Pajama Pundits

(Transcribed from notes made while reading the latest Scientific American and S.1765 by generator-powered lamp.)

Damn... the Japanese, the U.S., and the European Union are trying to dig a hole to China. That had to be as irresistable to write as all the pithy observations about the spiciness of Louisiana politics.

What the ship Chikyu is designed for is drilling through the earth's crust to the mantle and extracting samples.

This amazing ship carries a drill pipe that is 9.5 kilometers long -- 22 times the height of the Empire State Building and it cost only $540 million to build. For perspective, that's just a little over 2% of what Louisiana's Congressmen and Senators want to rebuild after Katrina, none of which could possibly be called pork, right?

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution suggests a Swiftian solution to gridlocked evacuations, such as the recent one from Houston:

Pay people who stay behind. By the day, of course. And only if they own cars.

Just in case his tongue wasn't firmly planted in his cheek, I've got to post disagreement. In last week's evacuation, most people thought it was worth the cost to evacuate. Staying behind is almost always cheaper (barring loss of life).

The truly Swiftian way to handle it would be to make evacuation even more expensive. The gridlock sort of did that, didn't it? Next time a hurricane is headed toward Houston, that will be remembered and more people will choose to stay behind.

It's more a pendulum of experience. New Orleans is primed to over-react to the next hurricane threat and Houston is primed to under-react. Enough experiences (like Florida has had) will eventually lead to a moderate, more efficient response.

On a slightly different tangent to the cost of evacuating, those who end up in shelters need to be treated just a little less like victim royalty. While I've heard (all my life) of the Red Cross not accounting for how it uses its funds well enough, what I've not heard about is an evaluation of its theories on how shelter residents are treated.

While residents are relegated to waiting and hours of boredom, volunteers (or paid staff) rush around making coffee, serving food, and cleaning up. Wouldn't the residents be happier and less demoralized if they were doing more of these things for themselves?

I understand that some things (food preparation and storage involving raw ingredients, for example) must be more closely controlled than others. I do not understand what appears to be an encouragement of helplessness, resulting in a more demoralizing experience than necessary.

It's loud and sounds scary. High level winds are much stronger than on the ground, which explains all the "tree trash" on our lawn.

We've experienced flickering and intermittent power outages. Our backyard puddle is full, but the rain has been steady, not a strong downpour, so it's not threatening the laundry room.

From the weather satellite photos, it looks this may be as bad as it gets. Let's hope so. It would be so nice if the winds did not topple trees on power lines.

At 10:20 pm, I thought I heard thunder. I'm not sure... if it is, it's far off, but it's also "rolling" thunder. (It could be B-52s, I suppose.) The tops of the trees are swaying quite a bit and I can hear the wind in them. At ground level, the breeze is perfect for gentle flag fluttering.

These photos were taken about four hours ago near the intersection of I-20 and I-220 on the west side of Shreveport:

Looking to the south...

Looking to the north...

Satellite photo was taken about 2 hours before my sky photos...

Shelters here are not wanting more evacuees. Though the Shreveport Times reports that the shelter at CenturyTel center in Bossier City was supposed to reopen at 3:00 pm, at 7:00 pm highway signs still advised that local shelters were full.

(Hey, it could have been even more out of focus!) Shelters are apparently available in some of surrounding rural areas.

The Times is also advising local residents to get prepared by having three to four days of food, water and batteries on hand.

We've got all that, a generator and 10 gallons of gas, plus a spare pair of clean pajamas. I've never tried running my computer off the generator before. Don't you think a Pajama Pundit should have a laptop? (There's a Christmas hint for ya!) Not that it would matter... what are the odds the cable would be working?

In the 15 years I've lived in this house, we've had numerous power outages, most of them due to ice storms and lasting three or four days. One lasted seven. The city water service and natural gas have never been interrupted, and I don't expect them to be this time either.

Flooding will not be a problem. This house is at least 10 feet higher than our neighbor's and his isn't going to flood either.

I do expect to be without power. No one familiar with the area will bet against my assertion this neighborhood will be one of the first to go dark and the last to get power restored. Swepco's got a legacy to live up to.

UPDATE: 3:00 am - It's raining now, just a drizzle and the winds have lessened, if changed at all.