Tag: Hurricane Katrina

A big SLABBED good-bye to David Maurstad – wish we could have missed you sooner

Interesting news via CLS – a h/t and thank you, too – and as much as I need a vacation to recover from my vacation, I could never be too tired to post a SLABBED good-bye to David Maurstad.

David Maurstad will resign as the assistant administrator for mitigation and administrator of the National Flood Insurance Program for the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Sept. 13.

“It was time to wrap up with FEMA and move on,” Maurstad said Thursday morning. “It’s been a very challenging time to be involved with FEMA, but it’s been very rewarding.”

Obviously, the challenge was making his time with FEMA rewarding to the insurance industry – and I doubt it will be long before that rewarding experience is rewarded.

It will be so good to miss Mr. Maurstad when the new Congress considers Gene Taylor’s proposed changes in the National Flood Insurance Program without him around to testify in opposition to expanding the coverage to include damage from hurricane wind.

…a new,multi-peril NFIP would displace State initiatives for addressing wind risk Continue reading “A big SLABBED good-bye to David Maurstad – wish we could have missed you sooner”

Worth a 1000 words of hope after Ike the cowboy hurricane

The New York Times has several sets of pictures showing what happened in Texas when Ike didn’t take a hike.

Many look very much like the “after” in the before-after-now Katrina series in the Biloxi Sun Herald.

If you want to see the Coast of the future, take a look at the pictures and illustrations here.

Levees.Org Debunks Katrina Myths

Sandy Rosenthal and her grassroots organization Levees.org landed on our radar screen thanks to Editilla at the New Orleans News Ladder who is passionate on the subject. Last Thursday Levees.org held a screening of their new 10 minute video, The Katrina Myth; the Truth about a thoroughly unnatural disaster.

Word has spread because in just 4 short days it has passed 49,000 views. It is well worth watching.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wln_iq5bc8k]

The Clarion Ledger Nails it Again for the Slabbed and the Coast

As long as Jim writes them we’ll be linking them as our friends in central Mississippi show us they not only get it but also care.

Three years ago today, Mississippi was a far cry from what it is today – with many scars and, hopefully, some lessons learned When Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Mississippi Gulf Coast bearing a massive tidal surge and 125-mph winds on Aug. 29, 2005, the refrain had always been that nothing could be as bad as Camille.

Camille, which struck Aug. 17, 1969, was the benchmark by which all other American hurricanes were measured. Although not as powerful at landfall as Camille – one of only three Category 5 storms ever to hit U.S. shores – Katrina set a new benchmark.

Katrina’s 35-mile-wide eye, with hurricane winds extending 125 miles from the center, engulfed a much wider area from Alabama to Louisiana, and sustained impact 100 miles inland. Two-thirds of Mississippi was declared a disaster. It’s destruction far surpassed Camille’s $11 billion in today’s dollars, up to $81.2 billion so far. Continue reading “The Clarion Ledger Nails it Again for the Slabbed and the Coast”

Eye of the Storm

I was looking at the Times Picayune early this morning and ran across this 25 minute video they put together.  I listened to it in the background while I made my rounds and I think our readers will enjoy watching it. This is their story of how they covered the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans in those dark early days.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3989911357450927172]