We’re back, and a lot of the city still lacks power. It seems odd that power problems aren’t solved on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis, but that seems to be the case. As of last night, my house Uptown at Laurel and Peniston had power, but Magazine Street from Napoleon back toward Louisiana was dark, as was much of the neighborhood between Magazine and St. Charles. I received a loosely sourced email report this morning saying that Entergy can’t even tell where the grid is down, and the slow response comes from there. That sounds possible, but I won’t offer that up as more than a rumor.

This was probably the most successful evacuation, but if Louisiana wants this level of evacuation again, it’s going to have to figure out how to make the outflow less of a clusterfuck and how to make getting back a smoother, more timely process. I was told that in Mississippi (on I-59? I-10?), the highway periodically went from two lanes to one for no obvious reason. Can anybody who drove them confirm this? I’ve now heard a number of reports about Alabama’s radical steps to prevent the jam up at the Mobile Bay tunnel which only served to make matters worse. If people are going to face 10-15 hour drives to get out of town, they’re going to start rolling the dice on staying home again.

One thing that would help the return process is if Nagin’s government didn’t treat information like state secrets and the city like their personal possession. People would be a lot more understanding if they knew why they couldn’t come home with the rest of the region, but if they could come home – even with limited power and resources – they could be part of the process of getting the city back on its feet. Neighbors help clear damaged trees in their yards and streets and serve as an unofficial police force, not by vigilante action but by inhabiting neighborhoods. The premise that we’re the enemy and can’t be trusted in our city is offensive and – like shutting people out for “security” reasons – reeks of police state, where the city is secured from its people.

Oh, and not to belabor a point, but if a category 2 hurricane had water splashing over the Industrial Canal walls on both sides, a category 3 or 4 storm would likely have overtopped them. If another Katrina hit, we’d likely be in as bad a shape today as we were in 2005.