Today as yesterday, exhausted rescue workers are braving diseases and bullets and pushing dead bodies aside en route to the living. Today for the first time, W. finally responds to polls showing that we're collectively pretty pissed off about his sitting on his butt while rescue workers are braving bullets and disease and pushing dead bodies aside en route to the living. So yes, kids, he says he's doing a fly-over. No word yet on whether he'll wear a bomber jacket.
With all this ongoing, it's perhaps premature to talk about the long-term ramifications of the near-destruction of New Orleans, but my mind is going there anyway. Thoughts:
- It won't be fully inhabitable for years, I'm guessing. Not that anyone will want to inhabit it. Now that so many have lost everything and been forcibly relocated, it's hard to imagine their going back. When you have the entire rest of the country to choose from, why would you take the path of greatest resistance and resettle in a place with no housing, no businesses, no infrastructure, no jobs, destruction and dead bodies everywhere, and oh yes, a place that almost killed you because it's built 6 feet below sea level? Only a profound sense of needing to rebuild what was lost would compel someone to return to New Orleans after this. There just aren't that many altruists.
- Already one of the poorest states, Louisiana has lost most of its revenues and incurred unprecedented expenses all at once. How can it rebuild? Where do you start? What will be the ramifications for governing?
- What happened to the people in hospitals, orphanages, nursing homes and prisons? It's not like there's an abundance of room elsewhere.
- This hundred thousand or so survivors being bussed to Houston and San Antonio? They're not leaving. They have nothing to return to. Texas has generously welcomed them, but it's also taken upon itself an enormous long-term problem. How will all these new residents find jobs and places to live all at once? I'm guessing that by definition, those who remained in NO for the hurricane fall into three primary categories: the poor, the sick, and the stupid. All three categories will tax Texas for decades. The poor need expensive assistance and jobs. The sick take up hospital beds. The stupid are always a burden on society. How will these demographics' instant infusion change the host cities forever? Will their collective needs bankrupt Texas? Will rent skyrocket? Will wages plummet? Will Texan culture change? Will Mexican immigrants, legal and otherwise, suddenly find themselves without jobs?
- I have great affection for New Orleans, so this one pains me. Since a complete rebuilding is necessary, we must ask: should a city built under sea level and, not coincidentally, destroyed by the sea even be rebuilt? If so, who pays for it? We need to weigh the emotional benefits against the practical. If we rebuild, for whom? Who wants to live there? See "path of greatest resistance," above.
- Impending tastelessness alert: what cities are, as I type, crassly conspiring to host a Mardi Gras celebration next year? You know it's coming.