Welcome to this Deadline News Special Report: Katrina Makes Waves. I’m your host, Rex Veneer.
To begin, we take you live to Florida, where Deadline News Weather Disturbance Specialist Tracey Treadwell is standing by. Tracey, what’s it like out there?
“Well, as you can see, Rex, it’s wet. Very wet. The rain is coming down, and it’s coming down hard. Yes, it’s very, very…wet here in Flori –”
You don’t have any funny animal shots?
“No, Rex. No Lassie shots. Most of the small animals were washed to sea when the hurricane first hit.”
No cars buried under a pile of cheese?
“Where would you get that idea?”
It would be interesting to look at.
“We do have footage of cars leaving the state on one side of the highway while a lone car is entering the state.”
Everybody has that one, Tracey. In fact, we’ve seen that clip more often in the last three days than we’ve seen any clip of President Bush in the month since he went on vacation to his Crawford ranch. What about some local colour? What do Floridians think about what’s happening to them?
“Well, Rex, I have no idea. Most of them have evacuated the state, and the ones who haven’t have barricaded themselves in their basements with a supply of canned foods and enough firearms to start a Middle Eastern insurgency. And, there’s no way I’m talking to any of them until DNN coughs up with some danger pay!”
Thanks, Tracey. That was Tracey Treadwell, in Florida. We’ll, uhh, have another incisive report from her later in the show.
In other hurricane news, representatives of Florida’s gay and lesbian community said that the hurricane was the universe’s vengeance against televangelist Pat Robertson for, well, being Pat Robertson. When it was pointed out that the hurricane came nowhere near Robertson, one man commented, “The universe is nearsighted. Is it any surprise that it has lousy aim?”
Meanwhile, Adam Horonovitz became the first casualty of Katrina when he was torn apart…by his neighbours. While most people were preparing to evacuate areas of Louisiana which were expected to become submerged by water, Horonovitz repeatedly blasted the Tragically Hip song “New Orleans is Sinking” from his state of the art stereo system.
“The first 11 or 12 times, it was pretty amusing,” neighbour Martin Martini commented. “After that, well, he had it coming.” Police are considering charges. But not too seriously.
“I mean, if it had been Zeppelin’s ‘When the Levee Breaks…’” Martini started to say, but our attention had already moved on to another aspect of the disaster.
To whit: hurricane Katrina ripped two holes in the curved roof of the Louisiana Superdome, letting in pouring rain as thousands of storm refugees huddled inside. “I always wanted to blow the roof off this joint,” a shivering Mandy Shurikin said, “but this isn’t exactly what I had in mind…”
Hurricane Katrina wasn’t as bad as some had feared, being downgraded from a Category Five hurricane to Category Four. Or, for those of you who miss the colour-coded terror alerts, it went from puce to tangerine. Despite this, the hurricane was estimated to have caused over $25 billion in damage. To put that figure in perspective, it could pay for 16 months of the war in Iraq, or almost 10 weeks of American oil consumption. It may not sound like much, 10 weeks, but there are at least two long weekends in that time period.
Insurance companies are balking at paying out $25 billion to cover the costs of replacing properties lost due to the hurricane. “The weather system has been in effect for as much as 10 billion years,” MetLifeHaHa representative Carl “HoDaddy” Perkins explained. “Talk about the ultimate pre-existing condition!”
When it was pointed out to him that the extreme weather conditions we are currently facing might be caused by global climate change, Perkins beamed: “Even better! The victims brought it on themselves! There’s no way a court will force us to pay out a penny under such circumstances.” After a moment’s reflection, Perkins added: “Of course, we’re sorry for everybody’s loss.”
Louisiana officials are already warning citizens that when they return, they should avoid contact with the water in the state, which now contains a toxic mix of chemical pollutants, bacteria and human waste. The only person who could survive contact with the water is believed to be Keith Richards.
Louisiana officials – not the ones who warned citizens about the water; other officials – expressed the hope that Richards would take time out from the Rolling Stones’ current world tour to search the state for survivors. An assistant for Richards responded: “Mrmf I rowf arrr bleedin’ ‘ell! Bleedin’ bleedin’ ‘ell!”
Trust an Englishman to be able to articulate what all Americans are feeling.
Except, perhaps, for the looters, who were filling garbage bags with merchandise from stores they had broken into and floating them out of stricken area. One witness to the looting said it looked like Baghdad. Except, of course, for the fact that American National Guardsmen were actually in Baghdad when it was being looted.
President George W. Bush took to the airwaves to calm the American people. “We must stay the course. We mustn’t withdraw people from potentially affected areas,” he explained, “because then the hurricane will have won.”
Is there such a thing as being too on message?
On a personal note, Hurricane Katrina has not merely been an excuse to have the biggest wet t-shirt contest Florida has ever seen. It’s about…people’s hopes and dreams. Yeah, that’s it, hopes and dreams…being crushed by forces beyond their control. Usually, those forces are wielded by governments or…or corporations. But, even the greediest, most rapacious CEO must bow his head in awe at the power of nature to…to…
Sorry. I got nothing.
Okay, we’re going to take a break. When we come back: more footage of journalists standing in desolate areas, blabbering on while waiting desperately for something interesting to happen or profound to say. Stay with us…