new orleans, louisiana--aka,the big easy. i'm sorry, but i just don't get it. what is the siren call that is so strong my young just have to live in your midst. as a rent, somewhere in the back of my mind all the time is a niggling thought that something bad is gonna happen. admittedly bad stuff can happen anywhere one may choose to live but we are coming up on the hurricane season. june 1 to be exact. those in the know are predicting an active hurricane season on the order of the one in 2005 that spawned katrina and rita. that prediction is worrisome. taking a page from jay leno's new feature "what did you think was going to happen?" i'd ask whoever it was that decided to build a city below sea level and on the gulf coast to boot-- wdytwgth? the easy can deal a great chunk of misery 24, 7, 365 without a hurricane anywhere on the horizon. all day, every day, pumps work to keep the waters of the gulf at bay. already working at capacity. the pumps can only manage rainfall up to 1 inch/hour. after that the city starts to flood. such was the case on sunday. during an ordinary spring thunderstorm the pumps were overwhelmed and the waters rose up on the street where my transplanted texans live. not to the level of that johnny cash classic "five feet high and rising" but enough to deposit 3 inches of water in their cars. not exactly good news, so my question to my transplants re: their moving to the big, but not so easy is. what did you think was going to happen? aio