Cleaning Up

With the levees now repaired and the pumps sucking up the the water, the recovery process continues in Hurricane devastated New Orleans. Things, however, are about to get much, much worse.

As the water levels drop, the true nature of the disaster will be revealed: the environmental one. The dead, human and animal, on the streets, in their homes, rotting down to liquid and mixing into the water; petroleum, gas and oil leaks from the refineries, cars, generators, clinging with rainbow iridescence to everything, chemicals from pharmacies, gas stations, supermarkets, auto repairers and other business; raw sewerage, rusting cars, rotting food, and the rest are all being combined to create a toxic and diseased soup. The mess will deteriorate as this poison is absorbed into wood, concrete, stone and plant material.

Those people who want to remain are singleminded in their madness. Will they sue the City of New Orleans in the future should they fall ill due to the toxicity? Blame the Government, the Mayor, the Governor for not trying hard enough to get them out? Some of these people are armed, as the American constitution allows. Sure, they've got a right to bear arms, but this isn't a invasion of people who threaten them, it's an invasion of disease and poisons. Guns won't be much good against those microbes. To reject those who are trying to save them is as irresponsible as it is selfish. Those rescuers have laid their lives on the line day after day to help others.

"I aint goin' nowhere! I gotta a right to bear arms and protect my home!" One lunatic said and punctuated her words with racheting another round into the chamber of her shotgun.

Fine. Ten, twenty, thirty years down the track - should you make it that far - remember those words and the remember that people tried their damnedest to save you and you didn't want to be saved.

Oh, and one last point. With the toxic water being pumped out of New Orleans, it is being washed into the Mississippi and Lake Ponchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico. It will be interesting to see what kind of environmental damage is done and how long it will take to recover.

Perhaps, when it is time to rebuild, the architects, builders and contractors could look at more environmental building materials, stronger materials, safer materials.

Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen. Bigger and better are the catch-cries of the south. So they will rebuild Gulfport, Biloxi, Pass Christian, Long Beach and the other towns, Bigger and Better than they were. Hopefully, they will be built stronger, too.