New Orleans Is Sinking

My memory is muddy
What's this river I'm in
New Orleans is sinking man
And I don't want to swim
--Tragically Hip

via the Age

With thousands feared drowned in what could be America's deadliest natural disaster in a century, New Orleans' leaders have all but surrendered the streets to floodwaters and began turning out the lights on the ruined city - perhaps for months.

"We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water," and other people dead in attics, Mayor Ray Nagin said in calling for an all-out evacuation of the city's remaining residents. Asked how many died, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

This is supersad. I'm pretty surprised that this could have occurred in this day and age..... It seems like a surreal Genesis/Exodus-type scourge.

Picture yourself
Swimming in an ocean
A million miles from nowhere
And the nearest phone
There's bodies in the water
Floating all around you
--Matt Good

I'm hardly a bible quoting guy, but just for good measure here's Genesis 20:23

20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. 21 Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth.