Life During Hurricane Season

Life in the southeastern US during hurricane season isn't ever a whole lot of fun. With each season comes new worries about the fate of your property and your well being. Who's to say that this year won't be the one that ends life as it is known in your city.

A perfect example of this is with hurricane Katrina in my sophomore year of college. As a freshman, campus was closed for hurricane Ivan the year before and the city only got a little windy. This allowed people to get lulled into a false sense of security. When the next year's devastation came through it was a wake-up call for the entire city. New Orleans is an interesting case though. As it is known today, most of the city is built on swamp. A map from 1901 of the city shows much of Uptown and the French Quarter but the rest of the city is listed as swamp land. The recovery of this swampland into livable areas is partly why the city has to pay so dearly each time a hurricane approaches.

New Orleans desperately needs help if it is to survive. It's not feasible for a city which is a major center of commerce to have a season where nothing is definite. Eventually, business leaders will tire of their constant evacuations and move their companies elsewhere. This will be catastrophic for the city and state economy. This means that the power company for the region (Entergy) needs to get their ducks in a row. Five days following hurricane Gustav customers in Metro New Orleans still don't have power, and the local paper tells them they might have to wait until the end of next week to see it. This is unacceptable. How are businesses expected to operate and be successful when the basic infrastructure can't keep up with their needs?

To remain successful, New Orleans needs reliable hurricane protection and companies managing the infrastructure that know what they're doing or it will sink into it's reputation of being a great party city and nothing else. And that would be tragic.