The Big Easy - the Big Wet

The photos on the WaPo are awesome, and the drawings showing the elevations and layout of the city are very helpful. We need this reminder of how vulnerable we are. If you have a dry house to live in, get on your knees and say thanks, and then send money. This is like the tsunami, if not worse. You can't send supplies, better to give cash.

I didn't realize that the Mississippi River is so far above sea level and the city after the floods on the Mississippi, I thought nobody would trust their home to levees again. I've seen so many things on TV about how the Mississippi has been corralled and Louisiana is losing coastlands that would normally be replenished by the delta. This city was a disaster waiting to happen. There is now no sanitation. It's hot. The water is pouring from the river through holes in the levees and Lake Ponchartrain is on the other side. I hate to think of the medical crisis this will cause.

I found the area on Google maps and half of the surrounding territory is lakes or inlets from the ocean. The link above to Lake Ponchartrain is a map of the levee system around the city.

This is almost as shocking as 9/11. Although the death toll won't compare to that, the property destruction will probably be higher.

And the effect on the nation's economy will be another recession. Gas is expected to rise to $3.50 a gallon, and building materials will practically prohibit any new home construction in the rest of the country.