Did you know you could fly

Canal Street at night, New Orleans.

It actually still looks like that too, just more cars.






However, Baton Rouge no longer looks like this. Many more buildings, far fewer trees.

Any day in December when I can walk around outside in short sleeves and still feel a little warm when the sun shines is just plain *wrong*.

Today's high in Baton Rouge is 75F. So much for winter.

I admit it. Ever since Katrina, I'm hurricane obssessed. As soon as I hear about a new one, I'm tracking it, checking size, windspeed etc. I'm compulsive about it. Because I never truly appreciated before how destructive these storms could be. It was always something that happend to Someone Else. In a sense, Katrina and Rita both happened to Someone Else as well, at least in terms of major damage. But they happened much closer to home. I was on the fringes of both hurricanes, and all I could think was if it's this nasty here on the fringes, how much more horrible must it be to those truly in the path.

So yeah. Now I watch, and I want to talk about. Share information and speculation and plans. Because there's not really anything I can do about it one way or another, but keeping up to date makes me feel like I'm doing something. Some small comforting illusion of control. It can be misinterpreted sometimes -- and it has -- as excitement. But it's not really that. I certainly don't *want* the hurricane to come here. I don't want it to come anywhere. I'd be thrilled if it just up and vanished. But it's here, and it's going to stay here, and the least I can do is make sure I know all about it, and am as prepared as possible. I didn't know about Katrina until the Saturday before she struck. I don't want that to happen again.

The thing about Wilma is that she's *huge*. She's literally (I measured it) the width of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama combined. In short, even if she continues her projected path and hits Florida, if she doesn't diminish in size some, we'll still feel it over here. Lovely. I remember watching the satellite images of Katrina and Rita. They were about half her size (ok, maybe 60%). Still, this is one huge-ass monster storm. And right now, she's pointed this way.

I know they're saying she'll turn east. And they're saying she'll downgrade before she hits. But they don't know. She could hit western Florida as a category 3 and be no worse than any other storm that's hit in previous years (which are bad enough). Or she could stay a category 5 and hit just about anywhere on the Gulf coast. The problem is, no one really knows. So until they do, I'm going to keep hitting the refresh button on the satellite image. I'm going to keep checking CNN and weather.com every half hour. And I'll keep you posted.

Florida people -- If you're in the projected path, *please* leave. If anyone needs crash space for a few days you're welcome to come here. No guarantee here will be safe, but it's got a better chance. Stay safe and let me know where you are and what preparations you're making.

And lo, I have weatherèd the storm, and all is well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Um, yeah.

Despite the power flickers, I never actually lost power, and the parts of Rita that passed over Baton Rouge have since moved on. All clear.

Apparently Houston avoided getting hammered too hard as well, although there are fires in Galveston. Still it's clearly not as bad as it could have been. The towns on the Texas/Louisiana border are in bad shape however. And the levees broke in New Orleans, so much flooding there as well.

It is interesting. My dad mentioned this morning how the great Galveston hurricane of 1900 pretty much created Houston as we know it -- Galveston was the major city at the time, and Houston just a smaller town. But Galveston was so devastated by the hurricane, that many people moved to Houston and never went back, turning it into one of the major cities in the state.

There is speculation that the same thing is about to happen to Baton Rouge. So many New Orleanseans have come here, and many of them have already stated that they will not be going back. It is something to think about.

With the effects of Katrina still a major influence on daily life down here in Louisiana, attention is turning to Rita with a philosophy of "not again". New Orleans, which had just begun to allow some people back into the city, is again under mandatory evacuation -- the levees are barely repaired, still leaking, and couldn't withstand a particularly strong thunderstorm right now, much less even the tiniest edge of a category 5 hurricane.

In terms of size, windspeed, and overall destruction potential, they are saying that Rita is *worse* than Katrina. Katrina destroyed New Orleans and much of the Mississippi coast as a category 4 hurricane (it downgraded from category 5 shortly before landfall). Rita is currently a category 5, and set to hit Galveston and Houston head-on.

If Rita doesn't downgrade before making landfall, it will be the only time in US history -- since records began being kept in 1851 -- that the US was hit by both a category 4 and a category 5 in one season.

This is the new future, folks. Global warming and coastal wetland erosion have conspired to make the hurricane season longer, and the hurricanes stronger, more frequent, and more devastating.

We will be keeping a close eye on this storm over here. Even though it's set to hit Texas, there's always the chance it'll turn east and hit Louisiana.

I hate this.

I'm not much of a sports fan. But I do love my school. Especially now.

( Upcoming column in Sports Illustrated )

Crane total as of last night: 292 cranes.

Details and pledge instructions here.

$325 in pledges so far, folks. I'm aiming for at least $500.

shadbolt75 is donating a dollar to the Red Cross for Katrina victims for every unique person who comments on this post.

So go comment!

I guess I didn't make it clear in my previous post -- the pledge money for the cranes will be going to the Red Cross, earmarked for Katrina relief.

Crane count as of last night -- 56. It's a start :)

Edit: link to the original post is here.

The library is closing at 1:30 today "for security reasons". There have been reports of rioting and looting in downtown Baton Rouge. I guess we all breathed a sigh of relief a little too soon. Speculation is running rampant of course. Baton Rouge is full of New Orleans refugees with no food, no money, and nowhere to go. It's estimated that the city has doubled in population since Katrina. And although state officials have said that New Orleans *will* be rebuilt, the logistics of such a project, not to mention the costs, are a veritable nightmare. What many people here are thinking, but few are willing to say, is that New Orleans might not be worth rebuilding. There's just too much damage.

I was listening to my mp3 player on the way home yesterday when the Tragically Hip song "New Orleans Is Sinking" came on random. I've always found that song amusing. Suddenly it's not any more. The size and number of hurricanes has been increasing every year. The wetlands that once protected New Orleans from the brunt of the storms are almost all gone. Katrina has been a tragedy from which this area may never fully recover. And the chances of a similar storm hitting us again is much higher than it used to be.

I noticed that the same number, one I don't recognise, had been on my missed call list several times yesterday. This morning I called that number back and got a man trying to locate a friend of his who was in New Orleans. Apparently she used to have my number. Now that he knows the number he has for her is no longer valid, he has no way of finding out if she has survived. It was difficult talking to him. The hope in his voice when he picked up the phone asking "Nicole?" was heartbreaking.

It is hard not to be depressed about the whole situation.