Damn the torpedoes. Wait. Are there torpedoes?

Remember back with us all the way to the year 2011 when then Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson told us she would do whatever it took to protect the city from the threat of loose barges crashing into levees along a swollen spring river.

City Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson on Thursday told barge owners and operators who don't moor their vessels that the city will sink all untethered vessles.

"We can't afford to have barges breaking loose, breaking levees," she said.

We had some fun with that at the time. 

What we didn't know then, though, was that had Jackie decided to take command of the Washington Square Artillery and fire on any incoming vessels there was actual ordinance available to her.

The cannon was given to the state museum system in 1908. It's been sitting in front of the Cabildo, pointing towards Jackson Square for more than a century. Recently the maintenance department decided to look inside, guess what they found? They couldn't believe it, there was a cannon ball at least 150 years old, down the muzzle.

Too bad Jackie's naval career ended a few years later when she failed to become a ferry pilot or something like that. 

I do miss her, though.  No doubt she'd know exactly what to do about the homeless encampment under the overpass. I wonder if she will submit an entry to the "design intervention" contest.