Incompetence tends to build up like a static charge in high administrative levels. But with people who know how to do things, it’s a different story: BBC Online Water pumped from flooded city. The breach is closed, the pumps are running again, and water is moving out.
Here’s a description of how the water will be pumped out. As the city’s water coverage has already fallen from 80% to 68%, I predict the water will be all pumped out and the cleanup begun long before any media predictions of a few days ago.
My prediction for New Orleans is based on what happened with the oil-well fires in Kuwait after Gulf War 1: the fires were out far earlier than anyone thought they would be. Dire media predictions of “burning for years” fell in a couple months as actual experts from all over the world came in and put them all out.
Apparently some refineries are coming back online too.
Damn it’s good to see some good news.
UPDATE: 12 October 2005… BBC: New Orleans Pumped Dry (Just as I predicted)