DOOMWATCH KATRINA
It’s hard to come to grips with the fact that New Orleans as we knew it is history. I also worry about the friends and folks I know down yonder. And between the bouts of numbness with the TV images, I want to leap up and down and scream. "It was a superstorm, motherfuckers, because the temperatures on the ocean surface are too fucking high!" But maybe rage is not yet appropriate.

This email came from Cole Coonce, a stalwart colleague at LA CityBeat, and I share it because it brings the disaster into a tighter, more personal focus...

... as of this morning, the levees have broken and the water in New Orleans is rising an inch every five minutes....
In the days before the hurricane and subsequent flood, I took snaps from a trolley going uptown from St. Charles and of the statue of Ignatius J. Reilly on Canal Street. I also took pics while cycling along the levees that are supposed to keep the Mississippi River in check and out of New Orleans itself. Also is stuff from the French Quarter, where my old pal Bo Fingers insisted we look for his friend Al Broussard, the Human Trumpet. (Turns out Al passed a couple of years ago, but we still have a grand time.)
I left New Orleans early Sunday. All Flights were cancelled, rental cars were non-existent and it was a 20 hour bus ride to Houston 300 miles away (the nearest airport) Sunday morning to Monday morning. The exodus was replete with a stinking backed-up toilet and an air conditioner whose condensation leaked into my lap for the duration... the first 10 miles took six hours... the bus driver bailed on the interstates and took parish highways through swamps, plantation country and sugar cane fields, which allowed for a lengthy meditation on the duality of the South as well as the imminent devastation.... anyway, I finally caught a plane out of George Bush last night...
And, of course, I got off light.So: Also documented is the Natchez Trace in Jackson, Mississippi, where I spent a couple of days last week cycling with my sister and my mom's neighbor, who -- come to find out -- is a DEA agent. Yes, Missisippi: My family got hit pretty hard by Katrina in Jackson and near Hattiesburg.... torn up fences and power lines, uprooted 150 foot pine trees, etc... My good ol Uncle Ed and Aunt Dot cannot get out of their house because of the prodigious amount of debris... but at leeast they lived... still, they are pretty demoralized and their plight makes me rather sad and feeling somewhat guilty about being back in Los Angeles and not back their helping them sift through the damage...
Even though none of these were shot in the storm itself, I still make no apologies for the blurriness of any of these photos. With the camera in hand, I rarely get off the bike, nor stop the vehicle. Except for the stuff in the French Quarter, these pics are all about motion... as was the situation in Mississippi and Louisiana itself.
Keep in mind that a lot of this stuff is now underwater and is teeming with sewage, water mocassins and dysentery.
80 people are dead in Gulfport, Mississippi alone. Trust me: that is a very conservative count. My mom told me the winds of Biblical proportion beat up her house ALL day Monday. Jackson is 180 miles north of the coast. There is more damage than is really fathomable along all those small towns from the coast, up the delta and into hill country. I cannot confirm this yet, but there is a rumor that Richton, Mississippi (where my Uncle Ed is the local doctor) is basically g-o-n-e. So: the only difference between this and the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia not too long ago is that the American peoples of the Gulf Coast were given 48 to 72 hours notice that the shit was going to hit the fan. We'll see how much difference that notice will make in the final casualty count.
http://www.kerosenebomb.com/natcheztrace-neworleans

The secret word is Mortality