I’m sitting here
gazing at our September/October
2005 cover
that chronicled the devastation wrought by Florida’s 2004
sequence of
hurricanes, while trying to make some sense out of what has happened
this year.
Not counting
Nana, which as of today (October 13th), is gathering
steam in the
Atlantic, there have been 13 Atlantic storms (Arthur,
Bertha, Christobal, Dolly,
Edouard, Fay, Hann, Ike, Josephine, Kyle,
Laura, and Marco, two of which have
been exceptionally remarkable.
Gustav, the
Category 2 hurricane that slammed into the
Lousiana/Mississippi coast in
September, was the fourth costliest,
third hurricane and
second major hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic
hurricane
season. Gustav caused serious damage and casualties in
Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Cuba, and
the United
States. Thus far nearly 150 deaths have been attributed to
Gustav in the U.S. and Caribbean, with
$15 billion in damages in
the US and another $3 billion in the
Caribbean.
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Ike, which ripped
ashore in Texas on September 13th as a Catergory 2
after transiting
much of the Caribbean as a Category with sustained
winds of 145 knots, is blamed
for 144 deaths (74 on Haiti) and $127
billion worth of damage in the US
alone.
When I wrote an
editorial for our Erosion Control magazine more than
a decade ago, citing the
increasing risks to the entire area as a
result of wetlands loss, never in my
wildest imaginings did I conceive
of what this possibly meant … and this
recognition helps me understand
the plight of those responsible for the health,
safety, and welfare of
the city’s populace. Even now it’s hard for me to get my
mind around
events that are all but biblical in their scope, so while critics
may
rail at this mistake or that failure in responding to the disasters, I
marvel at the dedication, industry, and resolve of those who have
stepped into
the breach.
From a waste
management standpoint, I suspect that the
experience of 2004’s Katrina helped
prepare people for the sheer
magnitude of the destruction wrought by these
storms, taking a lot of
guesswork out of the question, “Where do we start?”
Photos taken in the
aftermath of this year’s storms show that wherever you
stood, you were
in the midst of rubble, giving rise to the realization that it
made no
difference where you were, you just started working… and you worked …
and you kept on working until exhaustion set in and you had to rest.
Then you
got up and started in again, working your way house to house,
block by block,
and finally mile-by-mile until things began to make a
little
sense.
So for those who
have already had their baptism by fire, bless you
for the terrific job you’ve
done. For the rest of us, give a deep sigh
of relief and then make sure your
disaster plan is up to date.
