Storm Coverage

US Highway 51 is flooded near LaPlace, LA, on Monday morning Aug 30, 2021,
after Hurricane Ida came ashore on Sunday Aug 29, 2021
(Photo: Mickey Welsh, Montgomery Advertiser via USA TODAY Network)

 Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, Andrew...

Those aren't the members of ABBA. They're some of the stronger hurricanes (and "superstorms") in recent memory.

Now Ida becomes the fifth Beatle.

I've sat and watched or listened to coverage of these and many more, normally fascinated by everything but also horrified at the fury and the damage.

I admire the work of the journalists who are out there covering these events. Remember, they're not being forced to do what they do. Jim Cantore isn't that crazy.

I take it all in. There's often the one public official who rises above everyone else and becomes the face of it all. Need I remind you of Ray Nagin, the disgraced former mayor of New Orleans?

Tonight I find myself thinking about places like LaPlace and Houma and Lafitte.

And Grand Isle.

It took basically the perfect storm but Grand Isle, LA is currently inaccessible and considered uninhabitable. Reports say that 100% of structures there are either destroyed or damaged. 

Their Police Chief, Scooter Resweber, has become a minor sensation. In an interview on The Weather Channel on Sunday, Chief Resweber told Meteorologist Paul Goodlow that they couldn't hang in there for three or four more hours of the storm, despite being in the station that could absorb winds up to 200 miles per hour.

"We're watching the roofs peel off buildings next to us. The flooding is catastrophic," Resweber told The Weather Channel in a phone call. "We're in bad, dire shape."

Though it appears he and those still left on Grand Isle are ok, communications are cut off. The only way to reach the area is via air, as Weather Channel cameras did get there today. 

It's harrowing to watch though and I can't see where the reaction will be what it was for Katrina, for instance.

I doubt there will be a star-studded telethon. No chance for Kanye West to say that George Bush or anyone else doesn't care about Black people.

And, yes, Katrina was devastating. What it did to New Orleans was indescribable. The flooding. The desperation. The scenes at the Superdome and Convention Center. It was terrible.

But this storm is said to be every bit as bad.

If not worse.

I'm not trying to make any grand political statement here. I'm noting how much I've observed storms over the years, even remembering how I was ready for Hurricane Gloria in 1985. In the end, that didn't quite hurt us here that badly.

Of course, I can never forget the night of Sandy, as I anchored the coverage with Jim Campbell, Tony Savino, and Bob Small. I sat down in that chair at 3 p.m. to fill in on a show and, basically, didn't walk away until we lost power after 10:30. We just stayed, talked, reported, took calls, and kept going until the lights went out.

Then I slept on the floor of my office.

Total money made that night? $0.

I find it all fascinating.

Tonight I also find it sad for the good people of Louisiana as well as Mississippi, which was also impacted.

We get Ida's rain tomorrow and I suspect it will be heavy. I suspect our oversaturated ground will be in some danger and will keep an eye on things.

But it can't even compare to what's going on in Cajun country.