Holding Our Breath

The weather is so beautiful today that it's hard to believe we're in for, best case scenario, 5 or 6 inches of rain on the weekend. The worst case scenario is that Tropical Depression Whot's 'is Name (a weather distubance off the east coast of Florida so unorganized at the moment that it doesn't even have a name) blows up into a Cat One 'Caine when it hits the superheated waters of the Gulf of Mexico and gives us a real-time demo of just how much credence there is in the Army Corps of Engineers' promises about the swell progress they're making with the levee repairs. Earlier this week the smart money in my social set had it pooping out by the time it got to Disney World, but that now seems unlikely. The 'official' forecast is for it to develop into a tropical storm or a category one hurricaine, with a number of possible storm tracks coming disturbingly close to New Orleans. Pre-Katrina this would be a non-story, in fact I endured my first tropical storm here in the fall of 03 without even being aware of it (I just thought it was a windy and rainy day) . Now people are understandably a bit apprehensive. Our old 13th ward neighborhood didn't flood at all during Katrina. Where we are now got about 3 feet (you can still see the floodline just below the third step up on the front porch) but we're at the Bayou St. John end of the neighborhood. The closer you get to North Broad, the deeper the water got, until down by the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club it was at least chest high, and over people's heads in spots. Our block floods enough even during regular rainstorms to cause concern over water getting in the car. This weekend I'm going to make a point to park up on Moss Street, or over on Esplanade, both of which are on a little ridge. The Corps has been making a lot of reassuring noise about the reliability of their spiffy new floodwalls and floodgates, but of course they made the same noises before Katrina and that didn't work out so hot. Wish us luck.