I remember an evening, a year or two past, when I was in the Crescent City of New Orleans for a convention of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).  We had worked hard all day and were sitting on the second floor deck of the JAX Brewery, sipping the local drink, a fruity rum concoction known as the Hurricane.  It had been a hot day, but cool onshore breezes were cooling things off nicely, and the last of the day’s sunshine danced on the waters of the Mississippi.

I began to think about hurricanes.  New Orleans is a unique city in that almost all of its land is below sea level … parts of it are twelve feet or more below sea level.   A system of levees kept the water out during good weather, but when the mighty Mississippi reached flood stage, they were no defense.  Primitive pumps of the day could never keep up, and the city flooded regularly.   Around the turn of the century, things looked bad for the city … repeated floods had nearly convinced everyone to simply give up and move out.  Then in 1918, a young engineer named Wood invented a new sort of pump … a screw-type pump that could move more water, faster, than any pump ever developed for the purpose.  New Orleans built massive pumping stations using 14-foot diameter Wood screw pumps, which lifted New Orleans’ drainage water right into Lake Pontchartrain, and give the city some hope.  Today, three dozen of Wood’s original pumps still stand between New Orleans and the river, lake, and bayou waters that threaten to inundate it.

I thought of this as I sat sipping my Hurricane, and as I felt the energy of the thriving city all around me.  New Orleans is a vibrant, living city, steeped in tradition and overflowing with culture.  The citizens seem as though they’re constantly celebrating, and it’s contagious.  It awed me that a people who are always riding the ragged edge of disaster could be so carefree.  I tried to imagine what the river before me would look like at flood stage, with the winds of a hurricane beating against the shoreline, and decided it was easier not to imagine.  The chorus of a fine song by Leon Everett called “Hurricane” came into my head:

Well I was born in the rain by the Ponchartrain
Underneath that Louisiana moon
I don't mind the strain of a hurricane
When she comes 'round every June
High black water she's the devil's daughter
She's hard an' she's cold an' she's mean
Nobody taught her that it takes a lot of water
To wash away New Orleans

New Orleans will be ready.  She’ll likely get a clean miss with Ivan passing well to the East, but of course as with horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear weapons, there are still points for a near miss.  There’ll be wind, a storm surge, and torrential rains.  We may see the Bonnet-Carre Spillway opened for the first time since the late nineties.  Oh, and Orange Beach and the Flora-Bama lounge will most probably feel the more powerful, eastern edge of the storm.

It’s a gray morning in Atlanta, both in sky and in mood.  The only good thing Ivan could do at this point is fizzle or turn south, and hurricanes over the gulf aren’t likely to do either, so everyone will just have to brace themselves, do what can be done, and hope for the best.  Good luck, New Orleans … good luck, Alabama … and Ivan, here’s hoping you’re a shadow of your former self when you visit Dixie.

UPDATE:  A friend pointed out that while Leon Everett recorded “Hurricane”, the song was actually written by well-known Nashville songwriter Stewart Harris.  I regret the error.