General

Disasters and Katrina

One of the more compelling blogs about Katrian is Interdictors, who has been blogging from a data centre all week. What was a faily mundane livejournal has been turned into a must read account of the hurricane and the aftermath. Somehow they are geting fuel and supplies though to keep the generator going. The writer is ex-Special Forces and gives a special viewpoint on the troop and police movements he can see. Looking at the webcam they have just now, I could see buses convoying through the town.

From the reports coming out of the city, you can see how thin a veneer civilisation is. Without the basics, without access to water, food, shelter, people do what htey have to do to survice. They will loot and break into places to get the essentials. There’ll always be an element who take advantage of chaos though – TVs and the such like are not essentials.

With all the accounts of people who have lost everything they ever owned apart from what they could carry with them, it made me think about which of my posessions are essential. And there;s not many – they’re all replaceable, with few exceptions. So the ‘luxuries’ in aa survival bag I had to pack? Some pictures and a teddy bear; all with great sentimental value.