The Levee Breaks

The news from New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf just keeps getting worse. Reports from the city itself tell a story of destruction on a comicbook scale, the kind of all-encompassing devastation that levels fictitious cities when writers run out of ideas. Can't figure out any new villains for Batman? Lets destroy Gotham with a cataclysmic earthquake. People are bored with Superman? Lets kill him and crush half of Metropolis for good measure. People love disasters!

First the Hurricane-force winds and driving rains, now the levee has indeed broken and Lake Pontchartrain pours into the city like an enormous, festering, overflowing bathtub. Looters have set themselves to the task of destroying as much of what's left of the city's economy before what's left of the National Guard can force them out to dry land. Power is out, food and water are scarce and lawlessness rules the land. Plagues of locusts may soon invade the city for all we know.

I can only hope that the dire predictions of the chattering classes prove false. That New Orleans will not be abandoned, that the Cresent City can be resurrected and throngs of drunken revelers will once again party long into the Bourbon Street night. We can't allow New Orleans to become the American Pompeii. The city can be rebuilt, and the surrounding marshes and coastline restored to provide better protection from future calamities. It won't be easy without super powers, and it will take more than just a few monthly installments. But it can be done, and hopefully will.