{"id":4734,"date":"2008-08-30T20:19:37","date_gmt":"2008-08-31T03:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/08\/30\/rock-you-like-a-hurricane\/"},"modified":"2008-08-30T20:19:37","modified_gmt":"2008-08-31T03:39:25","slug":"rock-you-like-a-hurricane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=4734","title":{"rendered":"Rock You Like a Hurricane"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gustav.jpg\"<\/a>So Hurricane Gustav looks like it’s going to suck. As of tomorrow, New Orleans will be under a mandatory evacuation order<\/a>. Gustav has already decimated western Cuba, and hurricane-force wind stretched as far east as Havanna itself<\/a>. The storm appears all but certain to bulls-eye Louisiana<\/a>, with most of the models taking it in just to the west of New Orleans — which is the worst place for it to hit, as the highest winds and storm surges are to the north and east of a hurricane. It should hit as a Category 4 storm on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

We have, one hopes, learned a bit in the past three years about how to deal with a hurricane in the Gulf, and one can hardly imagine that the state, local, and federal governments could possibly do worse than they did in 2005. But one immediate concern is the fact that there will be no shelter of last resort. Yes, that means there will be no Superdome, no concentrated focus of misery. But that also means for those left behind in New Orleans, there is nowhere for them to go; the state is, to their credit, mobilizing to evacuate absolutely everyone from the city, spending millions on busses to get people out. But it’s foolhardy to think they will get everyone out, and I’m very worried about the people who get left behind.<\/p>\n

New Orleans is what it is, a city 10 feet below sea level — and nature, in its impassive wisdom, will try to fill that. We don’t know if the levees, which have been shored up since 2005, can hold. We don’t know if the evacuation will work as planned. We do know that FEMA can’t do worse than they did three years ago, but we don’t know if they can do better.<\/p>\n

The one thing that is certain is that the Bush administration will not ignore the disaster this time. Katrina ended George W. Bush’s ability to effectively lead the nation; after August 29, 2005, George W. Bush had no credibility, and was treated like it. The Bush administration will try to use this to undo the damage of their neglect. Sorry, it’s too late for that — 1800-odd people are dead, and they aren’t coming back. But if they want to prove that they’ve learned their lessons, good — prove it. Because I want New Orleans to get the support it deserves from its government. It’s the least we, as a country, can do. And if George W. Bush getting credit for it is the price it takes to get that governance, well, that’s the price we pay.<\/p>\n

Stay safe, Louisiana. We’ll be hoping and praying you come through okay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So Hurricane Gustav looks like it’s going to suck. As of tomorrow, New Orleans will be under a mandatory evacuation order. Gustav has already decimated western Cuba, and hurricane-force wind stretched as far east as Havanna itself. The storm appears … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}