Day: April 25, 2008

Well Worth the Fight

The fight for Grass Lawn is symbolic of the challenge of building back the rich diversity of the Coast – not just the diversity of housing mentioned in this recent Sun Herald editorial.

Hurricane Katrina was an indiscriminate destroyer of homes and housing units. Its winds and surge took away mansions as well as cottages, bungalows along with condos, apartment complexes as well as duplexes.

The storm not only left us thousands of housing units shy of our needs, but it also left us with the challenge of bringing back communities and neighborhoods rich in their diversity of incomes.

With a picture worth a thousand words, Grass Lawn tells the rest of the story.

Politics and Grass Lawn Part 2: Brian Carriere Beats a Hasty Retreat

As public outrage over the ill advised City Council Tuesday vote to turn down a $500,000 grant to rebuild Grass Lawn coalesces, the three city council members who let politics stand in the way of recovery are running hard for cover. Today’s news involves Brian Carriere, the man who said he was against rebuilding Grass Lawn all along but would have voted to put off discussion had he known the grant would have been turned down. He is beating a very hasty retreat as Ryan LaFontain’s story exhibits:

In an e-mail Thursday to the City Council and City Hall, Councilman Brian Carriere took issue with a Sun Herald report this week on Grass Lawn.

The City Council voted 3-2 on Tuesday to reject a $500,000 grant from the state Department of Archives and History, money specifically for rebuilding Grass Lawn that the city will not be required to repay. Continue reading “Politics and Grass Lawn Part 2: Brian Carriere Beats a Hasty Retreat”

Sam Friedman Checks in with Another Fantastic Post on Weather Modeling and Insurance

Sam Friedman’s blog is a frequent stop of mine when I surf the internet for insurance issues.  He is the editor of the National Underwriter, a trade publication serving the property and casualty segment of the insurance industry.  I like Mr Friedman, he is a journalist first and foremost, one who examines the issues with great attention to balance in his reporting. He has opinions on insurance issues though, for instance he is against Gene Taylor’s multi peril bill HR 3121. However our offline conversations on that issue tell me his opinions do not stand in the way of doing the topic justice as he is open to reporting all sides of the issue in his blog and trade publication.

It was his post on weather modeling and it’s use in the industry for setting rates and determining the amount of risk to take on that got me interesting in the topic.  In fact my first blog post dealt with that subject and featured one of Sam’s earlier posts on the topic. Featured was Karen Clark, who literally helped write the book on weather modeling:

One big problem is that catastrophe models are not reliable predictors of when or where a monster hurricane is going to strike, according to Karen Clark, vice chair of AIR Worldwide, one of the leading modeling firms. Continue reading “Sam Friedman Checks in with Another Fantastic Post on Weather Modeling and Insurance”

Old Man River Rolled to 57.03 Today in Natchez

A blogger calling herself bellesouth couldn’t be from any where other than Natchez – belle took this beautiful picture of the Mississippi from Under-the-Hill where the river has reached Silver Street.

She sent it along with these data on Historical Crests to compare to today’s high of 57.03 at 3:00am this morning.

On February 21, 1937, the Mississippi crested at 58.04 – the highest on record- followed by a crest at 56.70 on May 13, 1973.

When she took this picture around 3:30 this afternoon, the River had dropped to 56.93 but still higher than 1973. Continue reading “Old Man River Rolled to 57.03 Today in Natchez”