New Orleans Dispatch for <i>The New Republic</i>: Isaac Is Not Katrina

: we've been repeating that like a mantra all week. That it'll hit on the same calendar date seven years later is just a stupid coincidence.
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I walked down Royal Street this afternoon as Hurricane Isaac approached, with my husband photographing boarded up windows, a platoon of Humvees, and an abandoned bra lying in the street. Everyone's getting in on the live coverage action. Al Roker tweeted a picture of a rosy but abandoned Cafe Du Monde; Anderson Cooper Instagrammed the sunset. Meteorologists are at the lakefront, their jackets whipping around in the wind that's projected to reach 80 miles an hour by this morning. A dog and an utter moron are swimming in waves lapping at the New Orleans hurricane levee.

Isaac is not Katrina: we've been repeating that like a mantra all week. That it'll hit on the same calendar date seven years later is just a stupid coincidence. For one, this hurricane isn't supposed to be as strong. We're also receiving all sorts of assurance from the Army Corps of Engineers about how reliable the levees are, though we were hoping for more time to test them.

(Slideshow below, and full article at The New Republic.)

National Guard Humvees hit the French Quarter

Hurricane Isaac in New Orleans

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Photos by Jeff Beninato

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