Hurricane!

On a couple of occasions, Barry and I have discussed the gas price hikes during hurricane season. For the most part I came to the defense of big oil, explaining that there really were reasons why gas prices would climb so quickly other than the obvious profit motive. The short argument is we have inadequate refining capacity huddled right down hurricane alley. In fact, I am relatively sure that a fair number of gas stations were actually selling it at a loss. There was a flattening of prices for a while, with name gas stations charging only a few cents more than the discounters and only a few cents difference between Dixona (where oil is generally cheap) and Deseret (where it is not so cheap). That’s usually indicative of gas prices running up against an artificial barrier (in this case, the $3 mark. The same thing happened when it hit $2). Gas stations by and large make their money through the convenience stores they’re attached to, and I am guessing that some of them were willing to lose a bit on gas to get people to come in to their stores. Or at least willing to forego much of any profit.

Naples man: “I saw a bunch of stuff flying by”

As of 5:00 AM EDT.... Hurricane Wilma had Maximum Sustained Winds of near 115 MPH with higher gust... Additional weakening is forecast during the next 24 hours and Wilma is expected to lose its Tropical Characteristics during the next day or so...

Second, I'm sick of the concept of sticking a wealthy, pampered reporter in hurricane weather and then telling us how brave they are. Screw them. People that have to work in these areas are brave. People who get up and leave everything they own in the world behind in the hurricane zone in order to save their own lives, those people are brave. Reporters in hurricane zones are not brave.

This evening I visited wwltv.com to get an inside update into what is going on in the crippled city of New Orleans. Shocked…Shocked…Evictions can commence as soon as a judge quits stalling…parking tickets are now being issued once again… and the amount of homeless is safely hovering at around a quarter million…

TIn the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Senator Chuck Grassley asked the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to investigate nursing home deaths last month. I blogged about it here. No doubt deaths resulting from Hurricane Wilma will spark more investigations.

As of 9:00 AM EDT, Hurricane Wilma's maximum sustained winds had weakened from 125 mph when coming on shore, (a Cat. 3,) to near110 MPH with higher gust… Hurricane Wilma has weakened to a DANGEROUS Category TWO Hurricane. Wilma is moving toward the northeast near 25 mph and a continued increase if forward speed is expected during the next 24 hours... Some continued weakening is also likely as Wilma crosses the southern Florida Peninsula today...

That awfully nice man, Trent Reznor, he of Nine Inch Nails fame, is auctioning several autographed guitars on eBay. They’ve all been used on stage during the last tour and are in various states of disrepair having been, well, all but destroyed during his on stage antics. All money raised is being donated towards the Hurricane Katrina relief fund.

Bou, in addition to putting up her hurricane shutters while commenting (repeatedly and loudly) about The Suckiness of Hurricanes, has also managed to complete Version 8 of her Florida Blogger's map. If she loses power, The Great Omnipotent One (TGOO) is on standby.

BusinessWire.com reports that Major League Baseball is pulling out all the stops to raise support for hurricane relief in the disaster-stricken Gulf area that was ripped apart by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

As of 11:00 AM EDT, Hurricane Wilma had maximum sustained winds of near 100 MPH with higher gust… Hurricane Wilma is still a Category TWO Hurricane. Wilma is moving toward the northeast near 8 mph but not yet strengthening... Yet some strengthening is still possible today or tonight... Hurricane Force Winds extend outward up to 70 miles from the center and Tropical Storm Force Winds extend outward up to 200 miles...

Hrmph!! Another hurricane destined to change the geography of the planet. Rampaging her way through the much famed Caribbean beaches with over 140 miles an hour, she is on every other person’s mouth. In front of the soda vending machine, in the queue at the coffee shop, gas stations, departmental stores and in the small group that gathers across my cubicle at work from time to time. News channels, weather reports, websites, homepages, blogs are brimming with predictions, speculations and suggestions. Will she hit Tampa? Will we be destroyed? Will there be another Tampa version of the saga of New Orleans? There is even an interactive video of how Tampa would look underwater if there was a water surge.

As of 2:00 PM EDT... Tropical Depression TWENTY-FIVE (Click here for PUBLIC ADVISORY) had Maximum sustained Winds of near 35 MPH with higher gust... Estimated Minimum Central Pressure is 1007 MB... The Depression is becoming better organized and may become a TROPICAL STORM later this afternoon... This would be a record for most Tropical Storms in one year in the Atlantic Basin and the first time the Greek Alphabet has ever been used to name an Atlantic Storm. This storm will be named “ALPHA” if it should develop into the record books....

As of 2:00 PM EDT, Hurricane Wilma's maximum sustained winds had decreased and are now near 110 MPH with higher gust… Hurricane Wilma is now a Category TWO Hurricane. Some additional weakening is expected today while Wilma is over land... but some re-strengthening could occur tonight or on Sunday once Wilma emerges over the Gulf of Mexico.

Actually, this requires no imagination: it is exactly what the Bush administration did a year ago when Florida braced for Hurricane Frances. Of course the circumstances then were very special: it was two months before the presidential election, and Florida's twenty-seven electoral votes were hanging in the balance. It is hardly surprising that Washington ensured the success of "the largest response to a natural disaster we've ever had in this country." The president himself passed out water bottles to Floridians driven from their homes.

Interestingly enough, some of the the people I did talk with asked me if I knew where FEMA was and how they could get support from them. It must have been on the radio that FEMA was in town. It’s the first I’ve heard of them being here, and It’s Friday. Rita came through last Sunday. I pondered about the paid groups like FEMA. The red tape and the way our tax dollars are handled makes me sick… yet where are they?! Faith based organizations like COH, nightrunners, and the Salvation Army are here.

The hurricane season really needs to end. Unbelievably at the writing of this post WILMA is a category 5 hurricane and is the strongest one yet for the year 2005 which includes Katrina and Rita. They say it is headed for the west coast of Florida and if it comes ashore would probably hit as a category 3. “Well isn’t that special” as Dana Carvey AKA the “church lady” used to say. It is on the same track as “CHARLIE” from 2004. Charlie destroyed Punta Gorda but was a very fast moving hurricane so it rapidly passed over the state and did no particular damage to my little corner of Florida. It would be nice for my little corner of Florida if WILMA took the same track though we certainly don’t deserve that particular mercy.

Here you have people who have known nothing but poverty. I understand why they'd indulge themselves (hell, it'd be like Christmas to some), but the fact is that this wasn't "fun money". It was given to them to help them survive and to get back on their feet. Some, of course, are taking full advantage of the situation and doing just that, but others are just content to sit back, get drunk in front of the Wal-Mart or the bus stop, and let the government keep taking care of them.

WEBSTER SAY'S A REFUGEE IS ONE WHO FLEES FOR SAFTY, ESCAPES TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY. WELL LET THE TRUTH BE TOLD WE DIDN'T FLEE FROM AFRICA TO BE SAFE, INSTEAD WE WERE STOLEN FROM OUR COUNTRY AND BROUGHT HERE AS SLAVES, DURING "NINE-ELEVEN" IN YOUR TIME OF TROUBLE ALL OF A SUDDEN WE BECAME YOUR AFRICAN-AMERICAN BROTHER'S, BUT WHEN HURRICANE KATRINA HIT, THE MOMENT YOU SPLIT YOUR LIPS, THAT'S WHEN IT CAME TO ME, GOD OPENED MY THIRD EYE AND ALLOWED ME TO SEE, THAT TO YOU WE'RE NOT AMERICAN, JUST REFUGEE, AND YES I DO TAKE IT PERSONALLY.

As Wilma enters the Gulf and strengthens, memories of Dennis enter my mind. Even though the eye wall came within 30 miles of us, we were fortunate to get the west side of the storm which is typically the lesser of the evils. In our area, Dennis became known as Dennis the Menace because it was merely an inconvenience that brought a lot of rain but little wind. It rained like crazy. More than I had ever seen with a storm of that size but admittedly we normally get the eastern part of the storm which usually means storm surge and high winds.

In my half sleep this morning, I heard my local all-news station spend a lot of time flogging tropical storm/soon-to-be-hurricane Wilma. I was dismayed when I heard it would “threaten the Gulf coast”. I couldn’t believe what those poor people down there would have to endure–a third major storm. But there was a catch. When the news station cut away to the official messages from the National Hurricane Center, I heard the storm would graze the Gulf coast of Florida. While that’s not great news by any means, the story was clearly being positioned as a direct hit on the Louisiana/Texas area. I guess that will sell more papers and get more eyeballs, huh?

Yet Capek says the photos don’t do the destruction justice. “It was much, much worse than Hurricane Isabel,” he says. “With Isabel, trees were snapped and torn down. With Katrina, trees were completely relocated.”

We now have the 21st named storm of this hurricane season: Wilma. And she looks to be headed into the lower Gulf of Mexico as a hurricane possibly as early as Saturday.

Check out this blog from the managing editor of The Beaumont Enterprise. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at his personal life during Hurricane Rita and how closely tied it is to his professional life as editor.

There are many, many misconceptions floating around about deficits, spending, interest rates and inflation. Many are taken as fact, but they have major problems, mainly the historical, empirical evidence just does not back them up. One is the idea that deficits lead to higher interest rates that ultimately ‘crowd out’ investment. You hear this a lot the past few days with talk of budget busting spending after Katrina and Rita as Congress tries to figure out anyway it can not to cut its spending. The liberals want to end the tax cuts, saying if we don’t the deficit will be too high, interest rates will surge, investment will decline, blah, blah, blah. Robert Ruben advocated this and Greenspan does as well . . . DESPITE the historical evidence that shows rates fell during deficits in the 1980’s and rose as deficits turned to surplus in the 1990’s. Rates did the same thing in the latest recovery though the second half (surpluses) has not materialized despite an explosive surge in tax receipts (stronger than any of the Clinton years) because, just as with Reagan, the government cannot stop itself from spending all of that money the tax cuts generated.

Paul opined that the martial law provisions now being promoted by the Bush administration were a direct response to people's unwillingness to relinquish their firearms, as was seen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Always on Guard - The Story of Arlington and Hurricane Isabel

Readers, I need your help. I just received an e-mail from Hurricane Katrina relief volunteer Nora Craig. She’s a small-business owner in Franklin, N.J., who led the effort for her city to “adopt” the devastated town of Lumberton, Miss. She has heard from another small town in need of help and is sending out an S.O.S.:

So we're paying for people to rebuild their expensive homes in flood-prone areas, just so they can be hit with another hurricane and get knocked over again?

How is this not welfare for rich people?

And on that note, I'd like to introduce one of our new members who will then introduce our speaker for tonight. You all remember her from her efficient work this past September. She came like a thief in the night and showed us that timing can be as destructive as sheer force. I introduce to you, from the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Rita!

Its moving through Georgia and Alabama as a tropical depression WSW direction. One thing to always be vigilant is whether the system takes a southerly turn and enters the Gulf and gets recharged ala Hurricane Ivan did last year when it whomped the Gulf Coast twice after meander its way in the southeast. It did more damage on the second go around than the first time I believe because it caught everyone off-guard.

One of the first things I learned as a kid, is be careful what you say about others, because it will always come back to you in the end. So, in true fairness, I am investigating the City of New Orleans conduct and operations prior to and after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The city officials have done a great job of blaming all of their problems on the federal government and anyone else they can blame. However, there are always two sides to every story.

Saturday, I loaded up all of our sweaty clothes and headed north to do laundry. I couldn’t take it anymore. Clean sheets were a blessing Saturday night. We are told that we will be without power at least another week maybe more. Jasper ISD isn’t sure when they’ll start school. It was rather nice to come to work today…..it makes you realize that normalcy may soon return.

CC from Everything and the Kitchen Sink has found something rather curious. The City of New Orleans official website has taken down the comprehensive hurricane preparedness guide that was formerly located here. Why would they do such a thing? The site says:

As many know Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi essentially got wiped out by Katrina. This is the story of how one Air Force Officer managed a job he never thought he would have, that of "Shelter Commander" during the hurricane. It makes for a good read.