Hurricane Station ID and Test Pattern September 3, 2001
Note Sunday and Monday's postings were actually posted in the late evening of the day before. As long as we are limited to some one else's Internet access we have to get every thing on line before midnight. A temporary storm related glitch. Possibly resolved by today's mid day restoration of power to HQ (hopefully permanent)
ADMIRALTY BOOKS
Monday September 3, 2012
| Official U.S.Navy Photograph |
LIVE FROM PJ's COFFEE IN NEW ORLEANS
NEWS FLASH:
A PROBABLE FIRST:
Somali Pir
SYSTEM FLASH: We seem to have electricity and internet access back at our regular work site.. We are warned that it could be temporary. New Post soon on Post Hurricane New Orleans and strange happenings in cyber space.
A hurricane is a gift that just keeps on giving. After it has delivered more rain, tidal surge, and wind than you could possibly find a use for in a lifetime, you discover that the real gifts arrive after the storm passage. After all its been seven years since Katrina passed through New Orleans and we are still repairing the place. Now Isaac has completed his visit. I've been out and about the city now as we start our third night without electricity. Our losses seem so far to be limited to one uprooted orange tree, several tons of live oak leaves washed and/ or blown onto our lot, and some broken branches on a couple of bald cypress.
Or so it seemed. But slowly and surely the little semi hidden items turn up. The exterior door to the hot water heater will have to be replaced. The days of rain followed by days of heat have warped it to the point that it won't open. Counting the time that we were taking shelter out of town the house has been without air conditioning for a week now. We are starting to see the effects of 90 degree heat and 90% humidity of all sorts of interior things. Isaac wasn't much of an event compared to Katrina, but make no mistake, it has caused hundreds of thousands of people major aggravation and expense. Perhaps the worse starts Wednesday as people find out once again that their insurance companies have found a way out of the lion's share of their responsibilities.
Who counts the pain of an organization like AAIS totally dependent on electricity to produce its product and reduced to sharing electricity and Internet access with a coffee shop and putting out about a tenth of the quality and volume of information that it sees as its mission. Who feels the pain of the information workers laboring harder than ever but limited by circumstances beyond their control to an out put unworthy of a rank amateur? Basically no one , but probably rightly so.
Because this is nothing compared with Katrina when thousands of longshoremen, state pilots, Coast Guard personnel, Corps pf Engineers employees, steamship agents and cargo agents worked day and night while living under the most spartan and dangerous conditions to restore just 86% of the capacity of the port of New Orleans. But that 86% saved the export grain crop of the Mid West, and insured that the Midwest received its season's heating oil in time for winter. No Yankee froze in the dark due to any lack of diligence by any maritime worker in New Orleans. No Midwestern Farmer lost a dime to export corn rotting on the ground at the grain elevators because we couldn't get the barge traffic through. The real untold story of Katrina was how so many people in New Orleans saved about 18 interior states from a 1930s style depression by repairing and rebuilding the devastated port that is the outlet to the sea for so many. These workers did that while living in tents, or on board ships, they did it in heat that melts your very soul, and ate food usually only seen by an army in the field cut off from normal rations. More over they did it despite the fact that some Yankee Congressmen were publicly asking why the rest of the country should contribute to the restoration of New Orleans. The most aggravating of these legislators was the one who asked "Why should we pay for these people to live in Paradise?" Really Paradise? Where is written that Paradise was tropical? This one comes with a snake the size of the Anaconda of your nightmares, hurricanes and tropical storms, and yes , no one likes to speak of it but also some imperfectly controlled tropical diseases. You can visit here for Mardi Grais in February or March and get a much different impression, that's temporary. What we are living now is reality. But America, like it or not you need us.
AAIS will continue to put out as much of the American Admiralty Books Blog as humanly possible while we await the full restoration of our work spaces. Forgive us if the Labor day weekend took something of a toll on us. We were busy laboring and not seeing much progress. But we will,in the end we always do. Please stick with us.
One of the Great maritime traditions of New Orleans after a threat to the city like a hurricane is the return of our "Flag ship" the Steamer NATCHEZ to her berth in front of St. Louis Cathedral, flags flying and the steam calliope playing "America"
We don't have a steam calliope but click here for America the Beautiful by Whitney Houston
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsMk0peAw0Y
The News Service is up
Some new books have been reviewed and shelved in various special pages.
We are limping but far from out
Check back with us through out the day.
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