MFT and I have been talking about this, deep in another thread, but this is worth a thread of its own. Right now, I'm more worried about Hanna coming right up my ass. But Ike looks like a different ballgame. Coming right up Pepe's alley.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Ikeman cometh
MFT and I have been talking about this, deep in another thread, but this is worth a thread of its own. Right now, I'm more worried about Hanna coming right up my ass. But Ike looks like a different ballgame. Coming right up Pepe's alley.
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8 comments:
Hanna in that position could be dangerous!
You mean, as she moves up the coast, towards Plymouth? Could be pretty bad, yes.
More on Ike: IKE IS FORECAST TO EMERGE BACK OVER OPEN WATERS IN THE
SOUTHEASTERN GULF OF MEXICO. GLOBAL MODELS SUGGEST THE ENVIRONMENT
WILL BE FAVORABLE FOR STRENGTHENING AND THE OCEAN SHOULD BE PLENTY
WARM.
Clearly the Lord is punishing us for the depravity of our ways. Sodom & Gomorrha redux.
Why build a city in a fishbowl by a lake, smack dab in the path of the hurricanes? Only the French. Only the French.
Cold-water storms are bullshit. Sorry.
Louis Madere described the situation for the French this way:
"Early mariners were forced, then, to ask three basic questions as to where their vessels could go and where a city could be located. The basic questions were: Was there a way for deep-water vessels to reach the river other than by entering its mouth far out in the Gulf? Was there a sheltered way through the delta for coastal vessels to avoid the open waters of the Gulf? Was there a place in the delta's featureless slimy muck where goods could be unloaded and stored without risk of frequent flooding?
The answer to each question, the French found, was "yes," but a tentative yes. There was a site for a city, but there were numerous problems associated with it. The site where New Orleans would be founded and eventually flourish can best be described as "wretched."
In this case, it's unfair to castigate the French. A major river cries for a major port accessible to the ocean. Even the Amazon has the [large but wretched] port of Belem. The French probably did the best that could be done under the circumstances, and let's note that neither the Spanish nor us Ricains found an alternative locale for a port city at the mouth of the Mississippi.
Interesting, AA. Very. But there was also an old Indian settlement on which NO was built, no?
Offhand, I don't know JJ. May well have been something already there. The presence of a settlement would have helped the French pay attention to the spot, I guess, but there were many native settlements, of varying sizes, along the river and delta. Madere makes interesting points, I think, on why the site of what became Nouvelle Orleans won out.
"French Fortresses in North America, 1535-1763" By Rene Chartrand, Donato Spedaliere, has some very interesting original maps and diagrams on the development of the city in its first two centuries.
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