Big Easy & Global Warming Update
In Katrina: A Global Recession Event? and Neutron Bomb Katrinas Fallout, we speculated on the infrastructure and resulting economic collateral damage.
In Global Warming Retrospective we commented "unusual and dramatically changing weather patterns are emerging globally. The severity of these patterns will only worsen in the years to come, and will wreak havoc on our supply chain and harvest cycles."
So far this year: 10 named storms is the average, this years 22 named storms breaks the record which had stood since 1933 and Wilma setting a barometric pressure record by dropping from 982 millibars to 882 millibars in 24 hours, or a rate of 4.2 millibars an hour. Wilma also fell 9.7 millibars an hour over six hours, beating Hurricane Beulah's drop of 6.3 millibars an hour in six hours in 1967.
After Wilma: In Cancún, the long strip of beachfront hotels, which provide 40% of the city's jobs, may not be back in action until the new year. Some hotels may have to be demolished. And the storm denuded half of Cancún's beach of sand. Rebuilding Yucatán will cost $2.7 billion, estimates of damage in Florida run as high as $8 billion.
Translated, more frequent and stronger storms to come in future years. Here are some excerpts from a recent article in the Economist which validate our post Katrina speculations.
As residents trickle back, they discover a city of abandoned refrigerators. This Stonehenge of abandoned fridges (full of maggots and putrefying chicken) may amuse New Orleanians who can move back into their own homes.
But many others are having trouble finding anywhere to stay in the Big Easy. An acute shortage of housing is hampering efforts to restart an economy that was fragile long before Katrina.
According to Governor Kathleen Blanco's office, some 200,000 housing units in Louisiana are beyond repair. Of these, 160,000 are in greater New Orleans—a huge loss for a metropolitan area that had only 1.3m people before Katrina hit. Many other homes in the city can be fixed but are not yet habitable, so their returning owners need to find somewhere to live. Rents are soaring.
Shipbuilders, restaurants and shops all want to hire people, but would-be workers have nowhere to live. Retail stores throughout the region are begging for employees, and even fast-food restaurants are offering signing bonuses.
Despite an attempt to “repopulate” the less damaged bits of the city, people have not rushed to move back into their homes, so they stand empty—an irony when so many are looking for places to stay. Still, sales of new refrigerators are brisk.
In Global Warming Retrospective we commented "unusual and dramatically changing weather patterns are emerging globally. The severity of these patterns will only worsen in the years to come, and will wreak havoc on our supply chain and harvest cycles."
So far this year: 10 named storms is the average, this years 22 named storms breaks the record which had stood since 1933 and Wilma setting a barometric pressure record by dropping from 982 millibars to 882 millibars in 24 hours, or a rate of 4.2 millibars an hour. Wilma also fell 9.7 millibars an hour over six hours, beating Hurricane Beulah's drop of 6.3 millibars an hour in six hours in 1967.
After Wilma: In Cancún, the long strip of beachfront hotels, which provide 40% of the city's jobs, may not be back in action until the new year. Some hotels may have to be demolished. And the storm denuded half of Cancún's beach of sand. Rebuilding Yucatán will cost $2.7 billion, estimates of damage in Florida run as high as $8 billion.
Translated, more frequent and stronger storms to come in future years. Here are some excerpts from a recent article in the Economist which validate our post Katrina speculations.
As residents trickle back, they discover a city of abandoned refrigerators. This Stonehenge of abandoned fridges (full of maggots and putrefying chicken) may amuse New Orleanians who can move back into their own homes.
But many others are having trouble finding anywhere to stay in the Big Easy. An acute shortage of housing is hampering efforts to restart an economy that was fragile long before Katrina.
According to Governor Kathleen Blanco's office, some 200,000 housing units in Louisiana are beyond repair. Of these, 160,000 are in greater New Orleans—a huge loss for a metropolitan area that had only 1.3m people before Katrina hit. Many other homes in the city can be fixed but are not yet habitable, so their returning owners need to find somewhere to live. Rents are soaring.
Shipbuilders, restaurants and shops all want to hire people, but would-be workers have nowhere to live. Retail stores throughout the region are begging for employees, and even fast-food restaurants are offering signing bonuses.
Despite an attempt to “repopulate” the less damaged bits of the city, people have not rushed to move back into their homes, so they stand empty—an irony when so many are looking for places to stay. Still, sales of new refrigerators are brisk.
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