Not that they're incompetent or anything, but they decided that Maine needed the ice sent to the Gulf Coast.

Huh, wha?

Link via Andrew Sullivan.

Tags: new orleans

People will be allowed to return on Monday!. I guess the whole uninhabitable for months scenario didn't pass after all. See y'all at Jazz Fest perhaps?

Tags: new orleans
Current Music: The String Cheese Incident - Pirates

New Orleans will have to be abandoned for at least nine months, and many of its people will remain homeless for up to two years, the US government believes.

Nine months? Can you even recreate a city after that?

Tags: new orleans

The Army Corp of Engineers just predicted on WWL that it would take 36-80 days just to drain the city. Not clean it up or get power back (which is waiting on that) or anything like that. 80 days is Thanksgiving. 4 months might be optimistic :/

Tags: new orleans

You go Mike!

Former Phish bassist Mike Gordon, who has played the city numerous times adds, "I'm very passionate about the city -- I've had amazing experiences there. We used to go canoeing on the bayou, go to Mother's Restaurant and see these hip brass bands that no one knows about. New Orleans is such a fuel for the entire country's music. There is such a looseness to the city and the people, a happy-go-lucky quality, throwing caution to the wind. I don't think the pure essence of the place can be wiped away by natural disaster."

source

Tags: new orleans, phish

Why did all of these people die at the NOLA Convention Center? Cause FEMA didn't know they were there until yesterday. Look fuckheads, anyone who gave the slightest shit about this New Orleans disaster was, you know, WATCHING THE GODDAMN NEWS. Explain to me how everyone watching CNN or Fox or MSNBC had better news than the director of FEMA? Do you care at all?

The Mayor's rant was deserved.

Tags: new orleans

More and more people are starting to talk about how stupid it is to have a city that's below sea level. The don't rebuild argument is gaining momentum. Stop that right now.

I'll confess my biases here. First - as has become apparent this last week - I love the town. In an era where everywhere looks and feels like a generic place, New Orleans is distinctly itself. It has a culture unique in this country, and we'd lose so much if it were to go away. It's not just a place to get drunk and see boobs. Secondly, I'm a fan of science in general. How the hell could we ever think about terraforming Mars or exploring the universe, if we can't build a system of levees to protect a city? If the mid-20th century levees could protect against a class 3, we should be able to do a decent job against a class 5 now.

If the issue is being below sea level, well do what we did here. It's called fill. A large part of Pioneer Square didn't use to exist after all. New Orleans doesn't have to worry about quakes hitting it. If we have to, fill the bowl in.

Look, if we got rid of everywhere where people shouldn't live, we'd all be living in a zone north of Georgia west of I-95 and east of the Missisippi. Class 5s could hit as far north as Va Beach. There's no water west of the big river. Earthquakes hit the Pacific region. I live within 70 miles of an active volcano after all. If Rainier blew, I'd return as soon as the lava cooled and start rebuilding. Some places are just special.

In 2007, I fully expect to be at the fairgrounds (or what replaces it) eating veggie beans and rice in the gospel tent. I'll eat beignets until I can't eat them anymore, then I'l give them away. I might even let myself be bet once or twice that someone knows where I got my shoes at. There is no city anywhere in the world like New Orleans. It will return.

Tags: new orleans

House Speaker Dennis Hastert dropped a bombshell on flood-ravaged New Orleans on
Thursday by suggesting that it isn’t sensible to rebuild the city.

"It
doesn't make sense to me," Hastert told the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago in
editions published today. "And it's a question that certainly we should
ask."

Source

I can actually respect that to some degree. I'm reaching a point in thinking that the city might be gone for real. If people and businesses are gone for four months, they'll start to rebuild their lives elsewhere. Will there be people to come back? I'm sure there will be some diehards, but who knows how many.

Tags: new orleans

This is from GA.

Tags: new orleans
Current Music: Sigur Rós - Dánarfregnir og Jarðarfarir

Via Josh Marshall from the Chicago Tribune.

"I'm not saying it wouldn't still be flooded, but I do feel that if it had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have," said Michael
Parker, a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps' budget.

Someone gives news you don't want to hear? Ignore them. If they complain, fire them. Above all, please don't listen to them. Perhaps that's why, "The president told
Diane Sawyer this morning that: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." Actually everyone anticipated it. This has been in the press for years. Just because you don't listen, doesn't mean that people aren't talking.

9:44 exact quote from the

Tags: new orleans
Current Mood: frustrated
Current Music: Grateful Dead - Bertha