Re: Atlantis, New Orleans, fabled underwater cities....

On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 12:41:49 -0500, D. Ferguson
<Zeds_Dead70@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Building a city on thousands of years of Mississippi river sediment,
>which is naturally sinking over time, located along that river and
>bordered by Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico is the exact
>definition of stupid. I feel for the people who live there and love
>that city but it's absurd to think this would never happen.

The ones that I do have a problem with are the ones that made a
conscious choice to remain in spite of warnings and without any major
reason to do so. I can understand the woman that stayed to help a
neighbor that was physically unable to be moved and I can at least
understand the issues with the woman that looked to be somewhere in
the neighborhood of 500 pounds being lifted out of a flooded building.

Nearly 20% of the population stayed behind, though, and the reports
seen in Maryland was that the roads cleared (finally) for hours before
the storm really hit and there were futile efforts to get the
remaining people to leave. So now they interview a person that lost
most of his family and he can't find his house or car. Why didn't he
find that car before the storm, when it would have made a difference?

I can remember being single and stupid, watching tornados from the
Wheatshocker in Wichita with the ceiling tiles lifting and the police
cars doing code 5 runs up and down the street below, us drinking beer
and with no better back up plan than heading to the stairwell if the
funnel headed our way, but we WERE young (and did I mention stupid?)
and we didn't have our own children to protect.

And I've yet to hear why that one family (now a minor footnote) took a
boat into the teeth of this storm and disappeared. What, someone says,
"Its only a cat 4, so how bad can it be?" and got caught by surprise
when it went to cat 5? It was only 175 miles wide and they got caught
when it became 200 miles wide? I'd pay to do it in a stormtracking
plane (if they' take a blubbering, whimpering mass when it got really
bad), but what makes someone challenge something like a hurricane -
especially when the people that rescue you pretty much think you are
stupid if you do make it and stupid if you don't? They don't give
prizes for survival.

I'll write a check for those that lost everything or close to it, but
the ones that took unnecessary risks should be like the people plucked
off of Mount Hood - thanks for the experience and here's your bill for
putting x number of lives at risk to save yours...

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...
.