Rita and New Orleans

Texas Hurricane Rant.  12:15 AM  Outside, the rain bands drift south toward Houston like a fleet of WWII bombers.  Hurricanes have no lightning (too warm), so the green flashes you see are transformers going out. First the flash, then the pop.  Before you know it, Centerpoint Energy says there's 110,000 without juice.  As I enter words into this diary, I hear the thunk...thunk of tree limbs crashing down on the roof. Across the street, the garage band is belting out some mediocre originals and a lone teenaged girl is dancing to the music under the streetlight.  In a light drizzle.  The tall pine trees are swaying back and forth in the wind, and the rain is on-again, off-again.  In other words, your typical Texas hurricane response.

Except it isn't.  This hurricane sucks big, and everyone I know hates it.  Not for what it's doing to Houston (not much so far) but what it did to Houston's sister to the east, New Orleans and to those fine Cajun counties next door to Texas. Wind and rain at one-twenty miles an hour. For the past three days the local stations sucked up all the airtime (which I suppose is appropriate) at the expense of national news.  Thus, many Houstonians probably are still unaware that the N.O. levee broke.  Or was breached.  Or something.  Doesn't matter.  When everyone learns that our beloved N.O. was flooded yet again it will be like a stab to the collective Texan heart.  I never spent much time in that city, but like most Texans, I have friends in Louisiana and finer people you will never meet.  They didn't deserve this.  Louisiana didn't deserve this.