Martin C. Pedersen, executive director of Common Edge, is an editor and critic who writes about architecture, design, and urbanism. After a decade of living in New Orleans, he and his wife moved back to New York in July.
Author’s note: Upon arrival on the battered coast on Sunday, August 29, Ida was a powerful and destructive Category 4 hurricane. This is the second storm of that magnitude to hit the state in the past 13 months, surely a harbinger of big and even bigger storms to come. Despite the fear and inconvenience, the overwhelming feeling in New Orleans post-storm was weary relief: the big question mark surrounding the restored levees had been affirmatively answered. They held, thereby sparing the city the catastrophic flooding that inundated the city after Katrina. (Ida struck on the 16th anniversary of that event.) So while this storm is likely to cause a great deal of property damage—along with long disruptions to electricity and water service—the worst case scenario has thankfully not come to pass. And yet this event does underscore all of the issues in the article that follows, especially the stark, brutal truth: It’s still hurricane season. —Martin C. Pedersen
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