Sprol

Eden Isle, Louisiana

Eden Island is practically, though not technically, a barrier island. It sounds like a safe place to be, but a barrier is the first thing an unstoppable force goes through.

If you live near one of the 280 barrier islands that protect Atlantic and Gulf coastal areas from the rising seas, you can expect rocks, sand, and storms. During low tides, they can be a hazard to navigation for fishermen and can quickly alter your vessel’s hull, in the bad way. Big storms can wipe out whole ways of life. The marina in the above image has been reorganized by Hurricane Katrina.

Powerful storms are a hazard in many low-lying coastal regions in the world. People usually cooperate to plan for huge storms, like Hurricane Betsy, the previous most-powerful-storm to hit the Gulf Coast. Through planning, cooperation, and communication, large numbers of fatalities can be avoided when the next 40-year storm hits.

“New Orleans’ worst hurricane disaster happened 40 years ago, when Hurricane Betsy blasted the Gulf Coast. Flood waters approached 20 feet in some areas, fishing villages were flattened, and the storm surge left almost half of New Orleans under water and 60,000 residents homeless. Seventy-four people died in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.”
Deseret News

People like to quantify or measure things with numbers because it provides a convenient way of comparing two different things. In the first recorded civic societies, people used numeric icons made of clay to keep track of the different promises they’d made to one another. Think about how difficult it would be for ebay if you could only swap your old stuff for other people’s old stuff.

The result of this is the drive to measure, to record, and to summarize, in order to be able to understand the cost of things. If you can’t understand the true cost of something, then you can’t tell if it is a fair exchange for your resources.

“Estimates put the cost of Katrina to taxpayers at around $100 billion and possibly more. At this point, it is estimated that the Katrina operation on a daily basis is costing more than a day at war in Iraq. “A disaster of this magnitude can be hard to comprehend,” U.S. Representative Chris Shays said in a speech to the House of Representatives. “Convinced of our mastery of the physical world, we too often underestimate nature’s horrible, irresistible power.”
Patricia Mc Cormack, Greenwich Citizen

“New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin has said that the number of dead, when it comes, will shock America and the world. When asked to estimate the death toll the other day, President George W. Bush who was vacationing at his ranch in Texas when the hurricane struck and who delayed visiting the site, said: “It’s lots.”
Patricia Mc Cormack, Greenwich Citizen