Tim Ellsworth

After spending most of the weekend in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, I wanted to post some observations about Hurricane Katrina and the destruction it brought to the region. But the problem is simple — words aren’t adequate. The more I saw, the more I thought to myself, “How on earth am I going to describe this?” As Jack Buck said when Kirk Gibson homered off Dennis Eckersley in the 1988 World Series, “I don’t believe what I just saw.”

It’s like a war zone. It’s like an atomic bomb was dropped on the entire Gulf Coast. It’s like putting an uncovered bowl of refried beans in the microwave for five minutes. Look inside the microwave, and you’ll have a small glipse of what southern Louisiana and Mississippi are like.

Here are some quick thoughts. I apologize in advance for my failure to describe it the way it deserves:

– Bay St. Louis, Miss., was the worst place I saw. We drove along a road with the ocean on our immediate right and what used to be ocean-front houses on the left. Only, there aren’t any more houses. They’re simply gone — dozens of them on one road. Huge piles of rubble are all that remain. These were undoubtedly nice houses, and now they’re just gone.

– New Orleans itself was a ghost town. It was eerie. As we were driving through the city, it was so strange to see these huge shopping centers off the Interstate — in the middle of a Saturday — with no cars anywhere in sight (other than those tossed every which way along the side of the road). The smell was pungent. Along the outskirts of New Orleans, before we crossed the bridge to enter the city itself, the scene was much like that described in Bay St. Louis — house after house that is now nothing more than a pile of debris.

– Speaking of debris — it’s everywhere. Piles of debris 10, 15, 20 feet high lined every street.

– No way is the city of New Orleans ready for its residents to move back in this week. That’s going to be an unmitigated disaster. Wait and see.

– The wisdom of the Matthew 6:19 has never been more apparent: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” So many of the people who had nice houses and drove expensive cars probably never thought they would lose everything in an instant — but they did. The pleasures of this world are fleeting. Our goods and possessions that we spend a lifetime accumulating can be taken from us in a second.

– The more I saw, the more convinced I became of the folly of rebuilding New Orleans. This isn’t a popular thing to say, as the politically- and emotionally-correct response, it seems, is defiantly to pledge to restore the city to its pre-Katrina status. We’re going to shake our fist at nature and show that blasted hurricane that it can’t beat us, and the federal government is ready to spend $200 billion immediately to that end.

But maybe some restraint would be wise here. Maybe it would be best to think about such a project in more detail before bulldoggedly charging ahead. This is taxpayer money we’re talking about. I’m certainly no expert, but based upon what I saw, $200 billion isn’t going to scratch the surface. If private investors and entrepreneurs want to work on rebuilding the city, by all means they should do so. But to commit that much taxpayer money to a city that has been so utterly demolished is foolish — especially when the same thing could happen in five years. Of course, since when has the federal government EVER exercised any kind of financial restrait? Their failure to do so here shouldn’t at all be surprising.