folly is that all of the cities hit are planning to rebuild in the same exposed locations. This would be a great chance to rebuild in a less vunerable location, but people being people they will go back and expect it not to happen again or expect that they can beat it if it comes again. Sheer folly. Who builds a city below sea level in the first place? I realize that the Netherlands are partially below sea level but at least that country is not in a hurricane prone area where storm surges, torrential rains and flooding has a reasonable chance to overwhelm any countermeasures. Oh well, this will keep the news agencies busy for a while and create a lot of jobs in the rebuilding process. Hopefully something good comes from the tragedy.

The other high or low point is that this is still early in the hurricane season with September, statistically the busiest month, yet to come. We'll see what happens next.