I should mention that “controversial” is the NYT’s word, not mine. The report is controversial really only in the sense that there exists political opposition to Mann’s conclusions. The report from the NRC demonstrates—indeed, explicitly states—that although there is some scientific disagreement about details, the consensus of the climatology community is that Mann basically got it right.

RealClimate has more on the NRC’s report, including a discussion of the more recent research.

Our courthouse is located near the intersection of Magazine and Poydras, and near Canal street and within easy walking distance of the French Quarter. The Central Business District was fortunate in that it didn’t suffer significant flooding. Nonetheless, the buildings there still suffered wind, water, and fire damage. Broken windows are still pretty common even in some of the high rises, as are piles of debris around the more damaged buildings. I even saw a few discarded refridgerators still laying on the sidewalk. A few buildings are damaged much more severely, essentially gutted. Despite the damage, many business are open, and there is active construction throughout the district, with dumpsters full of debris lining Poydras and Canal.

We stayed in the Windsor Court near the courthouse—which, incidentally, had some beautiful roses in the lobby–and the hotel was directly across the street from the burning building I wrote about in the aftermath of Katrina. It turns out that the building that burned was not in fact the Hotel de L’Eau Vive, but rather the building directly adjacent to the hotel, which housed a Subway restaurant and several condos.

On our last night in the city, we walked down into the French Quarter and by Jackson Square. The Cathedral looks like it’s in good shape, but a number of stores and restaurants in the Quarter are still closed. The most conspicuous difference around Jackson Square, however, was the absence of street performers. Normally home to mimes, musicians, palm readers, balloon artists, living statues, and other performers, the streets were mostly empty, with only a few tourists and residents about. As in the CBD, there is active construction and repair in the Quarter.

We learned after we arrived that we were staying in the same hotel as Denzel Washington, who is currently in New Orleans filming Deja Vu.  We heard a rumor that Denzel was in the hotel gym every morning at five o’clock, but my co-clerk reports that he never showed up.  We didn’t get to see Denzel, but they were filming near Jackson Square when we walked by.  Aside from some bright staging lights and a helicopter repeatedly buzzing the Cathedral, we didn’t see much.

We also didn’t drive into the harder hit areas of town, including the Ninth Ward.  As you’ve no doubt seen on the news, many of those areas, particularly north and east of the CBD, suffered tremendous damage.  Most of those areas have not been repopulated, and the latest estimates suggest that less than 100,000 people are sleeping in New Orleans each night, down from a population before the storm of over a half million.  The activity in the CBD gives me some hope, but there’s a long road ahead for New Orleans.

Radar at 6:40 PM.

Rita is slowly approaching landfall, and now appears to be headed for the coast between the Sabine Pass and Cameron, Louisiana. We still have power here, and are experiencing moderate wind and rain.

* The “National Hurricane Center”:http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ is the official source for weather information.
* The “Boat U.S. Hurricane Center”:http://www.boatus.com/hurricanes/tracking.asp has several maps, including a “current satellite map”:http://www.boatus.com/hurricanes/hurricane_satellite2.asp, the “current forecasted path”:http://www.boatus.com/hurricanes/hurricane_forecast2.asp, and—something I haven’t seen elsewhere—a “current wind field map”:http://www.boatus.com/hurricanes/hurricane_field2.asp.
* Another “current satellite”:http://www.stormtrack.org/special/ picture of Rita.
* More information from “KLFY”:http://www.klfy.com/, a Lafayette TV station, “KPLC”:http://www.kplctv.com/, a Lake Charles TV station, and “KHOU”:http://www.khou.com/, a Houston TV station..

Water Pooling at 2:00 PM

The rain has not yet started in earnest, and we already have pooling water behind our apartment. It doesn’t look like drainage is too good back there, and I’m afraid it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Radar at 1:25 PM.

The wind and rain have started to pick up here, and we expect the winds to hit tropical storm strength around 6:00 this evening. We are on the east side of the eye this time around, and so we expect more severe weather than during Katrina. The predicted landfall is still very close to the Texas-Louisiana border, and so we expect Lake Charles to bear the brunt of the storm, much like the Biloxi area bore the brunt of Katrina.