Getting outa Dodge.

Here’s our old backyard sometime after the flood.  The tree in the picture is a big tree, one of largest in the neighborhood.

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Here’s the more recent, demolished lot version.  The stump in the middle left is what is left of the tree.  This view is rotated about ninety degrees counter clockwise from the previous view.  So now you would be standing on the far right side of the previous photograph, under the carport, and looking along the far side of the house toward the street.

Getting our house demolished — roughly two years after the storm — has been the only thing we’ve been able to accomplish successfully in Orleans parish.  Every and any other part of government connected to Orleans Parish has been worse than useless.  And, of course, the Corps of Engineers actually demolished the house, not the city government.

I sincerely hope no one ever is foolish enough to build on this lot again.  Gutless developers and in-the-pocket politicians, of course, find it advantageous to argue otherwise.  And New Orleans has no monopoly on those.

Odds are.

Here are the improvement pictures the TP chose to show relevant to my old neighborhood of Gentilly. (I would be in the 2-4 foot range in 2011, btw.)

And here’s the one they didn’t show:  What would happen, with all improvements made, to the levee system and to the Gentilly area of New Orleans if and when a 500-year storm landed.  (No need to show the before and after maps, since they both contain the same quantity and shade of blue.)

During the life of your average 30-year mortgage, how likely is it that you will NOT face a 500-year storm?

(499/500)^30 = 94.17%

Which means, if I were still in Gentilly, there would be a 5.83% chance that sometime during the next 30 years I and my family and my children’s family would be very blue.

No, wait.  There are still four years until 2011.  So, until then, I would also be very blue if a 100-year storm hit.  What are the odds of that NOT happening PLUS the odds of the 500-year storm NOT happening during the following 30 years?

[(99/100)^4]*[(499/500)^30] = 90.46%

So, if I were still in Gentilly, I would have a 9.63% chance of remaining dry enough to breathe (assuming  2-4 feet of water is dry enough to breathe) over the next 34 years — which is approximately the same odds I would have playing a game of Russian roulette with a 10-cylinder gun.

Of course, in 34 years, I will be pushing 90 years old and probably won’t be breathing anyway.

Hopefully, though, my children will still be breathing.  And their kids will still be breathing.

Anbody in Gentilly want to place a bet?

Lakeview?  Garden District?  French Quarter?

http://nolarisk.usace.army.mil/#map

Social evolution.

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/jul/evolutionmap