Death stars and carbon bombs

In most of the country, Labor Day Weekend is where we make the psychic turn from summer to fall, even if the calendar doesn't quite yet agree. In Louisiana, September is a liar. School is back in session. Football has kicked off. The Halloween decorations have been up at Rouses for weeks now. But outside, the heat and humidity remain. And, of course, Hurricane Season moves into its most active period. The August 29 date marks not just the anniversary of Katrina, but also Isaac and Ida, so the seasonal transition can be an especially traumatic one.  This year the temporal ecotone delivers us into peak storm season from the most brutal heat most of us have experienced in our lifetimes. The state is still so hot and dry that the Governor is warning people not to fire up the grill for the holiday. We'll see how that goes.

Meanwhile, as we head into the marquee part of Hurricane Season, the Washington Post greets us with a predictably depressing update on Louisiana's sinking coastline. 

A group of scientists at Tulane University have also been investigating the situation. They found that across more than 200 wetland monitoring stations, seas are almost always rising faster than wetlands are able to grow — meaning that most wetlands are in a state of “drowning.” Their work, which is unpublished, tracked changes between 2009 and 2021.

“The number of the ‘drowning’ sites is much more than I thought before I started” the research, said Guandong Li, a PhD student at Tulane who led the work. “About 90 percent of these sites are unable to keep up with this recent high rate of sea level rise.”

"In a state of drowning."  I'm petitioning for a bill next year that let's me buy a license plate with, "The Drowning State" printed on it. Anyway, we know this information all too well now.  The current effort to protect and rebuild the coast is proving to be no match for accelerating sea level rise.

Sea level rise is driven both by land sinking — or subsidence — and the rising of the ocean. In the case of the current Gulf Coast surge, research suggests it is occurring in regions with and without major subsidence, implying a dominant role for the ocean.  The faster seas rise, the less effective the state’s widely praised plans to protect its coast will be.

In 2012, Louisiana projected that, if sea level rise and other environmental threats remain modest, it would be able to rebuild land within 50 years. But a new plan released this year assumes faster sea level rise more consistent with current trends and shows considerable land losses by late this century — even in more optimistic scenarios.

“Over the period of 10 years, the state has gone from potentially being in a net gain situation to potentially being in [a] very significant net loss situation,” said Alex Kolker, a coastal geologist with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. “And that’s despite the best efforts of some very dedicated people.”

Those "best efforts" Kolker is talking about end up being cancelled out by all the carbon bombs 

In 2016, the U.S. exported its first tanker of liquified natural gas, or LNG, from Cheniere’s Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal in Cameron Parish. Since then, fossil fuel firms have built four more export terminals in the Gulf South with plans for 20 more. Even before the terminals were built, the initial emissions estimates to regulators were so alarming that some environmental advocates described the planned facilities as “carbon bombs.”

Now, it seems that the reality is more grim than the predictions. All five of the active LNG export terminals in the Gulf South have leaked pollutants. People who live near the export terminals say the facilities are belching higher levels of toxic and climate-warming pollution into the air than originally estimated – which threatens the air quality of communities already burdened by pollution. 

For example, Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass export facility, in south Louisiana, exceeded hourly emissions limits of its air permits more than 100 times in 2022, according to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, which sent the company a consolidated compliance order in June, warning that fines were possible. 

Industry marketing campaigns tout natural gas as a “cleaner” alternative, because burning it produces about half as much carbon dioxide as coal, to generate the same amount of energy. But leaks and emissions can erase those benefits, because natural gas is primarily composed of methane, the potent greenhouse gas.

It's a real boom in these bombs. It makes me a little bit sentimental for the days of the Bobby Jindal regime when the Wall Street Journal heralded the coming of "Qatar on the Bayou."  At that time, Louisiana's industrial tax credit subsidies promised to bestow on us gleaming corridors of "fertilizer plants, boron manufacturers, methanol terminals, polymer plants, ammonia factories and paper-finishing facilities," up and down the Mississippi.  That article (yes it's paywalled but trust me) featured commentary from the fossil industry's resident.. uh.. fossil in Louisiana, economist Loren Scott who promised that once the 10 year tax breaks expired, our school districts would "find themselves with a bonanza" on their hands.  But fast-forward to this year and Louisiana public schools are seeing crashing enrollments, a drain on public funding that benefits private schools, and a superintendent who panders to the hate groups coordinating book bans. Some bonanza. 

Nevermind the formal education, though. Louisiana is more proud of its entrepreneurial spirit anyway. Just look at these creative solutions we're applying so we can make real progress here in 2023, the hottest year on record. 

Instead of lowering their emissions, two Gulf Coast LNG facilities, one in Louisiana and one in Texas, have asked state officials to make the situation right by increasing the amount of pollution they are permitted to spew into the air.

All together, in the United States, 25 planned projects to expand and build new export terminals will produce more than 90 million tons of greenhouse gasses annually, according to “Playing with Fire: the Climate Impact of the Rapid Growth of LNG,” a 2022 report from the Environmental Integrity Project that based its conclusions on the projected emissions given to regulators before the facilities were granted permits.

“That’s almost as much climate-warming pollution as 18 million passenger vehicles running for a year,” the report noted.

But uh oh. There's trouble brewing, says this Times-Picayune article. The precious boom in carbon bombs might be slowing down as the market becomes saturated. You might think it's time to rein the established players back in on all that methane and CO2 they're allowed to blow off into the air.  You'd be wrong, though. We're doing this instead. 

The Lower Energy Costs Act — which aims to speed up environmental review processes for LNG terminals and other energy projects, among myriad issues — passed the Republican-led House earlier this year but hasn’t moved in the Democrat-controlled Senate. The legislation was spearheaded by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Republican Rep. Garret Graves, both of Louisiana.

Loosening the regulatory burden would help the smaller projects that can’t handle lengthy reviews, though it would further exacerbate environmental risks for Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, Slocum said.

“If you remove that FERC regulatory process, and you allow some of these smaller scale facilities to basically just take your local zoning board out for a steak dinner and you got yourself your building permit and you can start construction the next day and you can finish it in 12 months, obviously that’s a big advantage,” Slocum said.

Critics of Scalise and Graves's bill have been calling it the "Polluters over People Act" (missing an obvious opportunity to call it the Steak Dinner for Polluters Act.) It would place limits on the time and resources available to federal regulators charged with approving or rejecting fossil fuel infrastructure projects.  It would also limit the law's ability to protect communities from the inevitable harm these facilities produce.

Such inevitable harm includes the 360 wildfires currently raging across the state due to an unprecedented drought brought on by fossil fuel driven climate change. It also would include a different kind of fire set off at the Marathon Refinery last week in St. John Parish, itself only the latest example of the tons of toxic chemicals released into Louisiana's air and water each year.  And of course who could forget the even more desecrated and faster sinking coastline wrought by all of this activity as well.

But the consequences of the boom are most visible on the Gulf Coast, mostly on the rural fringes of the Louisiana coast.

Grist reviewed dozens of state and federal records, and found that, even as regulators from state agencies like the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) hasten to greenlight new terminals, the handful of terminals that have begun operation are exposing residents of coastal parishes to dangerous levels of air pollution from flares and leaks.

Louisiana environmental regulators recently cited numerous violations at Venture Global’s LNG terminal in Cameron Parish in southwestern Louisiana. But five hours away, on the southeastern edge of the state, they are allowing the company to move forward with the Delta LNG plant near McAnespy’s home in Plaquemines.

In places like Plaquemines, gas exporters are building their plants on eroding swampland, where there is an increased risk of catastrophic accidents and explosions during floods and hurricanes. People like McAnespy, who live in neighborhoods surrounding the terminals, are right in the blast zone.

“It’s not just that each of these facilities is like a giant death star on sinking land, it’s that there’s so many of them,” said Elizabeth Calderon, a senior attorney at the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice who has worked on cases challenging LNG terminals in south Louisiana.

“This is how sacrifice zones are created,” she said.

And there's Louisiana 2023 in a nutshell. For the mere price of a few well placed steak dinners, you can deploy your very own Death Star to carbon bomb our sacrifice zone.  

But anyone can tell you there's a ton of money to be made in wartime for the savvy investor regardless of which side is actually winning. And why should the war on climate change be any different? Insurers understand this. They're already planning to win the next battle. There might not be much of a future in writing policies for homeowners in South Louisiana or Florida.. or California.  You know what you can insure, though?  More Death Stars. 

The companies no longer insuring Louisiana homes are well-known, but those insuring LNG terminals are not. Government agencies require proof of insurance for fossil fuel projects, but those documents are often shielded from the public as developers claim confidential business information exemptions, even going to court to prevent insurers’ names from becoming public.

In early June, anti-fossil fuel campaign Insure Our Future got a rare look into one gas export terminal in Texas: Freeport LNG. First published in E&E News, Freeport’s insurers are largely specialty or reinsurance companies, but a few are also involved in the property market, including Liberty Mutual, AIG and Chubb.

Most insurers and LNG companies contacted for this story – including AIG, Chubb, Liberty Mutual, and Venture Global – either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment. While no insurance information for terminals in coastal Louisiana has become public, their insurers are likely to come from similar kinds of companies.

Oil and gas projects along the Gulf Coast have long been “a major market” for specialty insurance carriers, Keenan says.

This is how climate policy is formulated. Insurers, and investment capital firms are making decisions about what is viable. Such decisions carry massive impacts for ordinary people but allow them no input beyond their limited role as consumers. And, in accordance with the dictates of our capital de-risking matrix, anyone who can't afford the increasing costs of living along a sinking coast of a rising sea is allowed to fall off and fail on an isolated individual basis. Political factors, we are told, has no consideration here.  Most convenient for elected policymakers, these problems are all off their desks. The real choices are abstracted away to private investors and explained simply as market determinants. 

And the market has determined that we do not need to invest in sustainable equitable and healthy communities in order to generate profit. Those things, we can happily sacrifice in the fire or in the flood, whichever comes first. The net effect is a re-calibration of who and what can survive where. In this way,  New Orleans becomes a boutique resort where nobody actually lives.  Grand Isle can "boom" but only as an exclusive fishing camp for millionaires. And towns all up and down the bayou can be swallowed whole by extractive industry. 

Now here is where we have to remind ourselves not to go too far overboard with the "market decides" rhretoric. Remember, we're supposed to be moving past neoliberalism.  We're doing something called "Bidenomics" now. But mostly what that means is we are seeking the same sorts of policy outcomes as before but being slightly more explicit about the fact there's intention behind the program. Did you know, for example, that Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act "includes a bonanza for the carbon capture industry?"  That's what this headline says, anyway. And, hey, there's that "bonanza" word again. As we've already seen, that can only mean one thing.  More massive state subsidies for environmentally damaging heavy industry. 

The Inflation Reduction Act, which passed the Senate on Monday and is poised to pass the House on Friday, includes a dramatic change in a crucial tax credit for the carbon capture industry—increasing the government subsidy for capturing CO2 from polluting sources from $50 to $85 per metric ton. Developers say that raising that incentive could tip many projects that once weren’t worth the investment over the financial finish line. The new bill also simplifies the process for receiving those tax credits, and opens the subsidy to smaller carbon capture projects, which together essentially fulfill a full industry wishlist for new carbon capture legislation. 

“The fact that [the legislation] actually happened isn’t a big surprise,” says Adrian Corless, CEO of CarbonCapture, a direct air capture startup. “The fact that it actually came out in such a good form and actually came out [so soon] is much better than we expected.”

What Democratic Party political consultants mean for us to get from this is the Biden Administration is directing a bold new industrial policy that fights climate change. What's actually happening, is much less impressive. In practice, Biden's initiatives are working out about as well for Louisiana as Bobby Jindal's program of industrial expansion did.  Consider that most carbon capture projects are "greenwashing" exercises. That is to say they are an elaborate token mitigation measure that allows polluting industries to carry on with business as usual.  

CCS does not do a good job of capturing and storage carbon. It struggles to exist, and when it does, it struggles to function. When it manages both, all it does is capture a tiny fraction of high-emitting process, supplying or burning fossil fuels, and the carbon it captures gets sent straight back to work worsening the climate crisis by jimmying the last dregs of oil from depleted reservoirs.

On top of all of this, it serves a rhetorical function; worsening the climate problem through the empty promise it provides.

And it's working. Joe Biden's carbon capture "empty promise" is enabling new projects in Louisiana.  A gas company called Air Products has, over the objections of local residents, already begun drilling a carbon pipeline that would inject waste material deep beneath Lake Maurepas.  Already they seem to have imploded a groundwater well in the process.  All of the new LNG carbon bombs and Death Stars are enabled by carbon capture promises as well. Maybe we're not quite ready to declare the next Qatar on the Bayou but you can see where we're going.  

Perhaps the biggest boondoggle in all of this, though, are so-called "direct air capture" projects like this one in Calcasieu Parish. 

Louisiana will receive up to $603 million in Department of Energy grant funding to create a direct air capture hub in Calcasieu Parish that is expected to generate about 2,300 total jobs, federal officials said.

Dubbed Project Cypress, the direct air capture hub will attempt to pull more than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide annually directly from the atmosphere and sequester it deep underground, according to the Department of Energy.

No it won't. It will not do any of that. In the above cited article, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm enthuses that direct air capture projects are like “giant vacuums that can suck decades of old carbon pollution straight out of the sky.”  In reality, they are ineffective net energy consumers likely to produce at least as much carbon as they could ever remove. Ten days after the above article praising the supposed 2300 jobs (100 permanent jobs max) promised by Project Cypress, the T-P followed up with this explainer where we learn the dubious process is "like trying to mop the ocean." 

It is “a little bit like trying to mop the ocean,” said Jane Patton, plastics and petrochemicals campaigns manager at the Center for International Environmental Law.

Patton noted that Louisiana emitted somewhere between 211 million and 219 million tons of greenhouse gases in 2018, according to LSU’s most recent greenhouse gas inventory. At best, Project Cypress will sequester 1 million tons annually.

“We’re talking about a very big planet here and very small filtration mechanisms,” she said.

Patton said prior direct air capture pilot programs have missed their carbon dioxide sequestration goals while using more energy than promised. In addition, the filtration systems rely on amines and ethylene oxide, which are “very toxic.”

Patton is also wary of the injection aspect of both direct air capture and carbon capture, which requires liquefying carbon dioxide, transporting it via pipeline and injecting it deep under cap rocks within Louisiana’s “sinking geology,” as she put it.

“That has not been proven to work reliably anywhere in the world at the scale that industry is promising,” Patton said.

The very toxic inefficient process that has not been proven to work might not be good for de-carbonization.  But, as we've already seen, that's really beside the point. The Bidenomics bonanza here is in real estate. 

Ohio-based Battelle will be the project owner and will partner with Climeworks Corp. and Heirloom Carbon Technologies Inc. to develop the sequestration technology. Gulf Coast Sequestration will transport the carbon dioxide and bury it deep within Calcasieu Parish land owned by Stream Companies. Both Gulf Coast Sequestration and Stream Companies are led by W. Gray Stream.

Heir to a large oil fortune (and son of country singer Lynn Anderson), William Gray Stream is a well known Louisiana business and land baron with heavy political ties. Bobby Jindal appointed him to the state Board of Regents in exchange for a $10,000 campaign contribution.  He has also dabbled in the tech start-up world, having spent much of the past decade attempting to prop up the ill-fated Waitr food delivery app. Despite much cheerleading from the local press, that venture seems to have reached its ending last year. 

But it's the land investment where Stream is positioning himself for the real windfall. The land holdings corporation he has inherited and the "wetlands recovery" business he owns are primed to receive federal subsidies for carbon capture and sequestration, as well as any future attempts to prop up the waning carbon offset market which seem all but inevitable. And so, in this way, federal funds ostensibly meant to fight climate change are just being sucked up... kind of like a giant vacuum.... by a politically connected Louisiana failson.

Meanwhile the Drowning State, under attack from an arsenal of Death Stars and carbon bombs remains in a state of drowning.  And as Hurricane Season enters it peak, we may yet see another munition deployed. 

The heat dome responsible for record-breaking temperatures and drought in south Louisiana may have also created a ticking time bomb of "ridiculously warm" waters in the northern Gulf of Mexico, which could rapidly intensify any tropical storm approaching the state’s coastline, scientists say.

As the peak of hurricane season approaches — generally considered to be around Sept. 10 — conditions in the Gulf will be a major focus of concern for storm trackers.

"All of the shallow waters, including the coastal waters and tidal lakes, are ridiculously warm right now. So it’s primed for anything that works its way in," said Ben Schott, director of the National Weather Service office covering the New Orleans and Baton Rouge areas.

We got a look at this Hurricane Idalia rapidly intensified to a category 4 storm before making landfall in Florida last week. Hopefully we won't get to see the Gulf "time bomb" explode anything in our path this year. We're doing a fair enough job at blowing ourselves to bits as it is.

Fire and loss prevention department

 Oh no, Billy!

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser's Plaquemines Parish home was burglarized Thursday, according to the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Office.

The criminals took sports memorabilia and rare coins, WDSU reported. Nungesser said he was in the process of moving during the break-in

The Highway 23 home, located in Point Celeste, was also damaged by a small kitchen fire that occurred during the burglary, according to the Sheriff's Office. 

"We're still investigating, but at this time, it's believed that the fire was unintentional," said Lt. Chaun Domingue, spokesman for the Sheriff's Office.

That sounds bad. I feel bad for Billy. I hope they didn't get his socks. But because of certain circumstances and Billy's status as a person of some prominence, we do have to ask if there's something beyond just simple burglary going on here. We do know, for example, that this wouldn't be the first time something strange happened to collectibles under Billy's supervision. In 2017, he was involved in "some pretty strange crap" along those lines. 

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser has been using a Lower Pontalba Building apartment and space in other state museum buildings in the French Quarter for his personal benefit and has engaged in a pattern of political interference with the agency's operations, the Louisiana State Museum's interim director said Monday while resigning in protest.

Nungesser’s interference includes attempting to override museum officials and board members who objected to plans to loan U.S. Sen. John Kennedy artworks for his office in Washington, D.C., and threatening to sell museum works of art on eBay to raise funds, said Tim Chester, a museum consultant who took the interim position in October.

“I have never encountered anything like this in the 40 years I’ve worked in the field, ever,” Chester said. “I’ve seen some pretty strange crap come down in museums, but this one takes the cake.”

We also know that, intentional or otherwise, this would not be the first time a Louisiana politician or political operative suddenly found their home and/or car to have been set on fire. Let's look at a few relatively recent examples. 

In 2009, a political gadfly/consultant type named Brian Welsh was involved in a stunt of a campaign promoting Stormy Daniels as a challenger to then Republican Senator David Vitter. Then his car burned up.  Welsh went on the news to air his suspicions that Vitter's henchmen had it out for him.  A lot of people were skeptical of this. (I was skeptical.) The fire department was also skeptical. 

“It was a fire. The car didn’t explode,” said Public Information Officer Jonathan Pajeaud. An arson investigation is underway and foul play hasn’t been ruled out. But, Pajeaud said, Welsh told firefighters he’d recently gotten electrical work done on his 1996 Audi, and investigators are also looking into that as a possible cause.

Welsh told a local TV news station that police told him they’d never seen anything like it.

But, Pajeaud said, “Car fires here are very common.”

He added that investigators, on average, have a preliminary report in about two weeks. Pajeaud said that, for now, the investigation is being handled solely by the fire department and not by police. The police department has not responded to our questions.

Welsh persisted, however, posting surveillance videos that appear to show someone tampering with his car just before the fire happened. Still, nothing ever came of the investigation.  "Car fires here are very common," after all.

In 2014, Mario Zervignon was consulting for a Public Service Commission campaign challenging Eric Skrmetta when this happened.  

An apparent firebombing ignited a pair of early morning blazes Thursday in Uptown New Orleans, incinerating three vehicles and scorching a house in a startling scene that resembled a war zone. Federal law enforcement officials said they were investigating whether Mario Zervigon, a well-known political fundraiser, had been specifically targeted in the attack.

Flames engulfed Zervigon’s vehicles and quickly spread to his home at the corner of Prytania and Constantinople streets. Eight people escaped the home’s three apartments uninjured, but three cats were believed to have perished in the fire, said Katy Patterson, Zervigon’s wife, who made it out safely with Zervigon and the couple’s two young children.

If the Zervignon case was ever solved, I don't remember seeing it. Maybe someone can clear that up. Casual googling doesn't get me very far today.  The usual pattern with these things is they happen, they look suspicious, we talk about them in the news, and then everyone forgets about them until the next one happens.  Every now and then they solve one, though. In fact, that 2014 story also references a prior incident from 1997 that resulted in a guilty plea.  

Firebombings, while exceedingly rare, are not unprecedented in New Orleans. Thursday’s incident recalled a series of intentional fires beginning in 1997 that targeted Stuart Smith, a vocal opponent of loud music in the French Quarter. Bar owner George Mellen Jr. pleaded guilty in 1999 to hiring an arsonist to toss Molotov cocktails at Smith’s home and vehicle on several occasions.

Here is more detail on that one in case anyone is interested.  There are a lot of old favs in this story.  None of them (including Stuart Smith, even though he was the victim of the attack) comes off looking particularly good.

Smith, a lifelong New Orleans resident who moved to the French Quarter in 1997, blamed the decline on the city's refusal to enforce noise and zoning ordinances.

But city officials said their hands are tied.

"Every time we come up with a resolution, we're sued by one side or another," said Councilman Troy Carter.

Mayor Marc Morial, who had all performers cleared out of Jackson Square when he was married there, has been otherwise reluctant to get involved. "A lot of what the complaining is about really has to do with the comeback of the entire city," Morial said. "The Quarter is not a suburban neighborhood."

The stance by Smith and his allies has at times drawn an aggressive response.

When Smith tried to stop the city from issuing a music license to an outdoor bar around the corner from his 5,000-square-foot home, Molotov cocktails scorched his Mercedes-Benz and rained down on his roof and into his courtyard. His home was not badly damaged.

The bar's owner, George Mellen Jr., and an associate, Richard Jones, pleaded guilty to conspiring to plant firebombs.

Unlike Mellen and Jones, the New Orleans Police officers who murdered Henry Glover and burned his body in a car after Hurricane Katrina did not plead guilty. Their convictions were overturned and they were eventually set free.

In 2015 a vehicle was set on fire near the site of a Planned Parenthood facility under construction.  It was investigated as a suspected arson.  Not sure if anything came of that either. 

Then, in 2016, this happened. 

A Lamborghini found burned to the ground Tuesday belonged to the owner of a Baton Rouge company that last week pulled out of a New Orleans contract to remove Confederate monuments after he had received death threats.

David Mahler’s Lamborghini, worth in excess of $200,000, was parked in the H&O Investments parking lot at 17425 Opportunity Ave., in Baton Rouge when flames were spotted from the air, said Roy Maughan Jr., Mahler’s attorney.

Immediately, we were told, we'd never really know what happened. 

It’s likely investigators will never know how the fire started, though, as the evidence was destroyed in the fire, Tarleton said. He said the department has not ruled anything out.

All that was left of the car was the seat frames, the tires and a heap of melted debris.

Accidental car fires are not unusual, often caused by mechanical issues, he said.

These things just happen all the time. It's pretty amazing when you think about it.  At least we won't go bored puzzling over the stream of unsolvable enigmas we're presented. 

Did anyone ever figure this one out, by the way?

NEW ORLEANS — Someone set two vehicles on fire in a Lakeview neighborhood last week in an explosive moment caught on camera. 

The man fires what appears to be a flare at one of the cars, soaked in gasoline, blowing it and another nearby vehicle up.

According to neighbors, it happened around 2:15 a.m. on July 29. 

That's a strange story, right?  Because of the long history of these, I thought it worth noting at the time that it was really close to qualifying week for the 2019 state legislative and executive elections. But nothing else surfaced in the news to connect back to it.  It did have me looking sideways at some of the fishy goings on in the state house races. But there's no evidence any of it is related. Anyway, it's likely we'll never know. 

Feels like a Monday

Try not to go too hard out there. 

A vehicle fire in the eastbound high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes of the Crescent City Connection is snarling traffic on the West Bank, Monday morning.

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development reported the fire just after 8 a.m.

I'm certainly not one of these people declaring a return to post-pandemic normalcy yet.. especially with only 25 percent of Louisianians fully vaccinated (31% with at least one shot) as of today.  But certain of the old familiar comforts of home, such as everything being on fire, do seem to be returning. 

Oh also, was there an election over the weekend or something? I found all this trash laying around. 

We'll definitely have to talk about this one later. There are so many bad takes flying around today it's hard to pick out the absolute worst. But this is a contender. 

James Carville, the New Orleans-based political strategist, believes the outcome has national implications, noting that Peterson had the advantage of her side spending more money and a low turnout special election (16.6%) that typically favors candidates who seek to excite their party’s most fervent supporters.

“Voters voted against wokeness,” said Carville. “They just did. Woke did very, very poorly.”

I mean, it isn't very surprising that Carville has adopted the pejorative form of "wokeness" to mean any political platform to the left of, say, Ronald Reagan.  But he's also wrong (or lying, if you prefer to call it what it is) to claim this result is a rejection of such a platform instead of a candidate.   But, more on that later.  

In the meantime try to avoid getting exploded by anything.

Must be Carnival season

Strange new tradition, this setting a house on fire along the parade route just as the season kicks in. Not sure we should keep it.

Downman mansion

So this is basically right down the street from us. Our whole block has been cordoned off all morning.

A historic home on St. Charles Avenue burned in a massive 6-alarm fire Wednesday morning (Feb. 20), according to the New Orleans Fire Department. The house at 2525 St. Charles, known as a toasting spot during the Rex parade, is between Second and Third streets.

Three people inside the home, plus an elderly poodle, escaped the fire without injuries, according to the homeowners.

There used to be more than just one "elderly poodle" there.  At one time there were, I think, three very large attack poodles who would yell and scream at anyone walking too close to the fence as though Smithers might release them at any moment. This is getting a lot of attention today so probably everyone knows by now but the house has some historical significance. 

The house was built in 1888 for John Morris, founder of the Louisiana Lottery, according to the website, Experience New Orleans. Anne Grace’s great-grandfather bought the house in 1906 and it became the Downman Mansion, famous during Mardi Gras as a toasting stop during the Rex parade. At least six generations of the Downman-Kock-Montgomery-Grace family have made it their home during the past 100 years.

There have been a couple of Rexes in the family. One in 1907 and the other in 2002. That's what the flags in this picture indicate.  I think the 1947 Comus flag refers to a queen since Comus is supposed to be a big secret and all. I could be wrong about that not being privy to the mysteries of the Mystick Krewe and whatnot.



The house hosts a couple of big functions every year. There's usually some sort of party during the holiday season I've often thought about trying to crash just for kicks.  At Carnival time, there are reviewing stands out on the front lawn and the family hosts a couple of large parties. On Tucks Saturday there is usually a crawfish boil and a band on the porch.





And, of course, there is the party on Fat Tuesday when the Rex parade crosses to the wrong side of the street so it can stop in front for a toast.



This has been pretty convenient for us over the years because it holds up the parade long enough for us to get back from watching Zulu come up Jackson.  By the time we get back, Rex is there waiting for us.



Anyway the good news is it sounds like nobody was hurt in the fire. But they're also saying the house appears to be a "total loss."  And Mardi Gras is just a couple weeks away so it's really bad timing for everyone.

Big Fire Marshal

Airbnb hired the former head of the Louisiana Democratic Party to go to Baton Rouge and lobby against a basic fire safety law.

State Rep. Helena Moreno, a New Orleans Democrat who, like many other city officials, is trying to get a handle on the explosive growth of short-term rentals through web sites such as Airbnb, introduced a common-sense measure aimed at keeping all those visitors safe. House Bill 952 would have required that hosts provide fire extinguishers, smoke and carbon monoxide monitors and a map of the exits; ensure that exits are unobstructed; and pay $25 for a five-year certification with the state fire marshal. The bill would have given the office the right to inspect properties to check compliance.

That was all too much for Airbnb. The company’s lobbyist Jim Nickel raised alarms over the “largest expansion of fire marshal’s power in history.” Never mind that Nickel, a former chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party, isn’t your typical small-government true believer.

Can't have that. Can't have the big bad fire marshal coming by to put some smoke detectors up in your short term rentals. That would probably ruin the authenticity of the experience for the guests.

Two men trapped by an early morning fire inside a Central City apartment frantically screamed for help as Sarah Thomas tried to hammer through a back window to free them.

Burglar bars blocked her blows, so it fell to firefighters to charge into the building and save the men.

No serious injuries were reported as a result of the blaze, but for the New Orleans Fire Department, it capped off an eventful Thursday morning in which firefighters saved three people from two fires.

Louis Carrier, a Fire Department spokesman, said the Central City fire started shortly before 4:30 a.m. at 1717 Jackson Ave.

Thomas said she was asleep in her back unit of the converted duplex when she heard her neighbor in the front unit screaming, “Help!”

Thomas woke up, realized there was a fire and called 911.

The fire, which started on the building’s porch, was blocking her neighbor’s exit through the front. Thomas said her neighbor and a second man, who was staying in the property as an Airbnb guest, rushed to the back of the house.

Part of the the thrill of "Belonging Anywhere," right?

Trouble in Motwanivania

A big building burned down on Canal Street Wednesday.  You might have noticed since it's been all over the place all day so I won't rehash it. Here is something worth paying attention to, though.

The four-story building in which the fire originated is owned by New Orleans developer and retailer Mike Motwani through his real estate company Quarter Holdings LLC. Motwani could not be reached for comment at his Magnolia Enterprises office, which operates T-shirt and souvenir shops. Quarter Holdings owns a total of 16 properties in the French Quarter and Central Business District, including seven on Canal Street.

"The key to not having a fire turn into a tragic fire like this is to have an alarm system, commercial buildings particularly," McConnell said. "Having an alarm system that would have reported something like this in its incipient phase would have made a huge difference for these buildings. Unfortunately, we know it burned for an hour and a half before we were called to the scene.

"I think every building should have a fire alarm in it. Whether you can pass legislation to do that or not, I don't know. But, to me, if you're a business owner and you're not putting an alarm in that's going to report that fire and get it to us early, you're putting your livelihood at risk."

In other words.. and at the very least.. Gee what a swell landlord Mike Motwani is! But also what a great neighbor he has been. 

Over the years, Motwani has often tangled with city officials. A 2008 Times-Picayune story described him as “the man whom local preservationists, city regulators and even economic development gurus love to hate.”

Among other reasons, the article cited Motwani’s “repeated flouting of government regulations, his failure to maintain some of his buildings and his gobbling up of Canal Street properties to open cut-rate stores that impede efforts to upgrade Canal as a shopping destination.”

Motwani owns a number of T-shirt and gift shops and is a controversial figure in and around the French Quarter, partly because of his penchant for such types of businesses but also because he often has flouted development restrictions. Some of his buildings are occupied on the ground floors by liquor stores and shops geared toward tourists, while upper floors are vacant or used only for storage.

The tastefulness of Motwani's businesses is a subjective and complicated question, of course. But the neglect of his buildings is a different matter.  The safety hazard alone is pretty well evident.  It's a significant thing, too, since his many holdings constitute Motwanivania, one of the major NOligarchies we keep track of here on our downtown map.



Motwani's territory overlaps with Sidney Torres's French Quarter private policing zone. (Mr. Torres is currently somewhat out of favor in his own realm. But this is only Act II of that particular Shakespearean history.)

Speaking of which, we wouldn't be surprised to learn that there are more plot twists to come in the drama of the Motwanivania fire.  There may, for example, be more to this than meets the eye.

"Apparent arson"

Awful.

The Uptown home of a local political operative was badly damaged Thursday in an early morning fire that appeared to have been ignited by the firebombing of the man's vehicles.

Mario Zervigon helped eight people, including his wife and two children, escape the burning home at 1407 Constantinople St. around 2:30 a.m. Zervigon is the campaign finance director for Public Service Commission candidate Forest Wright, who this week advanced to a Dec. 6 runoff against incumbent Eric Skrmetta.

A Ford Explorer parked on a rear driveway and a Honda Odyssey parked across the street, both belonging to Zervigon, already were engulfed in flames when the occupants of three apartments in the large divided home escaped. Three cats died in the blaze but two other pets were rescued.

Fortunately, politics in Louisiana is not interesting anymore. 

Cultural economy run amuck

I'll admit I'm not a fan of the various "ghost tours" floating about the French Quarter. They're cheesy. They're more or less the opposite of informative. Plus there's something kind of sad about the sight of a group of 20 to 30 adults being led around a city like a fourth grade class on a field trip to the box factory.

On the other hand, there's a theatrical element one has to admire. The really hammy ones bring a kind of circus carnie aesthetic which can be fun if you're into that sort of thing.  And, really, there are worse ways to conduct tour groups through the Quarter than the minimally invasive method of forced marching.

But whatever we think of these operations, there are probably very few of us who would condone regulating them by the martial tactics employed at the taxicab bureau. 

Accustomed to telling horror stories for money, French Quarter tour guides did it for free outside of City Hall on Friday as they protested aggressive and allegedly violent permit-enforcement measures and called for the firing of Malachi Hull, head of the city agency that regulates them.

Nearly 100 tour guides and cabbies denounced tactics used by inspectors with the city’s Taxicab Bureau, alleging a month-long harassment campaign aimed at appeasing Vieux Carre residents bitter over the number and size of street-clogging tourist groups.

Among the protesters was Wendy Bosma, who claims taxi inspector Wilton “Big Will” Joiner tossed her against a car and wrenched her arm, causing severe bruising, while wresting her permit from her during a night tour on Nov. 9.

On the other hand, maybe the problem is just that they're harassing the wrong ghost tour.

The seven men in custody in connection with the suspected arson of LeBeau Plantation in Old Arabi apparently were looking for ghosts, according to St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jimmy Pohlmann. The sheriff said the men had been smoking marijuana and drinking in the vacant house.

One of the men is from Arabi, one is from Gretna, and the others are from Texas, the sheriff said.

Update: I knew there was something familiar about a rogue ghost tour among the ruins.  Those of us on the senior circuit might recall this story from September 2005.  A San Francisco news team covering the National Guard in New Orleans after Katrina had the guardsmen go on a "ghost hunt" through Sophie B Wright School which they were using as a station at the time.

(CBS5) The presence of the supernatural and the influence of voodoo long have been synonymous with New Orleans.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, members of the U.S. military are saying that there's something spooky going on and it's not just images of death and destruction that's haunting them.

By all accounts, the Sophie B. Wright Middle School in New Orleans sits empty and evacuated except for military personnel who have taken over the campus as a staging site for missions around the battered city.

But the men in uniform have the feeling that they're not alone. It prompted a chaplain to utter this directive: "In the name of Jesus Chris, I command you Satan to leave the dark areas of this building."

Said Sgt. Robin Hairston of the California National Guard: "I was in my sleeping bag and I opened by eyes and in the doorway was a little girl. It wasn't my imagination."

Hairston wasn't the only one seeing things. Spc. Rosales Leanor had her own close encounter.

"I was using the restroom and I just saw a little shadow," Leanor said. "Kind of looming in front of me."

Another member of the Guard unit said that she saw and heard a little girl laughing when she opened a closet that contained cleaning supplies.

At a Baton Rouge marina, boats were strewn like trash, but not a shred of paper could be found. Except for the pages of a Bible that was found by a soldier. It was open to the Book of Revelation.

At a nearby church, nearly destroyed, another Bible was found, showing the exact same passage from Revelation.

Like the power of nature, there is a power at work in New Orleans that defies explanation.

While they were doing this, most of us hadn't even been allowed to come back and even check on the status of our homes yet.  I hope they had fun.  Glad they didn't burn the school down.

Slow day, though not a slow news day

Laid up most of the day with a cold/flu type whatever. Turns out that, for some reason, there continues to be news anyway. Here is some of it.

• Yesterday at the BP trial was a geology lesson from Aberdeen University professor Andrew Hurst. The Gulf sea floor where the Macondo well was drilled is characterized by "rubble" deposited by landslides at the end of the last ice age. Because the rubble is unstable and prone to shifting, Hurst's testimony suggests that drilling there was a risky proposition for which BP had not adequately prepared.



Hurst also testified that an examination of a BP technical memorandum outlining the potential risk of drilling the well showed the expected temperature of the rock formation expected to hold oil would be 236 degrees, or at the higher-risk bottom of his Golden Zone.

Asked why the pore pressure issue was so important, he said, "Well, the fear is that the bore hole wall completely loses integrity, which means that, for example, if you try to cement it, there's nothing for cement to bind to ... because you're trying to cement geological mush."

That drew an objection from BP attorney Matt Regan, who pointed out that Hurst is not a cementing expert. Regan also pointed out that most companies drilling in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico do not agree with Hurst's contention that temperature provides a key to understanding pore pressure.

Several studies of the failure of the Macondo well have suggested that a failure of the cement used to block gas resulted in the blowout that caused the explosion and fire aboard Transocean's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig at the surface, killing 11 workers and causing the rig to sink.

Nice job by Mark Schleifstein to remind the reader of the consequences of BP's negligence at precisely that point in the narrative.  Well done.

Also, Hurst's characterization of the Gulf floor reminded me that during the height of the spill crisis, there were people wondering out loud whether or not the well should have been nuked shut. One wonders what the seismic effect would have been.. let alone any other fallout.

By the way, if you're interested in looking over any of the written depositions in the BP trial, they can be downloaded at this link.

Paul Ryan is still a liar

Hugo Chavez died today of cancer.

Within short order, police officers and soldiers were highly visible as people ran through the streets, calling loved ones on cellphones, rushing to get home. Caracas, the capital, which had just received news that the government was throwing out two American military attachés it accused of sowing disorder, quickly became an enormous traffic jam. Stores and shopping malls abruptly closed.

As darkness fell, somber crowds congregated in the main square of Caracas and at the military hospital, with men and women crying openly in sadness and fear about what would come next. In one neighborhood, Chávez supporters set fire to tents and mattresses used by university students who had chained themselves together in protest several days earlier to demand more information about Mr. Chávez’s condition.

“Are you happy now?” the Chávez supporters shouted as they ran through the streets with sticks. “Chávez is dead! You got what you wanted!”

Well, it's what some people wanted anyway. Chavez, of course, was a flawed figure but he did make a lot of the right sort of enemies.  John Lee Anderson has published what will be one of the more fair obituaries you'll see in The New Yorker.

Dambala has been busy.  His his latest on the Wisner Trust land includes a bit on how it could become an issue in the Governor's race, should Mitch Landrieu enter as a candidate.

But the real juicy part that I want to point out is that Chaisson stated that the only reason the Wisner land has any real value to it is because of the Port itself.  He then went on to say that if it went up for sale the Port would most likely be forced to act but...and this is a really big but....they would not expect to purchase the land at market value because the Port is the only real catalyst that drives the value of the land in the first place.

What does that mean?  I'm not exactly sure but I have a hunch.  I think he was suggesting the State of Louisiana may be forced to exercise eminent domain over the property if the City of New Orleans is intent on carving it up and selling it.  That could get interesting...especially if Mayor Landrieu makes a run at the Governor's office.  If eminent domain is invoked, it most likely would make the sale of the land a losing proposition to all the parties involved.

In Part 1.5, Ryan Berni stated that the City was exploring its options on what their intent for the land is and they would make no decision until they got a valuation on the land.  But that valuation may be useless if the State invokes eminent domain.

Shocking traffic news: Soon you may, in fact, be allowed to turn left on Tulane Avenue.

The proposed changes include reducing traffic lanes from six nine-foot lanes to four eleven-foot lanes to make room for improvements. Though the number of traffic lanes will be reduced, the new lanes will be wider and the neutral ground will also expand to 15 feet, allowing for protected left turn lanes at select intersections, Brooks wrote.

Even more shocking traffic news: CCC toll renewal nullified.

Opponents of the tolls, and the resulting close election, argued that provisional ballots handed to more than 1,000 voters who said they were registered, but were not on the registrar's rolls on election day, amounted to denying them a right to vote on the tolls. Provisional ballots allow voters to vote only in federal races, but not in state and local elections.

Morvant ruled that since the tolls issue was a local election, the people forced to cast provisional ballots were effectively disenfranchised by the election.

The new election is set for May 4. I don't think the tolls are going to survive this round.

The regular mayhem: Fires, shootings, buildings collapsing, police beating people they've handcuffed. But, hey, the water's safe to drink. At least, that's what they tell us.

Credit where it's due

It's been pointed out to me that Ray Nagin was right all along.  There really were exploding pies in New Orleans after all.

Texas fires

While I'm sure we all had a ton of fun tweeting about and flying helicpoters at the marsh fire last week, it comes as a relief to know that it's now out "for all intents and purposes" whatever that means.

Meanwhile, if you've been near a news emitting device during the past few days, you are no doubt aware that matters are a bit more serious in Texas. The video below was shot by the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife. It shows the speed with which the wildfires can spread.




VirgoTex let's us know how we can help here.

Daily Fire

No frills demolition

Daily Fire

What was not destroyed by flood....

A suspicious fire at a vacant three-story building on Esplanade Avenue kept almost 60 firefighters busy for hours Tuesday night and destroyed what appeared to have once been an historic home, according to a New Orleans Fire Department spokesman.

Geez, we are so biblical today here at the Yellow Blog. Sorry. The problem will be rectified any day now... when Jesus comes back to judge us all.

Update: Meanwhile, it's FEMA to the rescue!

Daily Fire

NOLA.com



Caption reads:

New Orleans firefighters battle a 2-alarm blaze which destroyed the Saveway Food Mart on the corner of Freret and Washington Friday morning. Fire officials said it was the third blaze at the store in the past year.

I find a lot of the fires around town suspicious these days. But I am not a fire prevention professional. You can tell because I have a roof over my head.

Daily Fire

This isn't exactly a new headline.

I almost didn't read this one

Because I thought it couldn't possibly be what it appeared to be. Turns out it was exactly that.

Okay chill out, people

What Bush is saying to the people of "Cahleefornya" here is that when there's a fire, it "makes a significant difference" when your Governor is Mr. Freeze.



He has superpowers your pitiful Meemaw is no match for.

When it happens to you

Remember that theory about how the Americans would be more sympathetic with the victims of the Federal Flood when a major disaster happens to strike one of their cities?

Yeah, well, not so much really. Instead they're callously using another horrible loss of life and property as a jumping off point to further bash the hell out of us.

Makes you proud.

Update: More articulate version of this from Kirsten here.

Disaster-off '07

If Rush Limbaugh and Brian Williams want to make the horrific tragedy in San Diego into some kind of sick disaster competition then fine. They win. The pundits can declare San Diego the "winner". As a prize, the people of New Orleans will send them Ed Blakely for free.