Yup - it's all but nofficial - the worst has come to pass. Lives lost in Katrina are in the thousands. Stunning grief. Yesterday, many hundreds, about a thousand was the unofficial word from the ground in Mississsippi after S&R had gotten to the poorest neighborhoods. Today, from Lousiana, the governor suggests "thousands" dead. And who know how many the urban S&R underway in NO, after delayed perhaps (or more than?) a day by bad comms or violence or both. The dead will keep coming for a few day; people may found or pulled from attics for the next week or more. WHAT can we learn?* Science has gotten hurricane tracks down pretty good, around 80% right. Intensity? Predicting that is roughly a coin toss, 50-50. Mind you, each level of cat is 10 times different - these are huge differences. As the disaster shows, wealthy is healthier, and poverty can kill, and not just in the obvious ways. The South has long been America's poorest region. But as Florida's experience shows, these vulnerabilities can be mitigated. But the worst damage and greatest loss of life comes from where the science about hurricanes remains the most uncertain: storm (or "tidal") surge. It's the rapidly rising waters and floods that kill most people in the past and today. We've been lulled through not seeing this for decades and now are paying the price. Will the media use this "teachable moment" to be sure we pay heed? I'm betting not. Anyone with better ways to pass on the bitter fruit of experience? How about a hurricane museum to go near NO's D-Day museum? -Orson ------------ *"Divine Wind: The History And Science Of Hurricanes" (October 2005) by MIT's Kerry Emanuel
