Entries in Life

I’ve heard a lot of talk about when the federal government could help people affected by Katrina. The claim is that the president nor the federal government could do anything until specifically asked to help by the local authorities.

In fact, the president could act before that, and he did.

The President’s action authorizes [FEMA] to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety …

The statement issued by the White House then goes on to list parishes that the order covers. None of the parishes in southeast Louisiana are listed.

One feature of New Orleans economy is how capital intensive it’s distribution flows are. It’s not like New York, Boston, or Silicon Valley where the goods that are flowing are practically weightless. The oil, grain, cement, automobiles that flow thru New Orleans depend of extremely expensive installations. Consider Henry Hub where the price of natural gas futures is fixed; 15 natural gas pipelines that reach out across the entire nation and a sea of storage tanks. Or consider the refineries any one of which would take Billions of dollars to reproduce. Or the oil terminal where one pipeline carries 20% of the US oil ashore. These distribution networks are very hard to move. Moving Howard’s Hub would require rerouting all those major pipelines.</blockauote>
— Flooding
the Network

And, he goes on to say, that this motivation to rebuild will only put a bigger gap between the wealthy and the poor. Many of the homes of the wealthy have remained (uptown, though the nicer homes along the lakefront have gotten hit pretty badly).

Their business depends upon those pipelines, the things that are intrinsic to the city. They’ll be there. Of course they’ll need workers, too.

And, for now (or whenever NOLA gets back on its feet), those workers will have to come from across the river. Or from upriver. Or from ghettos in Uptown.

Everybody here has a dead guy story now. Everybody here will always be
different. — Returning to the remnants of home.