AS THIS is written, the Gulf Coast of Texas near the Mexican border is bracing for the possible arrival of Hurricane Dean. The storm would have to curve north to hit Texas, but hurricanes can do just about anything — curve, stall or wobble. They have even been known to back up a bit.
Storms are not affected by human hopes and expectations, but by physics and the incredibly complex rules of weather.
There is not likely to be any good news out of this storm. If Dean does miss Texas, it will rip into Mexico. It was expected to hit the Yucatan Peninsula this morning. After it crosses Yucatan, it will enter the Gulf of Mexico. Barring a miracle, wherever this powerful hurricane hits, it is going to cause tremendous damage.
It has been two years since Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans. Is the United States any better prepared to deal with coastal catastrophe? The answer may be apparent soon.
The problems of New Orleans — which show little sign of ending — have received most of the attention since Katrina. The highly visible failure of local, state and federal agencies to protect the population from the storm and its aftermath drew public focus away from a tragedy just as great — the destruction of the smaller communities along the coast east of New Orleans. After two years, the area is still depopulated and reconstruction lags.
A similar hit on the Texas coast — which Dean could deliver — could have the same effect. There is no reason to think that the government, which has still not managed to get the job done in Louisiana and Mississippi, could muster the resources and the will to do better in Texas.
Part of the problem is the increasing coastal population. More and more people spend more and more money for the privilege of living by the sea. Storms that once shifted sand bars, eroded beaches and knocked down cypress trees on uninhabited coasts now can wipe out miles of expensive condominiums and “mcmansions” and disrupt tens of thousands of lives. As the population grows, so do the size and complexity of coastal disaster.
Hurricanes may not have gotten worse, but they have certainly not gotten less violent. And the increasing coastal population has raised the stakes in every hurricane.
With luck, Dean will stall and die in the Gulf of Mexico, but it’s not a good bet.
But it is the sort of bet that more people make every year along the coast from Virginia to the Texas-Mexico border.