I just caught some more of the coverage, and it just keeps sounding like things are getting worse and worse. I don’t know if the situation in some areas is actually getting worse, or if desperation is starting to set in.
It is, however, starting to be clear that the City of New Orleans was not adequately prepared for this- barring that this is the worst case of the bad case scenarios, and there really is no way to deal with it. I tend to think it is more of a situation where little can be done.
I am a little shocked that there was not more of a plan in place to fix a possible breach of the levee. If this was the worst case scenario, surely the city had to have a plan to patch it should it give way. At any rate, it appears that if there was a plan, it failed, and we are left with headlines that read like something from the Onion:
“Huge sandbags planned for levee leaks”
Big sandbags is what we have come up with 36 hours after the levee has broken. I had thought they were going to fill shipping cars (cargo cannisters) and drop those, but I guess not. Big sandbags are what the city is pinning its hopes on.
The whole thing is just so depressing. And, in a sign of things to come, gas prices here jumped from $2.55 to $3.09 in the 8 hours I was at work.
I don’t think people realize that while the death toll may not surpass 9/11 (although having been to New Orleans several times, I fear it will), the impact economically is going to be much worse. The entire gulf economy was just wiped out, and a city of a half million is largley under water.