A Fetid, Devastated Galveston - NYTimes.com

(((Uh-oh – this situation is starting to sound familiar. All aftermath, all the time.)))

(((In financial panic news, I wonder if maybe a financial panic might be the one catastrophe where so-called "precognitive dreamers"
might be plausibly useful. I can easily believe that a bunch of anxious, superstitious guys could "psychically detect" mass fear among panicky rich people. All you'd have to do is subconsciously smell the fetid devastation in the armpits of their banker suits.)))

Link: After Surviving Storm, Fleeing a Fetid, Devastated Galveston - NYTimes.com.

The authorities said that it might be a month before water and power were restored to some parts of the island and that the wastewater treatment plant was in bad shape. Only emergency personnel were being allowed onto the island, they said.

“We want our citizens to stay where they are,” said Galveston’s mayor, Lyda Ann Thomas. “Do not come back to Galveston. You cannot live here right now.”

Ms. Thomas added: “Galveston has been hit hard. We have no power. We have no gas. We have no communications. We’re not sure when any of that will be up and running.” (((Uh-oh.)))

The air was becoming foul-smelling and was swarming with mosquitoes. Sewage was beginning to back up onto waterlogged streets. The lack of running water was becoming a health hazard; without the water, people could not flush toilets or properly wash their hands.

Small packs of stray dogs roamed the streets. Helicopters buzzed overhead on search and rescue missions. Debris from ruined buildings lined the broad boulevard along the Gulf of Mexico. A line of about 60 cars snaked around piles of wood, slabs of concrete and fallen awnings, their drivers waiting for the Coast Guard to give out food, water and tarps.

Along the road to the island’s flooded west end, longhorn steers grazed in the median strip near scattered recreational boats and a shiny late-model Corvette with water inside. Refrigerators and trash bins lay in the front yards of several homes, and some of the area’s most expensive houses were reduced to rubble. Forty buildings in all had collapsed.

In Jamaica Beach, west of Galveston, six houses were destroyed and most of the others damaged, said a police official, Steve Hubbell. He warned residents that snakes were slithering through debris and that nails in roadways were flattening tires....

(((More. We're gonna be hearing about this one a while. The infrastucture's a mess and the locals, having no other place to go, are going back. Except for the ones who stayed, who are finally leaving.)))

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/09/15/0915ikemain.html

(((Thirty dead found so far. For an area inured to storms, that's a lot.
Storm pictures, hundreds of them:)))

http://www.statesman.com/news/mediahub/media/slideshow/index.jsp?tId=119336

((("We lose our homes the old-fashioned way, through catastrophes other than derivatives." I was a child in the Galveston Bay area and these are places I know well.)))