Hurricane Ida made landfall today around 11 a.m. near Port Fourchon, Louisiana. That’s about a hundred miles south-southeast of New Orleans. It was a Category 4 when it landed, with wind speeds hitting 150 miles per hour. It’s been downgraded to a Category 3 as it moves through Louisiana at less than 10 mph with wind speeds of around 80 mph. It’s basically stayed between New Orleans and Houma, blowing both cities pretty hard and dumping plenty of rain as well. There has been video of roofs being ripped off houses and facades blown down French Quarter streets, but it’s way too early in the game to do any figuring on damages or deaths.
This is sixteen years to the day that Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf Coast and forever changed the landscape, both physically and mentally. It still looms large in New Orleans and the psychic scar is nowhere close to healing. On the upside, my sources still in town said the city was Johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to getting out or hunkering down. Another change is in the state of the levees, which were made of sheetrock full of old copies of Baseball Digest. In the years since Katrina, the Corps of Engineers has done the Lord’s work on the levee system, so that’s not been as big a problem.
The real issue concerning Louisiana and Mississippi, in particular, is how the damage from the storm and inevitable power outages will affect the states’ attempts at not letting COVID completely overwhelm them. Both states began this second round way behind, with barely thirty percent of the population vaccinated before two weeks ago. Furthermore, both states have hospital systems coming apart at the seams because they’re so overloaded with cases of COVID victims who thought the vaccines weren’t worth the effort.
It should be noted that Ida is goddamn huge. The eyewall – the inner part of the storm – has been described as a tornado fifteen miles across. Governor John Bel Edwards said emergency workers wouldn’t hit the streets until the storm is good and gone. Like I said earlier, the storm’s moving pretty slowly so it’ll probably be first light tomorrow before the clean-up begins in earnest.
I used to live in New Orleans and I still miss it like a hole in my heart. I’m with my partners there in spirit even if I’m glad I’m physically in Northeast Mississippi. I was there for Isaac in 2011 and that was plenty enough to convince me. I remain optimistic and believe the lessons learned from Katrina will do the city well, but as with all things, only time will tell.
Okay, then. Before moving on, let’s get the Gibberish in. Nothing much to report, really, as the week was taken up by a visit from Little Brother, who is now back in Oregon. First time we’ve seen him in almost two years thanks to COVID, and while we missed his wife, it was a pleasant visit all around. Saturday was really just trying to get something out after the trip to the airport and Thursday was a case of Actual Paying Work getting in the way. There was some meat to Thursday, discussing the Afghanistan evacuation and the death of Charlie Watts, but that’s about it.
Speaking of Afghanistan, it goes apace. President Joe Biden attended the transfer of the bodies of the 13 Marines killed by a truck bomb earlier this week. The was despite a number of wingnuts losing their shit that he didn’t do it yesterday even though the service was scheduled for today. He apparently looked at his watch once, though, so they’ve got something to lose their shit over regardless.
So far, over 120,000 folks fleeing from Afghanistan have made it out with U.S. help. Despite originally calling August 30 the cutoff date, 97 countries – including the U.S. – have cut a deal with the Taliban to continue helping refugees leave the country. There’s a little over 38 million souls that call Afghanistan home, and I saw somewhere that an estimated one million feel they need to get on out the door for this reason or that.
Beyond that, I don’t know. Polling really hasn’t changed much; the hoi polloi are glad we’re leaving but questions remain about how the Biden Administration is going about it. Again, I find it interesting that most of the people howling the loudest about it haven’t bothered to say much of anything about it in the past 15 years.
But that’s how things work in the good ol’ U.S.A.
Dear Y'all 