[nilesfunnies] Fw: Quotation of the day for September 3, 2005

**COPIED FROM: >>>qotd/qotd2 147 racoleman(2781)3sep05 10:23 *
Quotation of the day for September 3, 2005

It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana,
the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured
outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those
inside paid silent homage to the man who invented
air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a
hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there:
Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as
hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the
city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than
a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000
remained, however--the car-less, the homeless, the aged and
infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any
excuse to throw a party.

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead,
pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water
crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake
and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies
below sea level--more than eight feet below in places--so the
water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick
ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth
Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District,
until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon
Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25
feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto
roofs to escape it.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated
by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the
flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited
to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by
then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment,
a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was
the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't--yet. But the
doomsday scenario is not far-fetched.

- Joel K. Bourne, Jr., Writing in the October 2004 National
Geographic. His imaginary scenario took less than a year to
come true.

[http://205.188.130.53/ngm/0410/feature5/index.html]

Submitted by: Terry Labach
Sep. 2, 2005
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