Erik Proseus, the clever weatherman at MemphisWeather.net, worked up this forecast for the weekend:

NOAA – 01 Feb 2010 1035 EST

Outlook for the Atlantic, Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico

Hurricane Whodat is predicted to make landfall on the South Florida coast in the vicinity of Miami on 7 Feb 2010 at approximately 2200Z (5:00 PM EST). This extremely powerful hurricane is expected to produce damaging Shockey waves and Category 5 Brees. Reports from shipping indicate that this unstoppable storm has blown a huge flock of Cardinals all the way to Arizona, and that it has sunk a replica Viking longboat, the Brettigfǻvren. Livestock, in particular young horses, will be in severe danger of being decimated….

It goes on from there. Read it all.

I admit it’s easy to lean on to the crutch of snark. But when asked by the New York Times to give some perspective to the last decade — well, 2005, to be specific — and share credits alongside several other writers of note, it’s best to leave the Katrina jokes at home.

Jonathan Safran Foer earned his Golden Boy badge last decade after two critically and commercially successful, if gimmicky, original works (Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), but he closed out 2009 with a puzzlingly self-important (and admittedly contradictory) bit of nonfiction (Eating Animals). As one of 10 contributers for the Times‘ “The Decade We Had,” Foer spins a post-modern review of 2005, giving equal weight to trivialities and tragedies — it’s a testament to the information age in which we live, where major headlines run alongside celebrity gossip and YouTube-able memes in mere seconds. Hurricane Katrina is the punchline in one paragraph:

Exactly two weeks after the July 7 bombings, terrorists again targeted London’s public transportation system. All four bombs failed to detonate. The following week, and within two days of each other, a plane crashed in Greece, killing 121, and in Venezuela, killing 160. The week after that, Fiji’s High Court ruled that the island’s sodomy law was unconstitutional, and a mandatory evacuation was ordered in New Orleans. Two months after that, China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping officially announced the new and more accurate height of Mount Everest: 8,844.43 meters above sea level — 4.5 meters taller than Everest was thought to be in 1856. That original measurement was not shared with the public. The British surveyors added 61 centimeters to avoid the impression that an exact height of 29,000 feet (8,839.2) was nothing more than a rounded estimate.

I get it — as terrorism and government failure rock the globe, we’re still linking bullshit science news on our Facebook friends’ walls. I’m just not so sure America deserves anything less than a retrospective pummeling of our “mandatory evacuation” down here. Brad Richard of New Orleans agrees — the paper published his letter to the editor, writing “Katrina was the most important domestic story of 2005, and the story of its aftermath is far from over. Not to acknowledge this, and to make a long joke instead, strikes me as poor judgment on Mr. Foer’s part.”

We’re bundled pretty tightly here at Gambit, and for good reason. Temperatures are expected to remain low with a good chance of ice and that ugly, mud-slush kind of snow later in the week. Not the coziest outdoor environment. That’s why the Louisiana SPCA is warning all pet owners to include their pets in their freeze plans. “Pets are in just as much danger in the cold as humans,” reminds the LA/SPCA’s Katherine LeBlanc. Thankfully the LA/SPCA shelters have received plenty of donated blankets and towels. The freeze warnings continue throughout the week, so consider these plans for your pooch (or pet pal) as the harsh weather continues:

Bring them indoors. Animals are subject to hypothermia and frost bite — especially those ears.

If you can’t bring them inside, make sure their outdoor shelter protects them from high winds and low temperatures and has enough blankets and pillows.

Puppies, kittens and senior pets should not be kept outdoors. If our cat prefers the outdoors, bring them in, too. Cats seeking warmth might crawl into a warm car engine.

Turn off any gas furnaces and electric heaters when not at home. Don’t add a fire hazard to severe weather.

As of noon, crews were out sandbagging Bayou St. John on Jefferson Davis Parkway at Lafitte Street in (in front of the Mid-City post office). No street flooding, but the waterline was exactly at the bayou’s top and slopping over in some places.

Artist Eric Hartman, who lives at the nearby American Can Co., was out taking photographs as the water lapped over the bayou’s banks. “I’ve lived on the bayou all my life,” said Hartman, “and I’ve never seen it like this.”

Meteorologist Dawn Brown, formerly of WWL-TV, is the latest hire over at WVUE-TV, which seems to be making a blitz on WWL’s former talent pool. Brown’s hiring follows that of reporters Lee Zurik and Dave McNamara, as well as some behind-the-camera folks, all of whom have joined the station since Mikel Schaefer, a former associate news director at WWL, jumped ship to become the #1 ND at Fox 8.

Brown, who has been off the air since April when her contract was not renewed by WWL, has spent her down time establishing her own Web site, myweatherlady.com. She’ll make her first appearance on the WVUE airwaves in January.

From 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. this morning, rally organizer Ray Broussard planned for a 1,200-person event uniting New Orleanians to have their voices heard concerning coastal restoration and reliable levee construction. It was a clear morning. Not too hot with a cool breeze. Perfect opportunity for a rally in the heart of the French Quarter just across from Jackson Square on the steps of Washington Artillery Park.

But Broussard (left) was joined only by K.C. King (right) and Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal.

“This rally was supposed to be an opportunity for all New Orleanians to show whatever their concerns,” Broussard says. “I’m frustrated. I know a lot of others out there who are frustrated. This was an opportunity for New Orleanians to be heard, potentially by the national audience — maybe even the federal government.”

Broussard and King donned life vests and flood-ready gear with a bright green sign simply reading “Safety First!” To passing tourists, school groups and sidewalk passers-by, the duo shouted messages calling for category five flood protection and Army Corps of Engineers liabilty for the levee failures following Hurricane Katrina.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mid-City, 7 pm. It got worse.

Harry Shearer, part-time New Orleans resident and full-time passionate partisan for the city, has been grumbling for months about President Barack Obama’s promises to the Gulf Coast during the 2008 presidential election, and contrasting those promises with the fact that Obama has yet to come to New Orleans, almost a year into his presidency. (Obama says he’ll be here by year’s end.)

This morning’s announcement that Obama will be traveling to Copenhagen to make a pitch for Chicago (his hometown) to host the 2016 Olympics seems to have been a line in the sand for Shearer, who now writes:

I found this story interesting as the ultimate rebuke to the months of comments from people here regarding the Obama administration’s torpor when it comes to remedying the aftermath of the failure of the federal levees in New Orleans. “Give him time,” they said, “he’s got a lot on his plate”.

Here’s one thing he’s got on his plate, so far untouched: a report from the Office of Special Counsel, delivered to the White House and Congress this past June, confirming almost all the allegations by Corps of Engineers whistleblower Maria Garzino that the hydraulic pumps installed by the Corps at the three “outflow” canals whose (Corps-built) floodwalls failed on August 29, 2005, were not robust enough to meet testing standards and cannot be operated on site in the required manner in the event of a storm surge event. (The OSC examines whistleblower complaints; in this case, they hired an outside engineering expert to review Garzino’s complaints.) There has been no reaction from the White House to the OSC report; the pumps sit there, waiting to fail should a surge enter Lake Pontchartrain.

My headline, phrased in question form earlier this year — “Obama to New Orleans: Drop Dead?” — is ready to be repunctuated.

Is Harry right or wrong?

“I don’t really go back and re-live that sort of thing. Some of the big votes that I’ve thought about, some of the jury’s still out. And at this point, maybe I’d answer that question another way, probably the singular vote that stands out that went against the grain, and it turns out to be the best vote that I cast, was my “no” vote to the $51.5 billion to [Hurricane] Katrina. That probably was my best vote.”

— Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), in response to the question “What vote would you like to redo?” (Source: The Hill, Sept. 21, 2009)

By bashing New Orleans on his radio show, of course:

On Sept. 11, 2009, he produced what may be his most confusing, conjecture-filled tirade yet. This time, he has somehow “connected” the dots, tying community organization ACORN, an international employees union, the City of New Orleans and former Obama green jobs director Van Jones into the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

After spinning this web of “wouldn’t it be convenient,” Beck suggests that he’s “not going to get into the conspiracy,” then in one run-on sentence ties ACORN, SEIU, Van Jones and the City of New Orleans into being somehow, quite inexplicably responsible for the failure of the levees.

“They knew the whole time,” said Beck. “How do I know that? Because I knew it a year before … That’s weeeeeird.”

His guest agreed. She added: “It’s almost like you’re a local, Glenn!”

“It doesn’t take a genius!” he laughed. “I just, I just go to New Orleans for the hookers.”

Stay classy, Glenn. Happy 9/11.