So I guess based on your logic, everyone should get out of New York City because there will definately be another terrorist attack there?

I think it’s a legitimate question to ask what the heck is taking so long in building something, anything on the WTC site.

Comparing Katrina and 9/11 is wrong, but he makes a valid point.

We know there’s a damn TS in the Gulf. What we want to know is why the life or the house of a person in New Orleans is worth less than the feds shelled out for the busboys at the Eyes of the World? Why did ConEd get a huge payout for the loss of six blocks of infrastructure while we can get noting to rebuild Entergy? If we win the war on terror tomorrow and lose New Orleans, the U.S. is still a failure.

There is a moral to the “boy who cried wolf” story. Maybe you have heard of that one.

Speaking as a New Orleans native, sorry but no can do. See, we have jobs to go to and homes / lives / businesses to rebuild. You say, “IF that path holds, you’ve got till NEXT THURSDAY…” If the storm misses things continue as normal (or at least that Post Katrina normal that we are dealing with now). We have to wait until Sunday or Monday and see what the storm does.

In tornado alley do they go into the basement every time it rains or pay attention to the signs warnings that are issued? It’s the same thing here.

In 2004, for Hurricane Ivan predictions were sending the storm a little too close so evacuations were called. Most of us left town and paid for hotel rooms and restaurants and took a forced vacation (that was not much fun). I know my family struggled financially for a few months after that “unexpected adventure”. We were grateful the storm missed and did not regret leaving but it came with a price. For my company it caused all kinds of problems but we dealt with them and moved on. However, it is not something done lightly – there is a real expense involved.

Last summer Hurricane Dennis was out there. The president of Jefferson stepped out and called evacuations for his parish early – departing from the state plan. I remember watching the press conference and thinking “Huh?”. The storm was way out there and had not targeted anywhere yet. His jump to action forced the lower parishes to call their evacuations prematurely and the whole system was thrown out of whack. Had the storm actually come through his mistake could have resulted in thousands of deaths in Plaquemines, St. Bernard parishes and even on the Mississippi coast. We all use the same roads so the real danger zones need to get out first – before the high population areas – otherwise they don’t stand a chance.

By the way, do you know what happened in Jefferson when that evacuation order was called? Nothing. No one left. Schools and businesses stayed open and life continued on as it did before. If the weatherman does not tell you to go there is absolutely no reason to leave. We listen to Max Mayfield, not the politicians. Who would you listen to? Something else to note. Even though the president of Jefferson turned the pumps off and evacuated the operators (and flooded the parish) he never called a mandatory evacuation. I would venture a guess that there was not one person in the entire parish who stayed because the word “mandatory” was never used. If “Cat 5” did not scare you out of town nothing was going to.

Unfortunately, for Katrina, time was limited. When we went to bed on Friday night the storm was still projected to hit Florida / Alabama. We were in the clear but most of us were watching the situation closely. Overnight on Friday, the states of Mississippi and Louisiana started the process so that, if necessary, contraflow could kick in on Saturday afternoon. When the 5am update was released the process kicked into high gear. That morning phase 1 of the evacuations had to go a little late and start at the same time as phase 2 of the plan. Phase 3 (which included New Orleans and Jefferson Parishes) and contraflow (which means all roads leading out) started right on schedule. In the end the roads were clear before they were closed and hurricane force winds started to move in. Every single vehicle that was attempting to leave the region was able to do so with time to spare. About 1.5 million people evacuated in less than 40 hours and did so in an orderly fashion. That part of the evacuation plan worked better than any expert could have imagined.

You know, every time I run into a friend or meet someone new we talk about Katrina (that is still the only subject of conversation here). I always ask “did you stay?” and if they did, I ask “why?” So far the most common response is “I left before and nothing happened” (which is a pretty poor answer in my book but I do hear it a lot). “We stayed for Betsy and did fine then” is also very popular. Those are beating “work” and “pets” by a long shot. I have only run across “had no way out” a few times and in all but one of those cases the people did evacuate vertically (to a hotel or an office building). Betsy and Georges and Ivan were responsible for most of the deaths in New Orleans during Katrina. All kinds of people stayed because of them. It is a pretty good example of the dangers of crying wolf, don’t you think?

Oh, and we don’t need Nagin to tell us that the levees are crap. The Army Corp has to keep taking credit. This week we found out that the pumps they installed need to be rebuilt – great!

As far as tornado alley goes, the answer is yes, we take them seriously and seek shelter no matter how inconvenient it might be. Granted we don’t have to evacuate, but I don’t think people really have to totally evacuate NO either. However, getting out of the places you KNOW is gonna flood MIGHT be a good idea and putting the word out more than one day in advance an even better idea. It just gauled me that some parts of NO are still very fragile and vulnerable, you’ve got a potential hurricane barreling straight at it, and Nagin, with the forecast already available to at least me, takes it upon himself to criticize once again, everyone else but the people who should are in charge of NO. As far as the boy who cried wolf, no one questioned him after the sheep got eaten did they? And in the case of Jefferson, that was PRE-Katrina and the effects of the damaged infrastructure of NO were not an issue. My point is as ill-prepated for a Cat 3 hurricane as those levees were last year, how much you wanna bet they won’t even take a Cat 1 this year? When they get those levees figured out and bettered up, THEN you can start accusing people like me of crying wolf.

It could have been. I have been fascinated with and following weather phenomena for a long time before Storm showed up. As such, I did a bunch of stuff on Katrina before/during/after it hit last year. We have the technology now to give fair warning, we have the technology to move lots of people if necessary, we have everything in place to minimize the human loss of a hurricane. However, local politics can put the screws to all that know-how. So, in this case, my comments were purely on the politics of what was happening. I was concerned that Nagin was spending all his time playing political prima donna with a potential impending disaster looming. And, although warned last year that the potential disaster was on its way, local politicians minimized the concern which led to what we saw on tv. At least here, they can’t say no one warned them. If people are removed from harm’s way BEFORE a disaster, FEMA doesn’t look so bad. It’s not FEMA’s fault all those people were left in harm’s way last year. And, given the same people are in charge today, I have no confidence they won’t do exactly the same thing again.

They are now saying this could be a potential Cat 3 hurricane just east of New Orleans. Wanna guess the power and direction of Katrina last year?

Honestly, I don’t think any of their infrastructure is ready for another one. I actually do have some insight to what is going on there. Medical, police, social services, basic infrastructure, I don’t think any of it’s ready.

Well, as of the 5am EDT Sunday projection, the National Hurricane Center is now showing Ernesto veering to the northeast across Florida by Friday morning.

I get it now MW.