Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

That meeting sounds like a shotgun wedding between a shitshow and a clusterfuck.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Books are my comfort food!

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

You are here: Home / Climate Change / How about that weather? / Post-Ida Open Thread: Blue Bayous

Post-Ida Open Thread: Blue Bayous

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… Two days after Ida came ashore in Louisiana, hundreds of thousands of people remained without power. With temperatures in the 80s and the heat index projected to make it feel like more than 100 degrees for the next several days, officials were concerned that heat-related illnesses could lead to more deaths across the state. There were reports that power would not be restored to some communities for 30 days…

It wasn’t only the heat and humidity and lack of power that had officials worried Tuesday. Water and sewage systems in several parishes were severely damaged during the storm. The state had set up more than 30 shelters to take evacuees without access to basic infrastructure. Edwards said his greatest concern was how long hospitals, which were already full of coronavirus patients before Ida, could operate effectively on generator power.

In the devastated community of Raceland, in Lafourche Parish, residents in the Bayou Country community were struggling to live in homes with ruined roofs, broken windows and leaky ceilings. Houses and trailers were destroyed, flipped off their foundations, or shredded by Ida’s intense winds.

But residents said the most heartbreaking impact of the storm hasn’t been the damage to their homes. It is living without electricity and running water. They wondered on Tuesday who, if anyone, would be coming to help.

Many residents, who sat outside on streets cluttered with debris and sought relief from the stifling heat, said they were looking for food and fuel. Without access to cellphones or televisions, they worried that all the help was “going to New Orleans,” as one woman put it…

Reader Interactions

28Comments

  1. 1.

    cain

    Ugh – how about the hospitals? This can’t be good for those who are affected by COVID and other sundry diseases. I hope antivaxxers are smart and stay indoors as much as possible. I can imagine COVID spreading even more now.

  2. 2.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Meanwhile, TFG is showing his post term presidential demeanor by bawling about how the networks are spending so much time on Ida and not talking about how Joe Biden is mishandling TFG’s pandemic.

  3. 3.

    Professor Bigfoot

    Worrying that all the help “was going to New Orleans.”

    I hear a faint dog whistle in there.

  4. 4.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Professor Bigfoot: 

    Worrying that all the help “was going to New Orleans.”

    I hear a faint dog whistle in there.

    Only faint? It sounds like a bullhorn to me!

    As for the Governor, he encourages the spread of antivaxxer and COVID misinformation AND now he’s worried about how hospitals will cope? Horse, stable door anyone?

  5. 5.

    Mart

    With climate change need to reimagine how we build infrastructure, homes, and commercial business. Lot of work has gone into hardening wood frame homes, but even hardened homes fail in these crazy high winds. Maybe concrete on steel egg shaped homes that can float…

  6. 6.

    Yarrow

    @Sloane Ranger:  What Governor are you talking about? The Governor of Louisiana is a Democrat – John Bel Edwards. He reinstated a statewide mask mandate in Louisiana about a month ago.

  8. 8.

    scav

    @Professor Bigfoot: & @Sloane Ranger: Could also be the rural grumpiness that the photogenic city always gets the attention and the fundraisers — Save the Panda! is the big winner, not Save the Ground Squirrel.  Just as we’re always inundated with news of every thing that hits NYC (home of all the media!), but less about what’s just happened in Neversink.

  9. 9.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Mart: I think there is  lot to be said for not building those homes on a tidal marsh. Go look at a sat image of Grand Island.

  11. 11.

    Yarrow

    @scav:  Yes, this is part of it. The people I’ve seen interviewed in the most affected parishes are of various races, not just white. Also, the improvements to the New Orleans levee system after Katrina may have left these people more vulnerable than before and they are understandably upset about that.

  16. 16.

    L85NJGT

    There is a power plant online in New Orleans, and there is another they are working to bring online, once they get the distribution grid in N.O. repaired. That can’t power the whole city, but critical infrastructure will be covered.

    The main long haul transmission lines will take longer to repair, and the pole lines out to bumblefuck bayou will take longest. Maybe they can use those trailer truck gensets.

  17. 17.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Sloane Ranger:

    Only faint? It sounds like a bullhorn to me!

    I was under the impression that the folks running Louisiana back in 2005 had used the Katrina devastation as a lever to push a lot of black folks out of NOLA, and that since then, it had been a much whiter city than pre-Katrina.  Am I misremembering?

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Worrying that all the help “was going to New Orleans.”

    I doubt race has anything to do with this statement. It is just a simple acknowledgement that big urban areas get more attention than the “wide spot in the road” small towns. There are a lot of black faces in those small towns too.

  21. 21.

    Capri

    it’s a pet peeve, but who are these “Officials” the article is referring to – couldn’t the sources be named? It’s like saying “scientists” say blah blah or “congress” wants something.  In this case it’s probably not misleading, unlike the use of congress when it’s actually only 1 party, but it’s sloppy.

  22. 22.

    Chacal Charles Caltrop

    @OzarkHillbilly: this is going to be an issue with climate change everywhere though. When it comes to saving people and infrastructure either from fire or water, concentrated populations are going to be easier to save.

  26. 26.

    RevRick

    The devastation that Louisiana has suffered should have us beginning a hard conversation about what we need to do in the face of climate change. The oceans are going to rise and their warming will fuel more powerful storms. Does it make any sense to rebuild, denying the inexorable changes, or should we retreat to higher ground?
    We have a lot of infrastructure that we’ll have to throw ever-increasing money at to hold back the rising tides. The stupidity that underlies all sunk-cost arguments, that we have to throw good money after bad (also Afghanistan until Tuesday) suggests that we follow the most futile path.
    The future says that Baton Rouge will be beachfront within a century or so (sooner if the West Antarctic ice shelf collapses).
    Wouldn’t it be smart to prepare?

  27. 27.

    Kosh III

    @RevRick:
    I’ve been saying since Katrina that NOLA and other coastal communities should be moved inland.  No one cares.
    We’d not be in this bad of a climate mess if President Gore had done something…..

  28. 28.

    jame

    I am from a small town on the Gulf coast in Louisiana. I do get discouraged when hurricane coverage is focused on New Orleans or Houston. It should be easy to understand why people in those towns feel that everything goes to the place that’s the press magnet.
    If the US government cared to take action about the people living in low-lying areas, it could look to the Netherlands as a guide. The bottom line is that now only the people with the personal financial resources to rebuild will be able to. So stop your fussing about coastal communities. They’re being eroded in a heartbreaking way already.

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