New Orleans

I spent much of the day watching live coverage of the hurricane damage in New Orleans on WDSU. It is absolutely devastating to see the first video of the damage, and to hear the shock in the anchor’s voices as they were trying to describe what they were seeing. Water everywhere, huge fires, scads of structural damage, rooftop rescues, trees down and boats and cars swamped. One whole side of the Hyatt hotel is blasted out with hardly a window left intact. The Superdome roof is peeled and punctured. There are people huddled on the courthouse steps, surrounded by water and unable to move until the power grid is safe and the water somehow gets pumped back UP to sea level. Much of New Orleans appears to be a soup of lake water, oil, electrical wires and mud. It looks like it will be months before the cleanup is finished.

My heartfelt best wishes to any readers in that area. I’m especially thinking of those without the means to have escaped the deluge.