Today, it dissipated, three years ago
Three years ago, today.
Yesterday, they buried the final 85 unclaimed victims of Hurricane Katrina. Evacuations have already begun in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Gustav, which is anticipated to make landfall on the Gulf Coast early Tuesday morning, 4 days after the anniversary of Katrina’s hit.
Katrina reached Category 5, the highest status and most dangerous category, as it moved over the Gulf of Mexico. It dropped to Category 3 by the time it hit New Orleans and southern Mississippi. Maximum winds were around 125 MPH as it struck.
Eerily, Gustav is following an identical path. From this morning:
At 6 a.m. EDT data from Air Force Reconnaissance Aircraft now indicates Gustav is very rapidly strengthening, with maximum winds now at 115 mph. This makes Gustav a category three hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, making this a major hurricane. Gustav is heading toward western Cuba.
Hurricane Gustav is now moving northwest, away from the Cayman Islands as of early this morning, but flash flooding rains, strong damaging winds, and battering waves will continue to impact the Islands this morning. Conditions should improve by this afternoon.
At 5 a.m. EDT, Gustav was centered about 255 miles east-southeast of the western tip of Cuba, moving northwest at near 12 mph. This motion would bring deteriorating weather conditions to western Cuba this afternoon, with the center passing over or near western Cuba this evening. Additional strengthening is expected as it approaches Cuba.
Expect strong, damaging winds, flash flooding rains, and high seas to quickly develop over western Cuba this afternoon, and become worse this evening. Rainfall amounts of up to a foot are expected, with local amounts of more than 20 inches possible. Squally weather will also impact central Cuba.
The current forecast track continues to indicate Gustav will enter the southeastern Gulf of Mexico early Sunday, and track northwest reaching the central Gulf Coast by early Tuesday morning; Gustav will slow as it nears the Gulf Coast.
In the center of its projected path: New Orleans.
Among those evacuated already:
Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi ordered the evacuation of 4,000 trailers inhabited by people whose homes were damaged by Katrina.
That’s right, three years later, 4,000 trailers are still home to evacuees in Mississippi. Even more remain trailerized in Louisiana.
Three. Years. Later.
The housing bubble has caused a glut of overbuilding. Between rental vacancies and foreclosures, there are more empty houses in this countr than there’s been in decades. And this is our answer, our historic rebuilding our president promised.
In New Orleans, advance coordination is well under way for Gustav. Thousands of national guardsmen are already deployed. The President won’t be joshing with a music star and strumming a guitar when Gustav arrives. The night before, he’ll be speaking at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.
The temporary trailer parks will have long been emptied. And everyone is glad that memories are short everywhere besides Bourbon Street and the new temporary shelters for the trailerized.
And they’re crossing their fingers. Because the levees are only partially rebuilt.
“It’s not the wind or the water I’m worried about,” said Tyler Malejko as he nailed thick wooden planks to the window frames of his wife’s upscale kitchen cabinetry store in the Mid-City neighborhood. “The police couldn’t protect anybody the last time, and I have no confidence things will be any different now.”
Elsewhere across the city, pockmarked with 65,000 blighted houses destroyed by Katrina and yet to be razed or rebuilt, there were signs of mounting psychological distress. Calls to a mental health hot line at the Louisiana State University medical center in New Orleans spiked Thursday and Friday.
“The stress is obviously compounded by the fact that there is now the threat of a major hurricane again,” said Dr. Howard Osofsky, chairman of the LSU psychiatry department. “People are worrying what will happen to their homes they have worked so hard to rebuild. People are tired. They’ve been through so much.”
Some beleaguered New Orleans residents were predicting they might choose to never return if Gustav drives them out again. Osofsky said he spoke with one exhausted professional who was planning a “last supper”—a dinner among friends before they evacuated the city forever.
They’re ready.
“What you’re going to see is the product of three years of planning, training and exercising at all levels of government, starting with the local and the state level and leading up to the federal level,” U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Friday from New Orleans. “So we’re clearly better prepared.”
Yes, three years of planning, training and exercising. And the last 85 just got buried while 65,000 homes are yet to be rebuilt. The trailer refugees won’t have to drown. Far away, Baghdad’s been destroyed and its rebuilding’s underway, along with other Iraqi cities. And even our offshore oil drillers are better prepared for Gustav.
We’re better prepared to call this outcome a mission accomplished. A nation of high morals and achievers gets the leadership it wants.
Heckuva job, George. Maybe a cranky old maverick and a moose-shooter will do it better someday. After all, they’re reformers. Sort of. According to the advertising. Gustav’s already watered down Guantanamo. Osama Bin Laden’s safe and sound.
What can we accomplish in the next three or four years? We’ll be better prepared to answer that in November.
