Another perspective in Louisiana

I'm in too much pain to blog much today but thought I'd provide my brother's interesting insight into Katrina.

He lives in a very small town called Baldwin, 5 miles from the Gulf of Mexico and about 45 minutes away from Lafayette, the nearest "big city" to them.

Katrina hit mostly to the east and missed their town by almost 70 miles. They didn't have as severe winds or flooding, also because their area still has the natural atchafalaya (I can't spell it) swamp and those wetlands act like a wet sponge--they can absorb more water than than a dry sponge, so to speak.

New Orleans flooded because the levees broke, but that whole area is losing coastline and flooding worse because of the agribusiness we do here in the midwest. Erosion runs off into the Mississippi, dumps into the basin and screws up the ecosystem down there. There is a really interesting book called "Bayou Farewell" and it's great if you're into the environment or American culture/history.

Lafayette is trying to handle all the refugees. UL where my brother and sister-in-law are both taking graduate classes, agreed to admit all UNO students. Lafayette schools just registered 600 kids so far from NO for classes. The hospitals are overflowing. My sister-in-law will probably have close to 2/3 more students in her classroom this fall due to displaced poeple. For perspectives on dealing with the disaster when it's your neighbors, here are local news stories from the Lafayette paper:
http://www.acadiananow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=NEWS01