All Comments on 'Orphans of the Storm'

Good effort, but some of your facts are skewed. You may love the South and New Orleans in particular, but I wager a plate of beignets you've never lived there.

For one, Beale Street is in Memphis. You're probably thinking of Basin Street, which runs off Rampart Street, the original home of Dixieland jazz.

Second, New Orleans was largely spared flooding and wind damage from Katrina itself, and the 29-foot storm surge hit in Mississippi, not Louisiana. There was a big storm surge that washed over St. Bernard and Plaquimines, but the city itself wasn't affected by the storm itself. What killed New Orleans was the collapse of the Lake Pontchartrain levee sometime late Monday night or early Tuesday morning, after the storm was long gone. Which leads us to ...

Finally, the notion that the Corps of Engineers, the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana could ever come together to create a fool-proof flood control system that would be in place by 2009 flies in the face of the realities of life. These are the SAME clowns who created the Katrina disaster in the first place!! Hell, they still haven't gotten all the debris removed from the city streets, there are still huge areas of the city that are virtual ghost towns, whole neighborhoods full of abandoned houses and apartment buildings, and there are large parts of the Ninth Ward that STILL don't have power.

And you've never been around the New Orleans work force if you think they could get a flood-control system from the drawing board to completion in two years. At best, such a system might - might - be in place by 2020. And even then it'll be slipshod work because the Corps of Engineers will cut corners like they always do, like they did on the 17th Street levee, there will be the usual kickbacks to politicians at every level, and in the end nothing will change.

Trust me on this, because I lived and worked in the industrial sector in New Orleans for four years. It will be business as usual and nothing will change, not in the city and not in the state. New Orleans is on the ropes and the next big storm that comes through will be the knockout blow.

Nice fantasy, though.

I don't know whether you're down in Nawlins or not. I'm here in Baton Rouge and the story was good enough for me to print it out. I do think it is in the wrong category, but never the less, it is a nice story. Check out the story Mardi Gras Madness in NonConsent. ~Sassafras~