12/29 (Wed)
The last day at New Orleans. I went to the Presbytère - Louisiana State Museum. There were exhibit "the Living with Hurricanes." When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans’ badly engineered levee system, it resulted in one of the worst disasters in American history, leaving 80 percent of the city flooded and hundreds dead.
Then, I went to the Hurricane Katrina Memorial and the Caesars Superdome.
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(memo from wikipedia about the super dome)
On August 28, 2005, approximately 10,000 residents sheltered in the Superdome anticipating Katrina's landfall. The number of people taking shelter in the Superdome rose to around 15,000–20,000 as search and rescue teams brought more people from areas hit hard by the flooding.
When the serious flooding of the city began on August 30 after the levees had broken, the population of the dome had nearly doubled within two days to approximately 30,000.
On September 2, 475 buses were sent by FEMA to pick up evacuees from the dome and the convention center, where more than 20,000 people had been crowded in similarly poor living conditions.
25,000 evacuees were taken to the Astrodome in Houston, while another 25,000 were taken to San Antonio and Dallas.The last large group from the Superdome was evacuated on September 3.
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After that, I made back packing and read Isoda 2021. I took dinner at Royal Sonesta New Orleans.
12/30 (Thu)
I got on AA1776 (New Orleans → Charlotte) and AA2252 (Charlotte → Boston). At the Charlotte airport, American Airlines gave me one day pass of the Admirals club. I spent 4 - 5 hours in the Charlotte airport, but it was comfortable. I finished to read Isoda (2021). It is a book on historical research on infectious diseases in Japan. In the beginning, he described the responsibilities of historical studies, with COVID-19 in mind. He pointed out that changes in the social structure (urbanization, expansion of exchange population, etc.) have led to the spread of infectious diseases. And I realized that information technology has positive effects (remote work etc) for dealing with infectious diseases. There was a description of Naoya Shiga's novel "Pandemic Influenza". He tried to dismiss a maid who did not observe self-restraint, but his wife stopped that. Later, he was infected and was saved by the maid.
