NOLA

From "Turkey With a Dash of Bitters - New York Times"

When we sit down to dinner tomorrow, we will be thankful that our daughter and son-in-law are expecting their first child. We will be thankful for the enormous generosity of the individual Americans we encountered in our 3,500-mile odyssey after we fled the storm. And we will be thankful to have at least one more Thanksgiving in New Orleans. But without the government's commitment to protect the city, by next Thanksgiving we won't have New Orleans - or at least the New Orleans we have known and loved - to give thanks for.

I find this mildly shocking.

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It's shocking that residents of New Orleans would expect the government to offer protection that is almost impossible to ensure for a city that sits on ground that sinks into the ocean. It would seem that New Orleans doesn't need rebuilding, but rethinking.

The same likely goes for cities in the Bay Area where we're likely to get a 6.8 magnitude or larger earthquake at 67% probability in the next 30 years. Unfortunately, like New Orleans, we can only prepare for what we can expect.