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Hurricane Katrina heads to New Orleans.—NASA.

Why More Hurricanes Now Than in the Past?

Immorality

"Yet the hearts of men are hardened." Not everyone is hardened. There are those who, even before Katrina hit, heard the Spirit of God speaking softly to their hearts. Take for example the following excerpt from a news story that appeared around the world:

Tourists stranded . . . Tina and Bryan Steven, of Forest Lake, Minn., sat glumly on the sidewalk outside their hotel in the French Quarter. "We're choosing the best of two evils," said Bryan Steven. "It's either be stuck in the hotel or stuck on the road. ... We'll make it through it." His wife, wearing a Bourbon Street T-shirt with a lewd message, interjected: "I just don't want to die in this shirt."—"Katrina Heads for New Orleans," Aug. 29, 2005.

Yet, unlike Tina, not everyone was thinking of repentance. When the storm had not quite totally passed, others were thinking of partying instead. From another news story carried by hundreds of news outlets:

Gail Henke could think of no better way to celebrate the French Quarter's survival of Hurricane Katrina than to belly up to a bar on Bourbon Street with a vodka and cranberry juice. Call it a libation to the storm gods. "You know what? There's a reason why we're called the Saints," the 53-year-old tour booker said Monday as she communed with 20 or so other survivors. "Because no matter what religion you are, whether you're a Catholic, whether you're voodoo, whether you're Baptist or so on, so on, and so on — we all pray. We all pray. "I'm not a religious fanatic. But God has saved us." . . . After the storm passed, police circled the quarter with bullhorns shouting: "The French Quarter is closed. This is state of emergency. Please, please get off the streets or you will be detained." But that couldn't dampen the indomitable spirit of one of the nation's most famous — and infamous — neighborhoods. Tamara Stevens, 45, and her boyfriend Rick Leiby, 65, found their way to Johnny White's Sports Bar before the winds even stopped blowing. After spending a harrowing night in their swaying apartment, they needed to be out among people. "This place will still be here," Leiby, a tour guide, said as he sipped a screwdriver from a plastic cup. "And it ain't gonna quit."—"French Quarter battered but unbowed," Aug. 29, 2005.

As the above news report said, the French Quarter is both famous and infamous, and its infamy isn't due just to drinking, living together, and wearing shirts with lewd messages. When we first moved to the New Orleans area about 1976, Dad drove down Bourbon street with the family. We don't recall driving down there again. It's not a place you drive down in broad daylight with kids in the car.

And then there's Southern Decadence, an annual Labor Day festival that would have started just two days after Katrina hit. As SouthernDecadence.net said before their New Orleans servers went down:

Southern Decadence started thirty-four years ago . . . . One of the largest annual celebrations in New Orleans, it has become known as the "Gay Mardi Gras." . . . With over 100,000 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender participants last year, the economic impact on the city was estimated to be in excess of $95 million. Mayor Ray Nagin has recognized its importance with an Official Proclamation to welcome the event. The city's wildest neighborhood gets even crazier as the French Quarter is packed for the entire event . . . . The theme [for 2005] is "Jazz and Jezebels" and the colors are red and purple. The corner of Bourbon and St. Ann Streets is generally considered to be the epicenter of Gay New Orleans, and even more so during the Southern Decadence festival weekend. At that intersection is the largest gay nightclub, The Bourbon Pub video bar and The Parade dance club, which is home to the hottest dancers in town. . . . Most of the city's main gay attractions are located within a few blocks of this intersection.

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