Photo Of The Day

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The consensus is clear. Oil production and refinery capacity have taken a serious blow. The financial effects will be felt with acuity by the entire nation in the near future. People are already feeling the effects of a Nation Guard heavily committed to babysitting Iraq as well as a federal budget that has been suckled dry by our military adventures in that region. People wondered what in the name of Shazam we were meant to collectively sacrifice in the name of Middle Eastern oil security. Here you go:

Bush administration policy changes and budget cuts […] are sapping FEMA’s long-term ability to cushion the blow of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tornados, wildfires, and other natural disasters.

Or, put another way, you may not be able to drive your Hummer across a bridge once an oil rig has slammed into it.

An oil rig tore free of its moorings as Hurricane Katrina lashed the Alabama coast, before surging downriver and smashing into a suspension bridge, witnesses said Monday.

The platform broke free from the Bender shipbuilding and repair yard in Mobile during the morning as the then Category Four Hurricane walloped the southern US coast.

An oil rig that broke loose during Hurricane Katrina 29 August 2005 is wedged under the Cochrane Bridge in Mobile, Alabama. The rig tore free of its moorings as Hurricane Katrina lashed the Alabama coast before surging downriver and smashing into the suspension bridge. AFP photo by Stan Honda.

The runaway rig then drifted through the choppy waters of the Mobile River before hitting the Cochrane/Africatown USA road bridge.

(Gracias eponymagain)