April 6, 2007

L'Orage

Probably more than any other single event, hurricane Katrina exposed the emptiness of federal "national security" mumbo jumbo. I don't think the Tyrant ever recovered — or can recover — from his shocking display of ineptitude. Or indifference. And in the aftermath we're faced with a new, interesting existential problem: what to do about New Orleans? 3,000-plus miles of the Mississippi wants to bypass it, southern Louisiana is subsiding rapidly into the Gulf of Mexico while simultaneously global warming is raising sea levels, and we may well be facing a near-term future of more frequent, more powerful hurricanes capable of considerably greater damage. I wouldn't exactly write New Orleans off, but I wouldn't write it a blank check, either. Not when the cost of successful flood prevention could easily exceed 50 billion dollars [corrected]. And not when other costly defenses may be necessary up and down the eastern seaboard. To try to put some perspective on all this I turned to John McQuaid, a Pulitzer prize winner and co-author of a splendid recent book on Katrina, Path of Destruction. John's a nice guy, thoughtful, decent, and fair-minded. I believe what he's found about Katrina has a much wider general application and I hope you see the connections too. Total runtime here of an hour and eighteen minutes. Enjoy!