It’s Still Big, but Nothing’s Easy
Headline: Power restored to Colonial, Plantation pipelines. Distillates are flowing again through from the Gulf region. Power is restored to thirty percent of the refining capacity in and around New Orleans. The jackup rigs and semisubmersibles suffered acceptable losses. Oil can flow. No more shortages in Atlanta, or price gouging in New Jersey. AIG and other insurers are going to be fine. Let’s see, oh yeah, New Orleans is vanishing by degrees along with thousands of residents. This is a place where the dead cannot bury the dead, where the living must be wondering if the rest of us have taken a shuttle to Mars and can’t catch a ride to New Orleans.
The mayor of Charleston, South Carolina, recalls as Hurricane Hugo descended on his city he asked a FEMA official what his first priority should be. The FEMA guy said, “keep track of all expenditures.”
Bureaucrats to the rescue: it feels as though this response is being filled out in triplicate but no one knows where to file the yellow form. We have ‘authorized’ and ‘unauthorized’ refugees who don’t seem to understand the necessity for ground rules when fleeing for their lives. The President did a flyover a few days ago. I don’t know what he saw from the windows of Air Force One or who he was listening to when he drove on past, but he got some terrible advice and he followed it.
What’s ahead for the survivors? My guess would be a tax audit. Be sure and bring all your records.