Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 12:03:06 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>,
   Washington SF Association <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: thank you all
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 07:59 AM 8/31/05 -0700, Drew Bittner wrote:
>Thanks to everyone who's expressed concern for and
>sympathy about my mom in Gulfport.
>As Mike pointed out earlier, it'll be a very long time
>(measured in weeks, hopefully, not months) before some
>of the basic infrastructure is together enough to get
>word out. My brother intends to head for Mississippi
>tomorrow if we don't have word by then, but I don't
>know how far he'll get; I'm assuming the National
>Guard has the ingresses blocked off.

According to a report I heard yesterday about Biloxi, there's only one road
into the area that's been cleared enough to get through, and they are
restricting that to rescue workers and other necessary folks.  I suspect
the only way he'll get in in the near future is to volunteer with the Red
Cross or join the National Guard.

As one reporter in N.O. this morning said, there is *nothing* there to
support anyone...it all has to be brought in...food, water, gas, medical
supplies.  The reporter was sleeping in his car, and drove in from Florida
with everything needed to survive there.

>New Orleans will never be the same, even if they do
>rebuild. Portions of the city may have to be declared
>uninhabitable for many years to come, while others
>will be redlined and uninsurable for flood or other
>disasters. In any event, we may be seeing the death of
>a major city playing out in real time.

I don't know the geography there well enough, but is there some place not
too far away where they could relocate?  It's still a major port for
transshipping from the Mississippi to oceangoing vessels and that will be
needed somewhere in that area.  Perhaps a little farther upstream?

There are reasons New Orleans is located where it is, and some of them
still apply...though power craft have changed things somewhat in the last
few hundred years.

-- Mike B.
--
I'm not tense, just terribly, terribly alert.