Far South of I-10

I'm in a hotel in Ciudad del carmen, Mexico, today, tomorrow and maybe next week too. All I've seen of the town is the office and the hotel, but it looks like other tropical south american cities. Just with more street flooding than usual. (photo is of Carmen during landing at the airport) Unfortunately I didn't win the lottery last night so I had to come down here for some presentations that I have to give in spanish, I guess it could be worse I could be required to do the presentation in my underware. (the presentation went ok, I felt so nervous I wanted to projectile vomit onto the conference table, but luckily the feeling passed.) Updated on Sunday: Now I'm in Villa Hermosa, which is nicer. The hotel Camino Real is nice, with a superduper breakfast buffet. Only the Sofitel Santa Clara in Cartagena has a better one. I've got a fairly intractable problem though, I'm supposed to be here on tuesday, also in barbados for the next week, also in Denver on Wednesda...

Not only was Katrina a failure for all levels of government, the media did a poor job all around, undersensationalizing before the storm: (from my blog, when I was live-blogging the news the sunday before the storm) CNN Sucks I'm watching CNN again and in the last 12 hours they've shown the anti-bush screed about bad intelligence 3 times! The approaching disaster in New Orleans could be just about as bad as the Tsunami was, but they've had 36 hours of warning about the story. oversensationalizing what happened in the dome and convention center That the nation's frontline emergency-management officials believed the body count would resemble that of a bloody battle in a war is but one of scores of examples of myths about the Dome and the Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the news media and even some of the city's top officials, including the mayor and police superintendent. The vast majority of reported atr...

My answering machine picked up when I called this morning, so we must still have power in Katy. Now I feel a slight amount of pussy-remorse, like maybe I fled too far and too fast ahead of a storm that didn't really do anything. Oh well, I'll get my "Big P" tattoo when I get home. I'll wear it with pride. It looks like southwest louisiana got whacked pretty good, especially the cameron area. This is really unfortunate for the price of natural gas, because as you travel west of grand isle, the offshore production becomes more and more gas heavy, until offshore texas it is all gas. The East and west Cam offshore areas produce a lot of gas. Also Cameron is a large port and support base for offshore operations. Before this month I would have said that the big three are Venice, Fourchon and Cameron, LA. Now two of the three are wiped out, and Fourchon was damaged. This will slow down the return to normal operations and add a big lag factor to the return to pres...

Well we made it out of Houston, luckily we flew out of Hobby Airport on Southwest. It was total pandemonium as around 15000 people were there and apparently the TSA were staffed for 25 people. I thought I was being clever, just bringing carryon luggage, we'd dash in and grab an eticket from one of the machines that are partially hidden from novice travellers. We eased our way through the massive checkin line, got to a machine and had our tickets faster than you can say 'knife'. I had a smirk of victory as we kept walking around the curve to the security check-in, and the smirk turned to a frown when I saw the massive security line. We made our way to what we thought was the end of the line, but it was more like we stood in one place for a minute waited for a line to move and merged. (ok, we cut) It took 2 1/2 hours to clear security, but we moved most of that in the last hour when Southwest flew a planeload of agents from dallas, they arrived and manned the non-secur...

Steve Gregory over at wunderground's weather blog is awfully impressed with Rita, calling it the perfect storm and pointing out that he's never seen the computer models predict an intensity so strong before. One intensity forcast brings the storm to 180 knots, which is approximately 205 mph. In the 6 hours I just slept, the model guidance has shifted right 30 miles at least, with some of the models moving much more towards Louisiana. Our plans have changed as well, a neighbor that is staying here in Katy will watch the dog, and we're flying to my sister's in New Mexico. This is probably a good idea now, much better than lafayette since several tracks now take the storm to the sabine river while they are leaving the track guidance near to galveston, on the 'west edge' of the model envelope. gah! Good luck to all.

I'm watching the weather channel and trying to figure out which way to run. We live about a mile from I-10 on the far west side of houston so I had been planning on the easy escape, I-10 to San Antonio, then the flight across the desert, west or northwest. Now in order to get out of the power outage area we'll have to go very far west or north. it looks easier to brave the traffic cutting across houston and head back to lafayette. At least the number of friends/family is increasing in that direction, but if the storm changes it's mind and goes to SW LA then we'll have to keep running. Into an area without gas or much infrastructure. hmmm. 'tis a puzzlement, but I'm being helped by my public declaration of never again after the last storm, so the question is not whether, but where.

I just made a trip to Kroger on the way home from the office to see if I could top up our hurricane supplies. the place was fuller than normal, like a satuday morning, but not packed. When I passed the water aisle there was nothing...just bare shelves where my cool refreshing bottled water should be, no evian, perrier...nothing. I grabbed a couple 12 packs of coke and sprite, and a case of beer, then I saw her. She was a slender blond, about 40, very nice, and she wouldn't meet my eyes, and her cart was full of water! I pushed my cart a little faster in the direction she came from and I struck gold, a crowd of about 20 people standing around a guy unloading a pallet of water. I pushed into the crowd, "how many?" he asked me breathlessly. I hesitated then said "3", since I already had some water at home. He loaded up my cart and I walked away, with my cart full of water, beer, poptarts and granola bars. When a young woman tried to catch my eye as she oggle...

Yesterday was talk like a pirate day (september 19th) so in honor of this, here is my previous post translated by the pirate translator at mediocre minds Storm T'ssed Seas I spent the day today flyin' from Barbados t' Houston and on the Miami leg we flew through the outer edges o' Rita I took a picture from the cabin window where I could see the whitecaps t'ssin' on the surface. (Aaaarrrhhh!!!) T' see whitecaps from 25000 feet, it must have been bonnie rough down thar. (I can't find the usb cable for the camera, doh!) The airport in Miami was packed as south florida drained of tourists, 'n the TSA people thar didn't even pretend to speak english Was Cuba evacuatin' too? On the radio here in Houston they be talkin' 'bout evacuatin' from galveston as the over-reaction t' Katrina sets in People will evacuate, the storm will go t' mexico, then next time they won't evacuate t...

I spent the day today flying from Barbados to Houston and on the Miami leg we flew through the outer edges of Rita. I took a picture from the cabin window where I could see the whitecaps tossing on the surface. To see whitecaps from 25000 feet, it must have been pretty rough down there. (I can't find the usb cable for the camera, doh!) The airport in Miami was packed as south florida drained of tourists, and the TSA people there didn't even pretend to speak english. Was Cuba evacuating too? On the radio here in Houston they are talking about evacuating from galveston as the over-reaction to Katrina sets in. People will evacuate, the storm will go to mexico, then next time they won't evacuate thus completing the storm cycle: Fear-overreaction -apathy-death. Our house seems well built, and we're on pretty high ground (for coastal texas) but we're still going to haul ass. Just not until the cone of uncertainty is less than 1000 miles. My cycle is more like: watch...

Oh well, I thought I would be free to be at home and enjoy my home and family for another week, but plans changed and I had to zip (if an 11 hour trip is zipping) back down to barbados for the next project. I had a pretty good week at home though. My parents have power again after only 10 days in the dark. I thought I'd have to make a trip over to Picayune to pick them up, but it was going to be tricky because there is still little to no gas to be had south of Jackson, MS. Luckily I wasn't needed and I won't have to strap a 50 gallon drum on top of my camry. The downside is I won't get my entry in the redneck olympics, my past events have included transporting a matress on the roof of my car while holding it with one hand. Sharon over at domestic engineer has another operation upcoming, so my hopes are with her, and if any readers are practicing christians you can add her to your prayers. I doubt my lapsed catholic prayers do much good. Or just go read her site, sh...

Winds of Change has the best links to 9/11 stories and it's aftermath, including the story of Rick Rescorla. Lyrics of Men of Harlech from Porphyrogenitus: Men of Harlech stop your dreaming Can't you see their spear points gleaming See their warrior's pennants streaming To this battle field Men of Harlech stand ye steady It cannot be ever said ye For the battle were not ready Stand and never yield Form the hills rebounding Let this war cry sounding Summon all at Cambria's call The mighty force surrounding Men of Harlech onto glory This shall ever be your story Keep these fighting words before ye Cambria (Welshmen never) will not yield

Instapundit linked to a poll that says that 54% of the people in the US don't think that the New Orleans area should be rebuilt as it was. That the flooded houses should be relocated elsewhere. I don't agree. New Orleans with just the central business district and the french quarter will be just an adult disneyworld, and it will quickly lose the character that made it New Orleans. South Louisiana does have something that the rest of the country needs and wants: Oil and Gas production and refineries. The era of cheap gas produced by polluting Louisiana while the enviro-nuts in california get a free ride is over. Embargo. Who runs Barter-town? We do. New Orleans should be rebuilt, houses can be raised or rebuilt above MSL. The land can be raised above MSL as was done for Galveston after the 1900 hurricane , if they could do this in 1900, we should be able to do a better job now. Rebuilding New Orleans should be part of a comprehensive plan to restore the surrounding bar...

Thibideaux said "Hey Boudreaux, if I slept with your wife and got her pregnant, and she had a baby, would that make us relatives? or what would that make us?" "Even" said Boudreaux

There is no way todiscuss apportioning blame for the outcome of the Katrina disaster, because we as americans have become so divided into tribes of differing beliefs, with different a priori assumptions and effective communication is no longer possible between different tribes. Political discussions could be as between Sioux and Mohawk, with a few common words such as "Tatonka" and "Watahe", but almost all other words are charged with different meanings to different tribes, and this quickly leads to wars of words and arrows, and almost no topic is safe but baseball. I'm listening to CNN playing in the other room, and it sounds like Nancy Pelosi is shrieking about how bush is at fault, it seems to me he is at fault whenever a sparrow falls or a flower fails to bloom according to Pelosi. But if he were to extend his hand and try use the power necessary to protect all sparrows and flowers, then she would call him hitler and a nazi. Senator Pelosi is from the tribe ...

Junkyardblog has these pictures of the future monument to futility known as the Ray Nagin memorial park. Junkyardblog has other posts that show more bus parking lots under water in New Orleans. If all these buses (he counts over 500 in this picture and another picture) had been used around 20000 people could have been bussed out in one trip before the storm. In the end there is plenty of blame to spread around for this disaster though: The adult population that was stuck in New Orleans is mostly to blame for their own plight. Everyone knew what would happen. Hurricane Betsy gave a demo of what might happen when she flooded the Ninth ward and St. Bernard Parish. If you lived in New Orleans as an adult and had no thought of a plan except "the government will save me" then you pretty much got what you deserved. Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco are grossly incompetant and if they were honorable would resign their positions. They had total authority to evacuate the people, to d...