Gustav

There is something so powerful about mother nature.  For two years I have worked to restore a city that was so devastated and yet in a matter of hours mother nature can come in once again and reverse the hard work.   If you really think about it deeply, we are absolutely powerless when it comes to the acts of mother nature.  I may now be in the field of disaster management but I feel hopeless.  I can't possibly imagine how my friends in St. Bernard's parish feel.  Many of them have probably once again left their homes with no idea what they will return too.  They hear the news media state that this is not nearly like Katrina, but it was 12 to 18 hours after the landfall of Katrina that we saw the worst destruction.  While there have been so many improvements to the levees and the cities operations, the only way to see if they are successful is to wait till the days following the landfall to see if the measures were successful.  I think that everyone is holding onto hope that we never will see anything like Katrina again, and yet for the past day or so it looked like Gustav could be a repeat.  The evacuation procedures may be different and more people may have left the city, but what if the people come back to a city with so little damage that they don't heed the warnings next time a hurricane heads for them.  I think that the next day or so are going to be very telling and that we really need to tune it to see what is going to happen.  Keep an eye on Hanna and Ike, there might be a need to help rebuild the carolinas or georgia.