Beyond Katrina

Expert: Louisiana levees worsened Katrina in Miss.

Associated Press - November 30, 2007 8:54 AM ET

LONG BEACH, Miss. (AP) - A hurricane expert says Louisiana's levee system was partly to blame for the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina's storm surge in Mississippi. Continue here.

Violence holds back New Orleans revival

In the past two years, New Orleanians have been killed at a rate well above pre-Katrina years when factoring in the city's huge population drop. That's giving New Orleans a reputation as a national murder capital, even though it was listed as the 65th most dangerous U.S. city in a recent report based on FBI crime statistics. Continue at the Sun Sentinel.

Caught Up in a Storm, With His Eyes Wide Open

The bottle exploded in his searching brown eyes. Eyes that had danced upon strings of joyous Seussian words, followed spiraling footballs into outstretched hands, hunted creeks for crabs. Eyes that had taken in the absence of a long-gone father, the struggles of a stretched-thin mother, the bruises given her by a violent boyfriend, the Gulf Coast rot of Hurricane Katrina. Eyes of a boy just being a boy, and not yet 10.

This moving piece by  Dan Barry of the New York Times, tells the story of  young Isaiah Polk's harrowing experience as a result of having stumbled upon crystal meth dump site behind a FEMA trailer park in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Story is here.

Actor Kevin Costner to be Grand Marshall of Endymion Parade

The Doobie Brothers will perform at the Endymion Ball

Carnival time in New Orleans is just two months away and the Krewe of Endymion has announced that actor Kevin Costner will be the Grand Marshal for 2008. Continue Here.

Hurricane-safety research loses an icon

Herbert Saffir, creator of category scale, dies at 90

The death of Herbert Saffir, creator of the Saffir-Simpson scale for determining hurricane intensity, is being reported in newspapers around the nation. However, I like this article by Anita Lee at Biloxi's Sun Herald which takes a look at Saffir's visit "to the Mississippi Coast after Hurricane Katrina at the invitation of Gulfport attorney Joe Sam Owen, who represents policyholders in their lawsuits against insurance companies". It was Saffir's opinion that Hurricane Camille's lessons were "wasted on the gulf coast", an opinion I concur with. Let it be said that I was in Biloxi within days after Camille's landfall - It was one of the most shocking and traumatic experiences of my life, albeit it prepared me for Katrina. At any rate, good article---check it out here.

OPINION: Another storm-free season? Let's debrief

Regarding the failed forecasts for this year's prediction of an above average hurricane season, I concur with  the questions posed by Del Stone, Jr. at Northwest Florida Daily News. To wit:

"It all seems so tiresome, doesn’t it? The shrill predictions of disaster, the finger-pointing and politics when a disaster actually occurs and the scorn when it doesn’t?...For instance, is it useful or even responsible to predict how active a season will be when so many of the forecasts are wrong? This year was expected to be an above-normal season, with an ACE Index (a measure of storm intensity) well above the mean. Every prediction, with the exception of the National Hurricane Center’s range of 13 to 17 storms, was wrong. What purpose do these numbers serve beyond scaring people? Do they make one bit of difference in the way coastal residents prepare for a storm?"

For Stone's conclusions see this op ed.

Biloxi: Two Tales of a City

Peter Whoriskey of WaPo (who has really stayed with it re Katrina recovery reportage) has penned a telling article about the mixed recovery bag in Biloxi, Mississippi. On the one hand Casinos are thriving and real estate development is flourishing while "working class neighborhoods"  (more than 10,000 displaced families in FEMA trailers) still haven't rebounded. Now there is a proposal "to divert $600 million in federal housing aid to fund an expansion plan at the Port of Gulfport". For a deeper look into the situation see this article at WashingtonPost.com.

$1 million federal grant will help restore Cameron marsh

Reported by Associated Press

About 1,300 acres of Cameron Parish marsh damaged by Hurricane Rita is set for restoration under a 1 million dollar federal conservation grant. Continue here.

After Katrina, Louisiana's Film Industry Flourishes

LOS ANGELES (Dow Jones) -- Call it "the other LA." In addition to sharing the same abbreviation as the film industry's capital, the state of Louisiana is capturing more of the dollars going into movie and television production -- roughly half a billion dollars for about 50 projects this year. Continue.

Woman in dogfight for pet lost in Katrina

Continuing sad saga re the issue of recovering lost pets post-Katrina here.