Alternative New Media for the Gulf South
After a very long drive, I’ve joined my daughter for her birthday week on an beach off the coast of South Carolina.
On a personal note, I’ve also decided that certain formerly living, formerly married men pass from this world into GPS causing mapping programs to send of those left behind on very, very, very long drives instead of the direct route!
Internet access is limited. I’m keeping up as best I can and writing when I can – and driving home by a different route.
This is the hardest post I’ve ever authored due to the subject matter of controversial lawyer and occasional Slabbed commenter Ashton O’Dwyer and his Katrina experience which is frankly incredible. Like Bellesouth before him Ashton has been judged harshly by the blogosphere. Unlike Belle, Ashton has brought a good bit cyber-ire on himself through the use of racially charged words to describe people of color such as US Judge Ivan Lemelle.
I’ve found that those not from the heart of the GO Zone (for the most part) do not completely appreciate the mental trauma inflicted by the sudden changes brought by Katrina. Everyone was impacted, including those that grew up and moved away as the familar was lost forever and the connection to the community completely shattered by the upheaval. In my own circle of friends including those from my childhood I’ve found the ability to cope with these stresses varied greatly and depended on a number of circumstances. And a few, like Wilford Asher of Waveland simply snapped.
And it is with that perspective that we need to backtrack in time to September 2005 when Ashton O’Dwyer’s loss was compounded and then some. Before I link the legal docs let’s visit with James Gill at the Times Picayune who wrote about this a few months back:
O’Dwyer blamed his maltreatment — as he does many of his woes — on a conspiracy of powerful public officials. This time, however, it did not require an overheated imagination to conclude that he had been singled out for some rough justice.
And it was pretty rough. O’Dwyer was sitting in his driveway around midnight shortly after Katrina drinking a glass of wine, when the cops materialized. He was, even by his own account, somewhat provocative and was hauled off to the temporary hoosegow at the Union Passenger Terminal.
There he was locked in a metal cage and repeatedly pepper sprayed and shot with beanbag rounds. Released after 16 hours, he was never charged with a crime. Photographs of his wounds support his brutality claims. Continue reading “Slabbed kisses the Blarney Stone and tells the story of Katrina’s Nutty Irishman”
Katrina’s plaintiff pro se gave us the moment:
Damn all the odds!
…When I look back,I will always recall,
Moment for moment,This was the moment,
The greatest moment of them all.
Whatever Lexington offered, I believe the Company’s counsel Continue reading “Moment for moment, the greatest moment of all Thank you, Judge Ozerden; Judge Roper; Alford Clausen & McDonald for Lexington; and, last but not least, a standing O for Katrina’s plaintiff pro se”
I’ve been keeping one eye on the evolution of the new flood maps for the New Orleans area since their release in February. Complicating matters are ongoiong flood control projects which make City approval of the maps anytime soon unlikely. And once again we see the tug war between wind mitigation and flood mitigation. David Hammer filed the story for the Times Picayune: (h/t Mr CLS)
Earthea Nance of the city’s Office of Homeland Security said the maps are getting more outdated each day. In the two years since the snapshot, new and rebuilt flood protection has further reduced most homeowners’ risks. And two years from now, the Army Corps of Engineers is scheduled to finish building and restoring levees, floodwalls and pumps designed to protect most of the city from a so-called 100-year storm — a storm with a 1 percent chance of happening in a given year.
For some, particularly in neighborhoods such as Lakeview, the maps show their risk has abated and if the city would adopt the FEMA maps, huge savings on flood-insurance premiums would follow. But those residents will have to wait. The City Council didn’t want to adopt the maps and force others in areas where flood risk has increased, like the Lower 9th Ward and parts of Gentilly, to elevate now when adequate protection should be in place in a couple of years. Continue reading “New Flood Maps for NOLA. Familar headaches for the slabbed”
So who is right, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board who termed Louisiana’s private market “thriving” or our new Bermudan money changing friends fronted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute that our own Commish likes so well who last week gave Louisiana’s insurance market an F. (h/t Editilla)
Louisiana is one of six states receiving an “F” on a newly released report card ranking states’ insurance climates. Continue reading “Slabbed Daily June 23: Is Louisiana’s Insurance Market Really Healthy?”