S&WB math

Here is a word problem for you to work out.  According to the plan discussed at this week's meeting, how many turbines does the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board plan to have online after all of the projects are implemented?  

Be careful. This is tricky, but we can think it through.  First we have to know how may turbines are operating now.  The most recently installed piece of equipment is called Turbine 6. So you might be tempted to just say six immediately and put your pencils down. But wait... 

The S&WB has five turbines, though their designations confusingly run up to six because Turbine 2 was decommissioned years ago. Each has faced significant limitations in the past and caused problems for the agency.

That's quirky.  But, in a way, it's very New Orleans. It's kind of like trying to explain to a visitor why a bunch of streets that cross Canal are called "North" or "South" but nobody ever says they are actually traveling in those directions. You just have to know the lingo.  Anyway, so it's five, right?  

Well, not exactly.  To solve for the number of available turbines, we still have additional values we need to factor in.  For example, the temperature outside on any given day is one. 

Under the timeline discussed Tuesday, the first project to be completed would also be the cheapest: a $700,000 fix to Turbine 6, its newest piece of power generating equipment, to allow it to operate in cold weather. The turbine, originally provided to the S&WB by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2013, was not designed to run when air temperatures are below 45 degrees, a limitation that prompted a boil water advisory in 2018 when temperatures dropped while it was powering the S&WB’s water system.

Now, some would say designing equipment that can only function above 45 degrees is actually very forward-looking policy in the context of climate change.  Maybe this is an example of that "resiliency" everyone is always talking about.  Also it may be a little confusing to some that a drop in temperature is what causes water to boil. But, again, that's just another one of those quirks. In any case we are currently living in a world where sometimes Turbine 6 exists and sometimes it does not. To solve this part of the equation, add $700,000*

*This value will undoubtedly increase over time. To determine the appropriate function to input here, please see Appendix B

Thankfully, the status of Turbine 5 is more of a fixed variable. It is blowed up.  Although, we have now learned, it is not quite as blowed up as originally thought. 

Next would be repairs to Turbine 5. That generator exploded in December, causing enough damage that officials initially said it would likely never be worthwhile to repair it. But an inspection showed damage was not as severe as feared and that insurance on the equipment would largely cover the $5 million to $6 million to bring back online, minus a $1 million deductible.

We can rebuild it. And we will. So, let's see where we are now. That's 6 turbines minus one for nomenclature, minus one for explosions, minus one IF < 45 degrees F so, for now we're at three or maybe three and a half operational turbines.  Got it? Okay now add one.

Then there’s the plan to buy a new turbine, which would be designated Turbine 7, for $18 million to $20 million. About $13 million of that would come from the federal government, the rest from the infrastructure deal.

The proposal calls for Turbine 7 to be operational in 12 to 14 months.

At which point there should be (assuming the business with the weather is sorted out) six turbines in operation including the one called number 7.  Got it?  Good, now subtract two. 

With all those pieces in place, the S&WB would be able to take Turbines 1 and 3 offline completely, Korban said. Those turbines, powered by steam, are considered to be particularly problematic.

The thinking there being that, there should be sufficient steam just coming out of everyone's ears by this point in the problem that these machines will have become redundant.  And we didn't even get into the conversion of 25 cycle to 60 cycle electric power which, yes, is also a factor in this. 

It's no wonder, then, that with all this high level math going on, that the billing system is every bit as mysterious.

The S&WB currently estimates about 45% of customer bills, instead of billing for actual use, and Korban said efforts to improve that figure are underway. Those include staffing up internally and bringing in outside contractors, efforts he said have already improved the situation from a low point when only about 30% of customers’ bills were being read each month.

Sometimes you have to pay or what you use. Other times they just make something up.  This situation fluctuates over time according to several variables as well which causes many people to wonder if their water bill is determined by a random number generator.  They say that's happening 15 percent less of the time now than it was before, though. So make sure your instruments are calibrated before you begin your next calculation. 

Just let them make a YouTube channel

You really have to hand it to the legislature for bringing the grifter energy to this emergency special session it has called.  Ostensibly, they are there to deal with the COVID emergency and the consequences of expiring benefits and a dwindling unemployment insurance trust fund.  But they're taking the opportunity to also run through a stack of tax breaks for businesses, including and especially oil and gas, to further de-fund public education and various other schemes. Always good to get em in there when nobody is paying attention. 

Even the marquee item on the agenda isn't quite what it seems.  They sound like they are saying they are there to shut down the Governor's emergency order because freedom and democracy or something. 

The push to give lawmakers a say in coronavirus rules started taking shape. Republican lawmakers are circulating petitions to end the emergency health declaration that underlies a sheaf of directives to lessen the spread of the deadly COVID-19, but also have led to widespread shutdowns of business activities and unprecedented unemployment. GOP legislators – including Senate President Page Cortez and House Speaker Clay Schexnayder – want to give the Legislature a seat at the table in emergency powers. 

"The Legislature is a co-equal branch of government ... and we should have a seat at the table," Cortez said.

But, as we've already found out, those petitions are difficult to complete. In part, this is because potential signatories have trouble coming up with specific aspects of the response they would want to do differently. 

Asked what specific components of Edwards' coronavirus restrictions he objects to, Cortez said merely that lawmakers want a "seat at the table." Republicans have railed against a host of the rules, including restrictions on bars and restaurants and visits to nursing homes.

They just want a seat at the table.  They don't actually want to do anything from that seat, though. As Karlin points out in this article (and then highlights again in a tweet thread) this bill would actually make cancelling the emergency order more difficult by adding the requirement of a second petition.  

So it turns out these Republicans, despite holding super-majority status in the state legislature, really just wanted a platform from which they can be seen complaining.  It's nice to be heard, I guess.

Time for healing

I am going to have to go watch this forum now for clarity but it does sound a lot like what Keva is saying here is that the "relationship between the DA's office and the community" needs to be "healed" specifically because Jason has criticized Cannizzaro so much. 

But Landrum said she was the only candidate with experience running an office like the DA’s. She also said that as a judge she was prevented in many cases from speaking her mind, but nonetheless pushed changes like bail reform from the bench.

Without mentioning Cannizzaro by name, she said she would heal the relationship between the DA’s office and the community. She called Williams a grandstander whose “divisive” tactics reminded her of President Donald Trump and took a swipe at him over his St. Charles Avenue house.

“Mr. Williams wants you to believe that he is going to stand for the poor people of our city, when in fact he has made himself a millionaire off the backs of the people of New Orleans,” she said. “I don’t live in a mansion on a hill. He does.”

Which would imply that Leon's contributions to this "relationship," his use of the habitual offender laws to win absurdly harsh sentences, his use of "fake subpoenas" to intimidate witnesses, and his general "tough-on-crime" verbosity which only got worse as his tenure in office progressed... none of that is as detrimental as Jason Williams's public criticism of these practices.  Worse, she seems to say that hearing him make these criticisms reminded her of Trump?  

That can't be right.  I mean, for one thing, Keva has been openly critical of Cannizzaro herself. At least she was when she thought she would be running against him. 

While Landrum and Cannizzaro both worked under longtime DA Harry Connick Sr. at different times, she ventured into public criticism of Cannizzaro’s policies at a forum last year.

Landrum accused Cannizzaro of resisting her court’s efforts to offer pretrial services to defendants and reduce the jail population. She also said Louisiana’s habitual offender law — which Cannizzaro once made more use of than any DA in the state to ratchet up sentences for defendants with prior convictions — does little to reduce crime rates.

Maybe it has something to do with what house you live in when you make these comments?  In any event, the time for all of that is over now.  Have to move on so the healing can begin.

Having a normal one

Everything that is happening is exactly what was supposed to happen.  Don't worry about it.  

NEW ORLEANS — A large chunk of the partially collapsed Hard Rock Hotel came down Thursday morning exactly as planned, according to the lead local engineer on the demolition project.

“They were demo’ing the Burgundy Wing and hit it just right and the whole thing came straight down,” said Walter Zehner, who is the local engineer hired by the demolition company out of St. Louis, Kolb Grading. “Which is exactly what we hoped it would do. Things are fine we are all happy with the way it worked out.”

Everything around you is collapsing into rubble. This is normal.  It's what we hoped it would do. 

That about sums it up.

Can't wait to see what they come up with

Expiring benefits and the diminishing reserves of Louisiana's unemployment trust fund is a pretty big problem in the middle of a pandemic-induced depression.  It's not the only problem but it is a big one. So the legislature is going to try and solve it. 

That's what they're trying to solve, right?  Or is it something else? 

Senate President Page Cortez, R-Lafayette, said while the 70-item list of items in the call is "expansive," lawmakers wanted to give themselves plenty of flexibility.

House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, R-Gonzales, pointedly said a significant number of House members believe the governor's rules to combat the virus represent "an imbalance of power."

"This special session will not end without a solution to this problem," Schexnayder said Monday.

Edwards said the state Constitution clearly invests him with the authority to take steps during a public health emergency and he has no intention of surrendering it. "I don't think they are going to be successful in doing that," he said.

When in doubt, everybody yell at the Governor. 

The 70-item session call is here.  The phrase "during an emergency or disaster" comes up in several contexts where it looks like we may be making excuses to sidestep health and safety or environmental regulation, or just fast track money they haven't been able to steal yet.  There is an item in there about classifying workers as employees or "independent contractors." Wonder what that's about.

There's a bunch of stuff that seems like it might could wait until the next regular session. They want to tinker around with public school funding.   There is an item about "licenses and fees." Several items look like they are tied to specific pet projects including "surplus property in Jackson Parish," and "certain contracts involving state parks," among others. There is one that mentions the hotel/motel tax in Jefferson Parish for some reason.

A few items look like they might affect governmental transparency. And, of course, there are the usual  tax cuts for businesses and for oil and gas production. 

There aren't any bills filed yet, but... yeah.. can't wait to see what they come up with. 

Blood feud spills over

If you were watching that bizarre facsimile of what we are now calling NFL football on the TV last night, you may have noticed that one Civil District Court race has "gone negative," as they say.  Division F candidate Jennifer Medley ran an ad during the game that attacked incumbent Judge Chris Bruno for his "silver spoon" upbringing. This was, of course, contrasted with Medley's supposed meritocratic virtue.  Medley is, herself, the daughter of former Judge Lloyd Medley so it's a bit rich to be raising the issue of which candidate was born into what. Medley and Bruno, in fact, have had more TV ads running than just about any local candidates on the ballot this fall. It's a curious distinction for one among many judicial races on the slate.  We're now starting to learn what that's about.

It turns out that the ad we saw last night wasn't even the one Medley's people wanted to run.  Instead they had cued one up that accuses (apparently falsely accuses) Burno of having been a "deadbeat dad." But the campaign was enjoined from running the ad at the last minute because of the dubious nature of the accusation. 

The ad references a divorce case that began with a filing by his then-wife Kate Bruno in March 1995. It wasn't until 2009 that the child support question was settled with a consent judgment between the parties. In the meantime, according to an affidavit filed on Bruno's behalf by family law attorney Steven Lane, there wasn't a child support judgment or decree against him.

Bruno's own son filed an affidavit calling Medley's ad "blatantly false, malicious and insulting to him and his family." Both his parents had supported him financially, the son said.

More to the point, though, it also turns out the money to pay for all of this mudslinging comes from Sidney Torres. Here is why. 

One of Bruno’s lawyers questioned why Torres’ production company was involved in making the ad buy. The lawyer, Megan Kiefer, claimed that Torres is pouring “tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars” into Medley’s campaign to “exact some vengeance” on Bruno.

Bruno last year issued a ruling against Torres in a case involving the ownership of 500 Frenchmen Street, which houses the night club Vaso.

Recall that the Vaso dispute pitted Torres against the Motwanis in a clash of real estate weasels struggling for control of Frenchmen Street.  When the dispute flared up in 2018, Torres (probably taking some words out of context) publicly accused his opponents of making physical threats. 

Torres cited a voicemail he said was left on his agent’s phone, as well as a phone call that, according to a court filing by Torres, had Aaron Motwani saying that if Torres didn’t comply with demands, “It will get bloody.” Torres' attorneys, in the court filing, cited what they described as a call log Torres' agent wrote shortly after the call, as well as a recording of the voicemail.

“I want to ask nicely for you to call us back," Motwani says on the voicemail cited in court. "But if you want to handle it the other way, we can handle it the other way, too.”

Aaron Motwani said his voicemail was taken out of context and did not reference a threat of physical harm. He declined to be interviewed but sent a text message in response to questions about the calls.

“As far as the comments, about blood on the street, those comments are completely false and were completely taken out of context,” Motwani wrote in the text message. “I have never or would ever threaten harm in a matter that should be handled through the courts. It’s a distraction from the facts of this case.”

Eventually, Bruno ruled against Torres who, while calling it a "snake move," on the part of the Motwanis went on to promise, "this whole thing is basically not over."  And so now here he is funding Bruno's opponent.  And that's how the blood feuds between oligarchs spill over into your elections, and onto your TV.

Plenty time left

Despite the absolutely horseshit claims already emanating from partisan Democrats over the weekend, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is completely irrelevant to the Presidential election.  It's possible that it will still be a thing people are arguing over come November, but the election itself won't determine what happens. Trump is going to appoint the next justice either way. 

“We win an election and those are the consequences,” said the president, who then seemed to signal that he’d be willing to accept a vote on his nominee during the lame-duck period after the election. “We have a lot of time. We have plenty of time. We’re talking about January 20th.”

If Trump wins, then the person he names is the next justice. If Trump loses, then the person he names still becomes the next justice during the lame duck session. If they want to ram somebody through before the election even happens, then that is also something they can do.  But none of it has any bearing on the election itself, nor will the outcome of the election change anything one way or another.

What will be done about that? Not a whole lot. One can only laugh at the notion of Joe "nothing will fundamentally change" Biden packing the court if he becomes President. It would run contrary to Biden's entire political m/o and stated ideological reason for wanting to be President in the first place. 

What could be done about it?  Well... a whole lot, actually. A Democratic Party that actually cared about using power to affect change rather than just, you know, having it sometimes could certainly tack on as many justices as they like. There's nothing stopping them from doing that if they control the congress. They could also follow this example. 

Across the late 1850s, Lincoln argued that “the American people,” not the Supreme Court, were the true arbiters of the Constitution, and that the only way to defeat the proslavery judiciary was through mass political struggle. And after Lincoln and Hamlin were elected in 1860, the new president’s inaugural address articulated this view in perhaps the strongest language he ever used:

[I]f the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made . . . the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal.

Once in power, Lincoln and congressional Republicans “reorganized” the federal judiciary and “packed” the court, adding an additional justice in 1863. More fundamentally, though, they simply ignored the proslavery precedents established in the 1850s. In June 1862, for instance, Congress passed and Lincoln signed a bill banning slavery from the federal territories — a direct violation of the majority ruling in Dred Scott. The court meekly acquiesced, recognizing that its political power was long since broken.

Just ignore them.  The City of New Orleans ignores judges all the time. How hard can it be? 

In any case, Trump is definitely going to make the court 6-3 no matter what happens now. This does not mean Joe Biden or any future Dem Presidents  won't have options.  It's just the Dem party as currently constituted is incapable of putting those options to use. Instead they can encourage you to Vote! and pretend that will have been enough. It keeps them in business, anyway, even if they aren't always in power.  So there's plenty time left for them too.  Unfortunately, for most of us whose lives actually depend on the outcome of these games and schemes, there isn't.

Hide the moneeeys!

It's been an adventurous couple of years for the Convention Center.  Seems like every few months they have to come up with a brand new way to hide their slush fund stash from somebody.  Recall during the height of negotiations with Cantrell administration over what eventually came to be known as the "fair share" deal, they rolled out a slate of make-work projects they could commit funds to in order to look like they had less available to share fairly.  

"Fair share" turned out to be a pretty favorable deal for them anyway. But even so, they immediately set to work shuffling money around in order to use its new hotel project as a kind of tax shelter to further reduce their eventual contribution.  

And, of course, when the pandemic hit, local hospitality workers began organizing to demand their own fair share of the stash.   This, in turn, set off a new round of creative accounting by the Convention Center in order to hide as much of it as possible. Which is why, this week, as they claim that the reserve fund is dwindling, it's harder than ever to discern what they actual have left. 

The Convention Center recently changed how it categorized different pockets of assets, leading to the appearance that its reserves are quickly dwindling. 

In a November report, the Convention center claimed it had $215 million in unrestricted assets — money that isn’t earmarked by law or contract for a specific purpose — at the end of July. Thursday’s report claimed that the center only had $43 million in unrestricted assets left. 

The pandemic-related drawdown is only $49 million thus far, so that doesn’t explain the entire decrease. Most of the difference is caused by an accounting change, specifically a change in how the Convention Center categorizes their assets on financial documents. Instead of “unrestricted” assets versus “restricted” assets, the center is now using the categories of “unrestricted” assets versus “restricted and designated assets.”

Thursday’s report says that along with the $43 million in unrestricted assets, the center also has $209 million in “designated or restricted” assets. 

The 2019 independent audit includes definitions of “restricted” and “designated” assets. Restricted assets include “capital projects, funded by the proceeds of taxes, restricted for building expansion and improvements.” Designated assets, meanwhile, can include money for projects that are “in the planning stages, or in the acquisition phase.”

That article also says we might expect an announcement next month on cuts, perhaps to the 400 or so workers the Convention Center employs.   The accountants, on the other hand, will probably be expecting a raise.

What happens when you rush into "reopening the economy"?

Nobody can know. If only there was some way to know. 

In Spain, which was seeing fewer than 500 new coronavirus cases per day for much of June, infections have reached a fresh high, Hopkins data shows. Daily case numbers have been on the rise since July, with the seven-day average surpassing 10,000 as of Sep. 16, a higher figure than the country's late-March peak of roughly 8,000 new cases per day, according to data collected by Hopkins. Alex Arenas, a researcher and epidemiological modeler at the University of Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain, said most new cases are coming from Madrid.

Arenas said Madrid and Barcelona rushed to reopen businesses for the summer season and that people let their guard down after cases fell the first time "and critical patients almost disappeared from hospitals." He added that officials in some areas sought to "open the door to tourism with few or null controls over the health of visitors."

Oh well. Just have hope they all "get used to it."

The bosses won the pandemic

The football wars are a perfect microcosm of what's going on out there. 

Just over a month after the Big Ten became the first major conference to postpone the 2020 football season, the league reversed its decision Wednesday and announced plans to begin playing the weekend of Oct. 24.

The Big Ten will have medical protocols that include daily coronavirus testing and enhanced cardiac screening, the announcement said. The conference’s university presidents and chancellors voted unanimously to resume the season.

Most of the stories about this emphasize Trump and the role of the Presidential election.  Big Ten schools are in midwestern "battleground" states.  Trump can rile up the usual hooting hogs over something like this. Biden, meanwhile, because his strategy is all about peeling off Republican votes in those states, can't really complain too much. Nobody wants to be the grinch that stole football. Since Trump has the liberty of not actually caring about whether or not football is safe, he distorts the entire debate. In reality, we shouldn't have football this fall.  But because Trump departs from reality and says we can, then anyone who disagrees is trying to take something away from us.

That's all true enough. But it's also just the surface level electoral handicapping. Like every other policy debate during COVID, this is really about the balance of power in the labor market. We don't just have to have football because people like football. We have to have it in order to make the point that bosses can force people to work under dangerous circumstances.  It's the same reason we're insisting that schools return to "in-classroom learning" despite the concerns of teachers all over the country. It's the same reason Republicans keep trying to sneak liability immunity for employers into every relief bill.  The pandemic is giving the bosses a chance to alter the terms of employment to their advantage and every forced "reopening" is another point of leverage for them. 

College athletics is a megabillion dollar industry where the athletes, the labor that makes the whole business possible, still aren't even paid for what they do. Can they perform their extremely valuable but uncompensated labor in a safe environment?  Do we even care if they can?  It does not appear as though we do.

Orgeron said Tuesday that LSU's team has "about three or four guys" who currently are sick with coronavirus, and the team does not have "a lot of guys in quarantine."

"I think most, not all of our players, but most of our players have caught it," Orgeron said. "So hopefully they won't catch it again, and hopefully they're not out for games."

Hopefully they won't catch it again.  It's good to be hopeful, I guess. 

One other thing this Big Ten reversal should tell us is we're definitely going to end up forcing some kind of tourist event for Mardi Gras to happen this year because "the economy" (i.e. owners of hotels and restaurants) will demand it. The looming municipal elections will probably factor in that decision much as the Presidential election is part of the football war. But the real issue, again, will be how big a win can the bosses get and which political figures will work the hardest to get it for them.

Que sera, man

 You know, we've got so many problems right now, who even has time to think about this one?  

Tropical Depression 19 formed into Tropical Storm Sally in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, according to the National Hurricane Center, making it the earliest named "S" storm in recorded hurricane season history.

As of 1 p.m. Saturday, Sally was forecast to move through the Gulf and make landfall Tuesday along the Louisiana-Mississippi border as a low-level hurricane.

Hurricane can come or not come. It doesn't matter.  But it should know that if it causes anyone to cancel school, the mayor might try and cancel its unemployment benefits. 

Something about words and actions

There's a saying about that somewhere I know I've heard before.  Maybe it applies here. 

California’s governor Gavin Newsom, for example, has announced he has “no time for climate change deniers” despite approving some forty-eight new fracking permits since April (fracking having been strongly linked to an increase in global emissions). Nancy Pelosi, having derisively dismissed the Green New Deal (“The green dream or whatever they call it”), blames climate change for both her home state’s raging wildfires and last month’s hurricane on the Gulf Coast.

Barack Obama, in characteristically elliptical fashion, took to Twitter to declare: “The fires across the West Coast are just the latest examples of the very real ways our changing climate is changing our communities. Protecting our planet is on the ballot. Vote like your life depends on it—because it does.” During Obama’s two terms at the head of the most powerful office in the world, US gas production increased some 35 percent while production of crude oil grew by an astonishing 80 percent — a fact the former president has actually taken to boasting about.

These examples, and many others like them, underscore the need for a new understanding of climate change denial that goes beyond mere acknowledgment of scientific reality. The fact is, while more US politicians than ever now pay lip service to the basic conclusions of environmental science, the leaders of both parties continue to preside over a consensus of complacency determined to dismiss transformative prescriptions like the Green New Deal as utopian or too expensive.

It's been a busy month thanks to... *gestures at all of everything*... so I haven't had time to finish writing about the Democratic and Republican conventions. But one theme the Democrats pushed relentlessly was Joe Biden's capacity for "empathy."  In Zoom video after dimly lit Zoom video, speakers testified about the times Joe personally had reached out to someone to let them know how well he understood their trauma, how much he cared about and validated their pain.  Almost nothing was said about what he planned to do about any of it.  In fact, one may have come away from the convention with the impression that nothing can be done.  It's a strange thing to offer to voters but it does seem to be in line with the Democratic brand.

Try zero circumstances

There is no justification for any city to ever authorize its police to deploy internationally banned chemical weapons against its citizens.  None.  You can play around with the language like this all day but you're never going to arrive at a just solution until your law says just don't do that. 

The ordinance is designed to prevent the police from using chemical irritants in all but the “absolute most dire circumstances,” according to Banks. However, the current version of the proposal allows police to use tear gas and other “riot control” chemicals to prevent crimes of violence.

Williams said that in response to concerns that the legislation might give too much leeway, he hopes to amend the ordinance so that the only exception is in situations involving an “imminent” threat of loss of life or bodily injury. He also intends to amend the ordinance at a full City Council vote to require police to issue a warning before using gas.

Writing those bullshit qualifiers into the ordinance guarantees that 1) the cops will definitely use tear gas on more people and 2) Williams and Banks will yell at anyone who  complains that they've fixed the problem already. 

Bad air makes for trouble breathing

We do so many terrible things to ourselves in this state and say it's for "the economy." Is it any wonder the political agitation to open up and just get used to COVID  is so strong here?  Risking our health so the bosses can make their money is just how we do things here. Which is what makes this so perfect. 

Hazardous air pollution may help explain the disproportionate number of COVID-19 deaths in communities like West Baton Rouge Parish, home to Port Allen. With 39 deaths as of Sept. 7, the parish’s per-capita death rate from COVID-19 ranked it among the top 3% of all U.S. counties with at least 30 deaths. Several of its neighbors in Louisiana’s industrial corridor also rank near the top of the list.

There is a sensational story in the news this morning about public officials planning to "crack down" on open air street gatherings they have determined to be an intolerable public health threat.  Their idea is to punish individuals already suffering from unemployment and displacement by taking away their federal and state benefits. 

In addition to simply issuing tickets, Cantrell said she has city officials researching whether the city would be able to strip those found in violation of the restrictions of their unemployment benefits.

"I have asked whether individuals who will be issued a citation, could that put them in jeopardy of losing their unemployment benefits," Cantrell said. "It’s my opinion, you can’t receive public resources but at the same time violate public mandates to keep people safe in the city of New Orleans. These are the things we’re looking at."

The chemical plants that line the Mississippi River and endanger thousands of lives by spewing tons of hazardous pollution into the air receive billions of dollars in public resources every year.  Now that we see their activity directly exacerbates the threat from the pandemic, will anyone demand we take action against them?  Or do we prefer to take it all out on the poorest and most helpless among us?

Phase 2 and a half

The Governor is supposed to talk later today about the COVID numbers and the status of the "phased reopneing."  Currently, Phase 2 is scheduled to end this coming Friday, but we have every reason to believe that will be extended again. That seems to be making some folks in Jefferson and St. Tammany Parishes cranky but the numbers are what they are and they say it isn't time yet. 

Of course, this isn't really an argument about numbers.  Instead it is about power.  Specifically it is about the power of individuals who, by virtue of their economic status, are less at risk to the virus than the people they want to force back into dangerous jobs for their benefit.  

In Jefferson, some council members said they understand waiting to gauge the fallout from school reopenings and the Laura evacuations, but they were united in believing Jefferson is in good enough shape to reopen. In St. Tammany, one council member voted against the request.

Several Jefferson council members own small businesses or come from families that do, and local business groups spoke of impending financial disaster for bars, restaurants and other small businesses and their owners and employees.

Much of this moot if congress had implemented a national policy of aid to small business and direct payments to workers to protect everyone during the health crisis.  Instead we've chosen this bloody struggle in the chaos. The only outcome under that circumstance can be more precarious working conditions for everyone. And the only way to send everyone out when it isn't safe to be there is if we pretend that it is. And it turns out, for some people, that's pretty easy to do now. 

(Tulane epidemiologist Susan) Hassig said many pushing for a faster opening often haven’t had first-hand experience with severe cases of the disease, which exact their terrible toll away from public view in the intensive care units of hospitals.

Those who died during the 1918 influenza epidemic, on the other hand, “if they weren’t in your apartment, they were in the row house next to you, and you saw the body out on the curb.”

“It’s not fake; it’s real,” she said. “The challenge is that people see relatively small numbers in terms of fatalities as a proportion of infections … but when you start thinking about opening up and allowing virus to spread, that impact grows really quickly.”

And, of course, this fit is occurring at the exact moment that schools and universities are running their own experiments with classroom instruction for the fall. Hassig says in this article that that alone equates to about a "reopening" for about 20 percent of the population. We're in Phase 2 and half right now.  Maybe let's not take this moment to try and rush on through to Phase 3.

Just get used to it

Apparently that was always the plan.   

On Friday, the carriageway doors to Pat O’Brien’s will swing open again, and staff wearing the bar's traditional emerald green jackets and new face masks will welcome people back to its famous French Quarter courtyard.

Three blocks away at Bayona, chef Susan Spicer and her crew will soon start cooking sherry mustard sweetbreads and smoked duck sandwiches, firing up a culinary gem that's been closed since March.

The two businesses usually have little more in common than proximity in the city's oldest neighborhood. But now they share one compulsion: the need to get open again, somehow. 

“At this point, we just feel like we have to do something,” said Shelly Oechsner Waguespack, president of Pat O’Brien’s.

It's not safer to do any of this now than it was back in March. The virus is still active and as dangerous as ever.  It isn't spreading quite as rapidly because more people are at home by default and when they do go out they are careful about distance and mask wearing.  But distance and mask wearing isn't a solution. It's a way to limit exposure when people have to be out for "essential" purposes.  Going out to have drinks at Pat O's isn't essential. 

It only begins to feel necessary because, despite the federal government's capacity to do so, it has refused to reimburse businesses for their losses or pay workers to stay home.  Although there is no vaccine yet, we could have this thing safely contained by now if the will to take the necessary action had been there. Instead we've chosen to test how much stress the system will bear if we deny people any option but to just go out there and get used to it. 

Now though, Waguespack said a limited return is better than staying closed altogether. With no end to the coronavirus crisis in sight, the business has to find a way to carry on, she said.

That’s a sentiment shared by many across the New Orleans hospitality sector now, especially around the French Quarter, where the shriveled travel business has had a staggering impact.

Who knows how many small businesses will survive the pandemic now?  Back in May a reported 100,000 or more had already been permanently closed nationwide.  It's no surprise that business would slow with customers staying at home. But relief, most notably through the convoluted Paycheck Protection Program, has been elusive. And commercial landlords continue to demand rent. So the squeeze is definitely on.  But since this is a situation that so easily could have been avoided, we have to ask if it is intentional. 

It may be true that a lot of independent businesses are going under now. But consider that also means the economy that emerges at the end of the crisis will be dominated by fewer but much larger firms with deeper pockets. 

The Covid-19 pandemic will likely leave us with an economy in which larger companies play an expanded role, representing a higher share of both employment and revenue. The stock market illustrates the phenomenon: the biggest firms have seen smaller stock market declines, on average, than smaller ones have. It’s the corporate version of the Matthew effect: the strong get stronger.

This shift began before the pandemic came along. From 1995 to 2013, the share of U.S. workers employed by firms with 10,000 or more employees increased to about 28%, from 24%. McKinsey has found that “superstar” firms (whose average revenue is seven times the median) raised their employment share to 30% in 2014-16, from 28% in 1995-97. There’s been much debate over why this is happening, especially the role that higher productivity plays. The International Monetary Fund recently concluded that “technology-driven changes in the structure of many product markets” have made a bigger difference than have individual countries’ regulations or antitrust policies.

The real plum for the oligarchs left standing after the mass burn off of mom-and-pops is the most desperate and compliant workforce in generations. I believe this is by design. I'm running out of ways to say this by now so I'll just repeat the mantra I've been on since March when it became apparent that Congress would refuse to help.  The bosses have won the pandemic.  

It's not just me saying it anymore. A couple of weeks ago, Libby Watson made the case plain in The New Republic.

We’re left to wonder why Washington isn’t doing anything. But why aren’t we doing anything, either? How is it that Mitch McConnell leaves his house without being pelted with rotten tomatoes? How can our leaders, and the people who work for them, continue to show their faces in public? When is the fire going to reach them? What has to give? And why hasn’t it happened yet? One answer may be that the rich, including not just billionaires but the ordinary affluent of America, are not in anywhere near as much peril. And our politics is tuned to their frequency, whatever’s happening to the poor.

She puts an even finer point on it, though. It's not just The Bosses... as in, like, people at the Bezos level... who are coming out on top here, but probably your boss in particular is doing much better than you are by comparison. 

But there’s a divide that’s been more difficult to talk about: The one between Americans earning about the median income or less and Americans who earn two or three times that wage. Life is vastly different for people who earn $30,000 and people who earn $300,000—not on the same scale as the distance between the average American and Jeff Bezos but distinct nonetheless. Life is also significantly different between people who earn $30,000 and people who earn $130,000.

These people are likely to have a good, if not perfect, situation going: They have decent jobs and are probably able to work from home. They have health insurance through their job, which also gives them paid vacation and sick leave. They have retirement accounts, though these might fail the CNBC test. They don’t know what it’s like to apply for Medicaid or low-income housing. They don’t live in food deserts. They can make frequent use of the services provided by our app underclass, getting food, groceries, or whatever they like delivered to their door.

It's been a rough year. But, really, it's only been rough for most of us. Relatively speaking, it's been less rough for a fortunate minority with access to the levers of power. And it's setting up such that the post-pandemic world will be a net plus for that small but politically dominant group. Insofar as it can be said that there has even been a coherent policy response to the pandemic, the purpose of that response has been to protect the position and wealth of the ruling class. Whatever conditions that policy imposes on the rest of us, our only option is to just get used to it.

All of this scales down from the national to the local level.  Maybe your neighborhood bar isn't going to make it through the crisis. But the odds are pretty good that Brennan's will be okay. And, in the same way that the political class in Washington only responds to the needs of the billionaires, so too does the local leadership only care about the local gentry.  Which is why our first reaction to the crisis was deferring Mardi Gras sales tax collections.  It's why we've chosen this moment to turn over land use policy to short term rental executives but hardly lift a finger to stop anyone being evicted from their home. (Besides raising money through a private non-profit scheme to pay landlords, anyway.)   It's why we're going to look the other way as a politically influential private university accelerates the spread of the virus through its own selfish and irresponsible decisions...  Jeff Asher's attempt to cover for those decisions, notwithstanding.

It's why we're sending everyone's kids back to school now too. That's the general reason, anyway.  Specifically, the private schools are open for in-person instruction because they have to demonstrate to tuition-paying parents that they can deliver the exclusive value and sense of social superiority implied in that price tag.  The public schools are motivated by a different version of that prove-your-worth mentality too. But, also, if we're going to force parents to work under dangerous conditions, then we have to tell them they can put their kids somewhere.  

And so there are elaborate plans to make everyone feel like what is happening is normal. Last month OPSB announced the return to in-person learning would be phased in according to grade level. How that makes it any safer is unknown.  But that, plus a number of hygiene theater type measures create just enough of an impression that caution is being exercised. Of course, any of these safety guidelines can be discarded the moment we think they may become inconvenient.  

The NOLA Public Schools district will no longer require a sustained decrease in daily new COVID-19 positive cases to determine how it will reopen for in-person classes. The change is due to expanded testing in local universities, which is expected to lead to a higher daily case count, the district stated in a Thursday afternoon release. 

Up until now, district officials have said they would need to see two or more weeks of fewer than 50 new cases per day and a test positivity rate below five percent to reopen school buildings, a metric that was endorsed by city of New Orleans Health Director Jennifer Avegno.

Now, as schools approach a phased in-person opening beginning Sept. 14, district officials say that has changed. The plan calls for the youngest students to begin first, with older students starting in October. But when officials announced those plans, they said both would be dependent on the data on infections in the city. 

“With large increases in testing it is expected that the number of new cases may increase,” the statement said. “Our focus will remain on the city’s positive test rate and ensuring that it is at or below 5 percent, regardless of the volume of new tests.”

Since the mid-summer spike, the rate of new cases in Louisiana has been in decline.  But that's not the same as saying the thing is under control.  In Orleans, there has even been a bump up over the past week or so.  Still the schools and colleges are set on returning students to class. And with the state preparing to go to Phase 3 of its "reopening" protocol this month, the number of cases is almost certain to rise again. But we're well past the point where anyone is going to make a good faith effort to stop that.  Just be ready to keep getting used to it.

I mean, yes, otherwise what is the point

Warren Treme pleaded guilty in the FNBC case. He is the fifth client among the indicted to do so. It looks here like Treme's eventual testimony will strengthen the case against Ashton Ryan because it emphasizes the importance of Ryan's personal relationship with the co-conspirators. For example, Ryan's prior involvement with Treme was ported over to FNBC when Ryan left his former position to found the new bank. 

Court documents signed by Treme Wednesday said he co-owned several companies with Ryan and initially borrowed from First Bank and Trust, where Ryan worked as president before leaving to found First NBC in 2006. Prosecutors said Ryan “exercised authority over Treme’s loans” from First Bank and Trust, even though his business relationship with Treme was a clear of conflict of interest.

Treme then took his business to First NBC from 2008 through about April 2017. On paper, another bank employee served as Treme’s loan officer, while Burnell technically approved the loans and assigned the credit risk rating to them. But, prosecutors charged, Ryan worked in concert with Burnell and Treme as Treme obtained millions of dollars in loans by filing documentation that all three knew was false.

Treme would then use the proceeds from loans to make payments on previous loans and hide the fact that he couldn’t keep up with loan payments because he was broke.

Another inference we can draw from this is the importance of these little connections throughout New Orleans business and politics. Which is why I keep saying I want someone to write a book about FNBC. You could tell the story of this bank collapse with a wide enough scope that it lays bare a lot of the insider corruption that drove the post-Katrina gentrification of New Orleans. I keep thinking it will happen if I say it often enough. 

And, look, it doesn't have to be a boring depressing sort of thing. There's a lot of fun in this too.  Treme understood this, anyway.

However, sometimes he wouldn’t even use the money to pay off debts, court filings said. On one occasion, he spent $300,000 to gamble and travel to the Caribbean, though Ryan and Burnell convinced First NBC board members that Treme had used that money to catch up on his loan payments.

As one does...

Death panels

 Always grateful to be living here under the Best Healthcare System In The World. 

The city’s death statistics reveal an aberration, ProPublica found. Nationally, coronavirus patients aged 85 and older died at home only 4% of the time, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; local coroner records show that in New Orleans, it was 17%. Reporters attempted to contact the families of everyone who died at home there.

The interviews revealed a striking pattern: Before they died, about two dozen patients first sought care at a hospital, which then discharged them, in many cases sending them home to die with hospice care. All were Black. The vast majority came from Ochsner Health, the largest hospital network in Louisiana, which treated 60% of the region’s critically ill coronavirus patients.

The families of eight patients, as young as 69, told ProPublica that Ochsner staff pressured them into accepting hospice care for their loved ones who had COVID-19, even as some questioned or pushed back against the suggestion. Three families said they were told that there wasn’t enough space to continue treating the patient in the hospital, or that the hospital needed the bed for another patient.

We always skip ahead to Thermidor

I know that to most cable news audiences it feels like there's a lot of chaos and stuff going on right now. But, in reality, US politics has been and remains a reliably steady edifice.  The ruling establishment can't be displaced by social upheaval because it is so thoroughly disconnected from it.  The population at large can suffer tremendously but most of them don't matter in the calculus. 

There can be unrest in the streets all summer. People can lose their jobs, lose their homes, lose their lives to an uncontrolled disease, even. But, while those are the problems of the people, generally they are not the problems of the electorate. The electorate is worried about the blowback from all that other stuff. And that is what our politics responds to. Which is why, in times of crisis, the message that goes up the flagpole isn't so much that we need to address the crisis itself but instead that we need to keep the reaction to it under control.  

So, in a Presidential election conducted under these circumstances, the candidates compete to "win the week" by best reflecting their targeted voters' fear of the people. Which is why this week we have one candidate accusing the other of being a "radical left anarchist" who will not keep you "safe."

In formally accepting the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday, Trump laid out a central attack line for his campaign: accusing the Democratic Party of standing with "anarchists, agitators, rioters, looters and flag burners." 

Trump claimed that a victory Nov. 3 by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would usher in an era of lawlessness. "No one will be safe in Biden's America," the president said.

While the other candidate is buying ads to reassure his targeted voters that, no no that is not it at all, in fact he hates the radical agitators as much as the other guy.  Moreso, maybe.  

Mr. Biden has repeatedly condemned instances in which protests for racial justice have burst into violence, accusing Mr. Trump of stoking divisions and laying blame for any chaos on the current occupant of the White House.

But the ad — part of a $45 million one-week television and digital purchase that is by far the campaign’s largest to date — is the first time that Mr. Biden has put this pushback on issues of crime and public safety into a major paid advertising program.

“I want to make it absolutely clear,” Mr. Biden says as images flash of burned-out cars and buildings and a confrontation with the police. “Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. And those who do it should be prosecuted.”

It's been a rough summer for a lot of reasons. But the fact that a lot of people ran out into the streets to be punched and gassed by cops is destined to be remembered only as.. that summer when people got punched and gassed by cops.  Because the next step of connecting that upheaval to a political movement for change is impossible in this system.  It can only be incorporated in terms of the reaction against it. We skip right past the revolution every time.

Just get used to it

Months and months of failing to stop the virus, making half-committed efforts to stop it while also undermining those half-committed efforts, refusing to support people through the hardships imposed by the half-committed efforts... eventually the only conclusion to draw is "Just get used to it" was the plan all along.  

Well, we're doing that now. 

Earlier this week, Tulane University professor Carola Wenk got the email she had been dreading: Less than two weeks after the university's ambitious return to in-person instruction, a student in her undergraduate math class had tested positive for coronavirus.

"I just felt heartbroken," Wenk said. "I was just like, "Oh my God, that student caught it now because they came to Tulane."

Such emails have become more common as coronavirus cases have begun to tick up at Tulane, in what some say is the predictable result of the school's decision to reopen campus this fall to 13,600 students, including 4,000 who live in dorms. The majority of students are attending classes in person.

Since July 27, Tulane has reported 155 positive results from its aggressive screening program, which included 14,521 tests. That represents a 1.06 percent testing positivity rate on campus, officials said in a recent update on the school's website.

"Some say" it was a predictable result of calling everyone back to campus. But the university isn't going to take responsibility for that.  They're making a bold decision, after all.  It's a dangerous new world out there. Folks are just gonna have to get used to it. 

Besides, if anything goes wrong, we can always just blame the victims. 

The school will also continue to crack down on students who host gatherings of more than 15 people at a time, currently prohibited on campus.

"We have had to suspend some for violations and will continue to do so if necessary," Strecker said, adding that the "vast majority" of students abide by the rules.

University administrators ought to have a pretty good idea of how students are going to behave.  Setting them up as scapegoats through rules they know are going to be broken shouldn't absolve anyone of the blame for the decision to create the dangerous situation in the first place. 

But the people making the decisions have to weigh the perceived special value of an exclusive private educational experience against these inconvenient little threats to public health so you can see the dilemma. 

What did we say about the first of the month?

 Was worried something like this was up. 

A woman facing eviction from her Central City apartment complex torched the building Monday night, killing a dog and displacing 26 of her neighbors, authorities alleged.

Police in Hunstville, Texas, on Tuesday captured Jazlynn Major, 25, on a warrant accusing her of 26 counts of aggravated arson following the three-alarm blaze at the Amies Paradise apartments in the 1600 block of Washington Avenue.

This is not a joke. Things are bad and are getting worse.  There are office holders at multiple levels who can do something to stop the tidal wave of evictions about to hit the city... about to hit every city.  Not seeing much action. 

Update: Like we said, could have done this the whole time.  

In an extraordinary move, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is moving to temporarily halt most evictions for Americans struggling to pay their rent due to the pandemic, in a step that’s broader than eviction protections already in place.

Many others could have taken action in various other ways.  But they all waited. Just to see how much pain they could inflict on people.  Well we are starting to find out. 

Large crowds to gather indoors, perhaps?

The state has approved a plan for having fans cram into the Superdome to watch the second Saints home game.  They haven't said how many yet. Assume it will be in the thousands. But until they say exactly, it's hard to get a feel for how plausible the logistics of all of this might even be. 

All publicly accessible venues at the Superdome, including the parking garages, Champions Square, the Saints' team shop and the Saints Hall of Fame will be closed to the general public during games that are off-limits to fans. It is not yet known what the policy for the team shop and the Hall of Fame will be, but Champions Square, according to Tuesday's email, will be closed on gamedays. 

If the city signs off on the plan and fans are allowed, the Saints said in the email that they want all season ticket holders "to have equitable access to attend games" and that family members and friends can still attend games together if the tickets are on the same account. 

The number of tickets on an account will be seated together and will be socially distanced away from other groups, the email said.

Okay but in order to get into the building, you have to stand in a long line, get patted down by security, and then squeeze through the corridors and concession/rest room lines.  And, of course, once seated, we assume everyone will be planning to.. you know.. cheer the home team on.  That can be a pretty good way to spread the virus, or so we are told. 

Whatever the plan, it's going to be an awkward sell getting people to stay home from second lines or neighborhood bars when we're allowing indoor football program activities to proceed.  The mayor hasn't made a decision yet. Obviously there are important matters to consider such as the public health implications of setting this precedent too early how much money we can wring out of the deal. 

But, Cantrell suggested approval of the plan would likely hinge on whether the state was willing to give New Orleans more of the federal money set aside for local governments dealing with the COVID pandemic. Cantrell and other city officials have been beating the drum recently about the fact that of $88 million in requests for pandemic-related reimbursements, only about $43 million in expenses have been covered.

"The city of New Orleans needs her fair share of resources that are aligned with the state CARES Act that the state has received and the city of New Orleans," Cantrell said, adding that hosting the Saints would require more manpower and resources from the city.

Update: According to this, the plan is to open at 25% capacity which is something like 20,000 maybe. Sounds difficult.  It also says the mayor is "not even thinking about September 27." So this is probably not ready to happen yet.

Go off, Queen

And with that, Julie Lea just entered the grifter hall of fame. 

The application encourages potential members to invest in the possible Nyx 2021 parade as a way of boosting the local economy.

“Paying your membership dues is another way you are supporting small businesses in our city, especially now,” the application reads. “And the best way to make sure that we still have a successful Mardi Gras krewe in the future, even if the city or state decides that that future is delayed until 2022.”

What can one do but just wonder in awe at that. 

All in this together

Not being an especially sharp science talking guy, I can't say I've tested this hypothesis that the virus is unable to cross Parish lines without special permission. But I have to say it does not sound convincing. 

Backed by local business organizations, the Jefferson Parish Council is expected Tuesday to ask Gov. John Bel Edwards to loosen coronavirus restrictions by region or parish, saying Jefferson should be allowed to move forward if it meets the criteria and not be held back simply because other areas do not.

The Council resolution, crafted by District 2 Councilman Deano Bonano, argues that many businesses are on "the brink of bankruptcy" and that the parish's hospital capacity and infection rate are sufficient to move "forward into Phase 3 of the recovery while maintaining all of the required safety protocols."

Oh wait a minute. I did not realize it might be different if we tell the virus that the businesses are going bankrupt.  Maybe that will keep it out. Anyway, Jefferson Parish doesn't even meet the Phase 3 criteria now so it's hard to know what the rush is. 

Jefferson Parish has recorded 16,461 known coronavirus cases since the disease arrived in March, more than any other parish in Louisiana. And while daily case counts have fallen sharply from the earliest days of the pandemic, according to data from the state Department of Health both Jefferson and the broader New Orleans region still have a high enough count of coronavirus cases per 100,000 people — known as the infection rate — to mandate Phase 2 restrictions.

Probably they just want to yell about it.  And, hey, who can blame them for that?  Living like this really does suck.  I also miss being able to just hang out somewhere. I don't even need the bars to open if I could go to the store or the coffee shop and just be in public feeling comfortable for a few minutes.  Last night there was a three alarm fire down the street from our house.  It was almost a comfort to stand outside and talk with a group of concerned neighbors gathering to watch. Then we remembered we had to put on our masks or keep back. 

This is miserable. Nobody wants to be living this life right now but we understand that we have to. It would certainly have helped matters if Congress had acted to ensure our lives were a little less precarious while we were making these sacrifices for one another. But they didn't. And now we're all at the mercy of the local tin-pot sociopaths ready for us to sacrifice more on their behalf. 

On Monday, (JP District 2 Councilman Deano) Bonano argued that hospital bed and protective equipment shortages that drove the stay-at-home order this spring are no longer present in Jefferson Parish, and that he doesn't believe the parish even had a second spike in coronavirus cases.

“Jefferson Parish’s numbers have remained well below what would be close to taxing our medical system and running out of space,” he said.

The reason to impose restrictions is is to stop the spread of the virus. It is not simply to make sure there are enough hospital beds for people who get it.  How dismal is that?  Bonano sound like he is fine to let God sort em out as long as there is enough room for the sorting. There's a better way to do this and it starts with congressional action and... well... we're waiting. 

But in the meantime, let's not be stupid. Please.

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.