Rita and Weep

If you are stuck with a second major hurricane swirling in the Gulf of Mexico within a month of the first, would you be better off having that hurricane strike a new area, or have it strike where it did before? That is a question some were debating as Hurricane Rita rotated ominously for several days after striking a glancing blow to the Florida Keys. Well it's not as though we're given a choice in these things. Hurricanes can't be steered like a herd of cattle. (Although I have to believe a hurricane is the waterborn equivalent of a stampede.) But it's an interesting question. The problem is, Hurricane Rita is so morbidly obese that she has more or less succeeded in hitting Houston, the Texas/Louisiana oil rigs AND re-flooding New Orleans, all at the same time! Rita is what you would call a multi-tasking storm, busily sending threatening text messages to worried meteorologists as she decides where she wants to do the most damage. Was she going to smack Galveston with her waterlogged briefcase? Or was she going to fire New Orleans as a major American city, sending it a pink slip just when it thought it was up for a promotion? Meanwhile the meeting she called to discuss the subject took DAYS, as everyone in their right mind evacuated. Watching the evacuation gave me many sincere feelings, the predominant one being that if we as a population ever needed to get someplace quickly, say, in 24 hours, WE'RE DOOMED. That much is obvious. And in case of emergency you sure don't want to be a senior citizen. After watching a couple dozen nursing home residents burn up in a bus you have to wonder what other option these people had. If you stay, you drown. If you flee, burn to death. Great choices! Americans are no doubt looking at that situation and saying they clearly would NEVER want to be a nursing home resident. That's no way to live. So, Terri Schiavo-like, it must be time to cut off the food supplies to nursing homes. Would YOU want to live that way? And wouldn't you want your loved ones deciding when you're going to die rather than the inept governor of a state? I suspect terrorists are watching this whole charade and thinking, gee, it doesn't take much to flood New Orleans, does it? But their next weapon of mass destruction is likely to be buses filled with senior citizens on oxygen. That bus explosion turned out to be the worst casualty of Hurricane Rita. Is this hurricane season trying to tell us something? Maybe that the coasts are no longer a viable place to live? Is it reasonable to expect the country to foot the bill for rebuilding New Orleans in a location that won't be any safer next year than it is today? These questions don't have to be answered right away. We can wait maybe until the next hurricane. That may answer them for us. The president has said he cannot imagine this country without New Orleans. Well I say get creative! We couldn't have imagined it underwater, either. Voila! There are many available locations to evacuate "New Olreans" to. Maybe some nice, dry territory in Wyoming. If we keep insisting we're going to rebuild New Orleans Six Feet Under, er, below sea level, maybe the hurricanes will keep insisting it's a bad idea. You can't win an argument with Mother Nature. And as dad is sure to point out, we shouldn't even be giving her any lip.