The finger pointing over Katrina continues. Naturally, since it is not in a politician's best interest to say, "Yeah, that was my bad." The media, of course, LOVES this part of it, since political intrigue is just so much more interesting than dealing with the logistics of what to do about this now-ruined city and its citizens.

I wrote about Brendan Loy's blog the other day, and how he had been reminding people of the New Orleans "Doomsday Scenario" for several days prior to landfall. The blogosphere - and then Main Stream Media - took notice of Brendan and have given him public notice for his astute warnings. He has received several requests for interviews on TV shows, although a couple of these have fallen through for various reasons. I fould this reason to be the most interesting:

I've been chewed up and spit out by the MSM. :)

I just got a call from the Fox producer who had scheduled my interview for this afternoon. She regretfully said she had to cancel; "they want to go more with the political angle," she explained. In other words, the "clairvoyant weather nerd" angle is so 24 hours ago. :) If Fox had been able to find a studio for my live shot yesterday, I could have had my TV debut... but alas, now I'm yesterday's news. Today is all about blame, shame and multiple overlapping investigations.

They want to go more with the political angle?? In other words, the public would much rather spend time focusing on politics - who can we blame for not considering that a Cat 4/5 hurricane headed for New Orleans might cause the destruction and chaos that we've seen unfold, instead of talking to a guy who - through research of publicly available information - actually did.

Sheesh. What a slap. Brendan is taking it well, and he did appear on MSNBC.

[Nice job.]

The ever-insightful Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has stepped up to do what the future "Katrina Commission" won't do when they convene to officially place the blame for the whole thing. He's provided several steps that we all should take in order to be able to survive in the aftermath of another natural disaster or terrorist attack. I'm sure that Mom and Dad have already done many of these things, given their location in earthquake-prone Southern California, but I know that I haven't done all this. So one of my project - perhaps this weekend - will be to put together a kit of stuff in a big plastic storage container. Ready.gov has lists of things you should consider.

Coldfury notes that the Ready.gov disaster preparedness kits were soundly ridiculed right and left - well, actually, mostly just left - when Tom Ridge suggested them. Even though Philadelphia is not thought of as having a high natural disaster potential, we can be affected by some major flooding. As FEMA noted just last year:

“Isabel reminded all of us that hurricanes can affect any of the states in FEMA Region III,” said Acting Regional Director Patricia G. Arcuri. “We can’t control the force of nature, but we can work together to minimize its impact.”

Wind might be the first thing that comes to mind for a hurricane or tropical storm. After all, the categories of hurricanes measured by the Saffir-Simpson scale are based on wind velocity. But inland flooding caused by persistent, heavy rains from Tropical Storm Agnes in June 1972 did the most devastating damage in Pennsylvania disaster history. All 67 counties were under a major disaster declaration.

Hurricane Floyd and Tropical Depression Dennis in September 1999 and Tropical Storm Allison in June 2001 also caused widespread flooding in Southeastern Pennsylvania, while Tropical Depression Fran and Hurricane Gloria caused flooding disasters in the north and central parts of the state.

So I guess that Lucia's poem might be in order, even if we're not in the Hurricane belt:

As you are interested in hurricanes, do you know the old Cruzan (or is it West Indian) rhyme?

"June, too soon
July, stand by
August, she must
September, remember
October, all over"

When we lived in the islands, we had a day off for hurricane supplication day (late June.. pray for no hurricanes) and Hurricane Thanksgiving Day (late October..thanks for no hurricanes or that we were still standing).

[Maybe a few extra dollars spent at Home Depot - or more likely, Lowe's - will come in handy some day.]

We've had an electrician working at the house for the past week. The original electrican really did some stupid things and we've had to make several repairs to get it up to code. The guy works long hours - he was there over the weekend and has stayed until 11:00 p.m. the past couple of nights. Gary was on call Tuesday so it was no problem, and last night we went to bed while he was still working on the guestroom wiring. I think he'll be done the middle of next week, which is good, since Cousin Jim is going to be coming to stay for the weekend.

[Although we *could* use the other guestroom.]

Quote du jour:

"Man must be prepared for every event of life, for there is nothing that is durable."

Menander (342 - 292BC) Greek dramatist

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