Small Mercies are Mercies

August 29, 2005

At 6:30 a.m. CDT, WWL-TV, the most reliable streaming video, reports that broadcasting has been interrupted at points, and has moved to LSU facilities. Sustained winds hover at 60 mph, with occasional gusts to 105. [Update: NOAA weather makes the wind at the N.O. airport 86 mph.]  A minor turn has re-aimed the most destructive storm quadrant. The fiercest winds are reported to be in a 10-mile band around the hurricane eye, and the margin of passing-by New Orleans is approximately 20 miles. 

Areas of devastation and dislocation and loss and clean-up are to be expected; but New Orleans, with the eye still 30 degrees of longitude south, is so far dodging the massive effects that lead to catastrophe-scenario flooding.

An un-inundated New Orleans will be a great mercy. In words from the Catherine of Siena Institute:

ask for an army of angels to protect, warn, guide, and deliver those in danger.

Update: 8. 30.05. The army of angels may at this point need to be clouds of helicopter rescuers, as rumors of ill-tended pumps and levees comes to light. Save lives, then deal, unsentimentally, with the hazards of ignoring geophysical reality.