Just blew right through

Laura is already out of the headlines most everywhere but Louisiana.  Trump came down and signed some autographs or something and now they're all on to other things. 

Here are some numbers.  Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to be without water or power for a month at least. Tens of thousands of evacuees are staying in hotels all over Louisiana and Texas. Remember that evacuees in similar circumstances after Katrina had to fight more than once to keep their hotel vouchers before being kicked out with no place to go.  This is going to be a long tough road ahead for many people. 

A massive chlorine gas fire that erupted near Lake Charles has yet to be fully measured. Information about possible environmental damage from similar chemical infrastructure in the area is slow to come in.

The lack of urgency around monitoring is problematic, said Kimberly Terrell, Tulane Environmental Law Clinic's director of community outreach, because industrial facilities hit by Laura's winds could be leaking or emitting more air pollution than normal. 

"Monitoring air pollution is more important than ever," she said. "You would hope that the state would mobilize every resource available to provide information about what’s in the air in this region."

Indeed, since Thursday, more than 50 pollution events linked to Laura in Louisiana have been reported to the U.S. Coast Guard's National Response Center, including the possible release of toxic vinyl chloride and dichloroethane from the Westlake Chemicals facility, just across Contraband Bayou from the BioLab facility, and the release of an unknown quantity of natural gas from a storage tank at the Cameron LNG Inc. facility in Cameron Parish.

Confidence in EPA to discharge its duty under Trump is at an all time low. It will make it all the more difficult to assess the harm done by Laura. 

That is also true in general as attention moves quickly away.  Only a few years ago an event like Laura might be the biggest ongoing news story of the year.  In terms of the current national news cycle, it's just another catastrophe to throw on the pile. 

That doesn't make it any less devastating for the people who lived in its path.  If you are looking for a way to help, the City of New Orleans is compiling a list of ways you can do that here.