Adam's Apple
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- Apr 25, 2004
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The Katrina Syndrone: What a Hurricane Can Teach
By Paul Greenberg, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Sept. 2, 2005 / 28 Av, 5765
Some of us can remember when a Hurricane meant one of those potent drinks you ordered at Pat O'Brien's in the French Quarter if you had some sufficiently sober escort to prop you up on the way back to your hotel.
Just one of those concoctions was enough, probably for a lifetime or until the souvenir hurricane glass they came in eventually disappeared, or got knocked off the knick-knack shelf in a periodic housecleaning fit.
Something else crashed this week besides a lot glassware the myth, the urban legend, the inside scoop about New Orleans being hurricane-proof.
Sure, from time to time some worrywart would point out that most of the Crescent City lay at sea level or below, and that if the narrow levees that separated the city from the lake gave way, or if The River were to pull another 1927, well, the town would fill with water the way a bowl does. But who listens?
Don't believe it, the street-smart would assure the credulous. Some kind of voodoo charm protected the city, and there were actually a few spots above sea level that everybody could get to in a tight. All those crypts above ground were just there to make the quaint old cemeteries another of the city's tourist attractions.
So Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler! Let the good times roll! Don't bother your pretty head none, hon, it's summertime and the livin' is easy . . . and would you care for another one?
But the gris-gris turned bad this week. One levee gave way at a crucial spot, then another, and the seawalls became walls of moving water.
New Or-leens, Land of Dreams, was turned into a nightmare as Lake Pontchartrain poured into its new basin, and the bowl started to fill, just as those foolish old Jeremiahs had always said it would.
Looking back, there are so many things that might have been done, but life has to be lived forward.
That doesn't mean we can't learn from experience, including disastrous experience. Sometimes it seems Americans can learn from no other kind. There is something about us that refuses to take action until disaster strikes.
For full article, go to www.jewishworldreview.com. Then click on Paul Greenberg in left-hand column where the names of their writers are listed.
By Paul Greenberg, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Sept. 2, 2005 / 28 Av, 5765
Some of us can remember when a Hurricane meant one of those potent drinks you ordered at Pat O'Brien's in the French Quarter if you had some sufficiently sober escort to prop you up on the way back to your hotel.
Just one of those concoctions was enough, probably for a lifetime or until the souvenir hurricane glass they came in eventually disappeared, or got knocked off the knick-knack shelf in a periodic housecleaning fit.
Something else crashed this week besides a lot glassware the myth, the urban legend, the inside scoop about New Orleans being hurricane-proof.
Sure, from time to time some worrywart would point out that most of the Crescent City lay at sea level or below, and that if the narrow levees that separated the city from the lake gave way, or if The River were to pull another 1927, well, the town would fill with water the way a bowl does. But who listens?
Don't believe it, the street-smart would assure the credulous. Some kind of voodoo charm protected the city, and there were actually a few spots above sea level that everybody could get to in a tight. All those crypts above ground were just there to make the quaint old cemeteries another of the city's tourist attractions.
So Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler! Let the good times roll! Don't bother your pretty head none, hon, it's summertime and the livin' is easy . . . and would you care for another one?
But the gris-gris turned bad this week. One levee gave way at a crucial spot, then another, and the seawalls became walls of moving water.
New Or-leens, Land of Dreams, was turned into a nightmare as Lake Pontchartrain poured into its new basin, and the bowl started to fill, just as those foolish old Jeremiahs had always said it would.
Looking back, there are so many things that might have been done, but life has to be lived forward.
That doesn't mean we can't learn from experience, including disastrous experience. Sometimes it seems Americans can learn from no other kind. There is something about us that refuses to take action until disaster strikes.
For full article, go to www.jewishworldreview.com. Then click on Paul Greenberg in left-hand column where the names of their writers are listed.
