So I’m sitting here watching the webcams of New Orleans, wondering how many of these lights are shining for the last time.
Steve Gilliard has his nasty thoughts:
A couple of months ago, Rick Santorum wanted to bar the National Weather Service from sharing some of it’s data with the public.Let’s see: talking points for tommorrow.
1) Will Bush give up his vacation as a major American city is wiped off the map? We hope that this isn’t the case, but if it is, will Bush finally act like a leader or hide again.
2) Why is the Lousiana National Guard as well as their first responders in the Marines, Army, Navy and Air Force reserve not home to help save their city?
3) Why did the Bush administration repeatedly cut funding for the Corps of Engineers district since 2001, despite being warned that this was one of the most likely disaster to hit the US, after a terrorist attack in New York.
The nasty thoughts that occur to me:
* The US economy is about to tank. Hard. (Again.) We’re about to lose 30% of the nation’s oil refining capacity for weeks at least, possibly months. I expect gasoline to hit $4 a gallon easily, $5 is not impossible. We haven’t even gotten into the impact of the loss of businesses, inventory, livestock, and of course people– not to mention how badly messed up anything that travels along the Mississippi River may be, which is the shipping lane for the central half of the country.
* The housing bubble has just popped, because we’ve just had tens of thousands of mortgages literally go underwater. And if you held stock in insurance companies, kiss your dividends goodbye.
* The federal government is about to pay off on a LOT of flood insurance, increasing an already huge deficit. And that’s before we find out if the southern tip of Louisiana is going to become the nation’s largest Superfund site.
* We are about to have a massive exodus from the southern states, one that will redraw demographic maps for years. We’re also about to have about half a million homeless people, easy.
* Bush may actually have an excuse to pull troops out of Iraq now; they’re needed back home. Of course, knowing him he’ll recommend fighting this with tax cuts.
What you can do:
* Donate cash to the Red Cross. Not supplies, cash.
* Conserve power. NOW. Oil, gas, and natural gas. See if you can convince your boss to let you telecommute, or take mass transit.
* Be prepared for houseguests. They won’t have much with them, and they may be with you for a long while.
* Check in on sign in pages. Let people know you’re okay and where you are. Some are up here and here.