Texans are good people. I imagine there will be something of a ring of refugees and relocations around New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, many of those places won’t be rebuilt for generations, if ever. I have faith in Southerners, they’ll do everything they can to help out. I wish I could do more, or anything. I’m waiting to donate money to relief efforts until it the destruction is better accessed and we can better see where the money is needed and who’s best able to distribute aid. Why does it seem like I’m giving to the Red Cross twice a year these days? Times like this I really wish I was able to go there and help, or was trained or a member of the National Guard or something. I hate these feelings of uselessness. I can give money, what I really want to give are sweat and labor.

All the mentions of this storm being the result of global warming are ill-informed and crassly political. Hurricanes have a 20-30 year intensity cycle. If anything, the last 150 years of records show hurricane numbers trending downwards. The New York Times noted that even advocates of global warming aren’t claiming this was related.

Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming.

But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught “is very much natural,” said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season.

The disruption of Lousiana oil production seems like good reason to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. A far better reason than the discomfort of expensive gasoline. A disaster like this, which is one of the reasons for having the SPR, also reflects on the level of irresponsiblity in recent calls to tap it.

What I’m afraid to say out loud is that this seems normal from a natural perspective. It’s the bayou refreshing itself. This makes me wonder about long-term natural history of swamplands. It also makes me concerned that swamps want to be swamps, noting that Washington D.C. and my neighborhood (the East Village) were both swamps.

Also thinking about Mississippi’s massive Indian Mounds. If the area is historically prone to flooding, anyone who made a habit of creating higher ground had the right idea.