The front page of Time for August 13, 2007, features what surely must be the simplest picture ever to adorn that celebrated magazine’s cover–a grassy levee atop which is something that looks like a concrete wall. “Special Report: Why New Orleans Still Isn’t Safe” crosses the top of the page. In the center, filling the sky, so to speak, we find this:

“Two years after Katrina, this floodwall is all that stands between New Orleans and the next hurricane. It’s pathetic. How a perfect storm of big money politics, shoddy engineering and environmental ignorance is setting up the city for another catastrophe.”

Pathetic? That’s putting it out there.

We reported here a few days ago that the August issue of the National Geographic deals with the same subject. One obvious difference is that the Geographic’s photographs were better, in color, and bigger, more striking. But they make the same point. This city faces big trouble.

The article, written by Michael Grunwald, establishes right off the bat something the people down here have been trying to get across to our friends in the nation’s Capitol:

“The most important thing to remember about the drowning of New Orleans is that it wasn’t a natural disaster. It was a man-made disaster, created by lousy engineering, misplaced priorities and pork-barrel politics. Katrina was not the Category 5 killer the Big Easy had always feared; it was a Category 3 storm that missed New Orleans, where it was at worst a weak 2. The city’s defenses should have withstood its surges, and if they had we never would have seen the squalor in the Superdome, the desperation on the rooftops, the shocking tableau of the Mardi Gras city underwater for weeks.”

Grunwald says FEMA got the blame, but the culprit was the Corps of Engineers. He says American citizens were outraged by the government’s poor response to the disaster, but they have yet to deal with the government’s responsibility for the mess.

The same folks who gave you the busted levees and flooded city are still running the show, he says, referring to the Corps. But this time they have big bucks and political clout. We in this city have seen them hard at work in places like where the 17th Street Canal hits Lake Pontchartrain, constructing the massive floodgates. However, Time says the same coastal scientists who warned the city prior to Katrina of the disaster-in-the-making are sounding off again. Same song, second verse. “If you liked Katrina, they say, you’ll love what’s coming next.”

Not good.

“We’re not the same Corps,” says a spokesperson. This time, Karen Durham-Aguilera, director of the Corps’ Task Force Hope, says the agency is committed to rebuilding the wetlands which buffer the city from incoming hurricanes, as well as erecting levees that will do the job. But that is going to take years and billions more of federal dollars. Meanwhile, the hurricane season for 2007 swings into high gear in August and September.

I’ll leave you to read the article for yourself. Even if you can’t find one or read this blog late, your public library will have the issue, as well as the National Geographic for August. Time invites us to see more photos of the city’s efforts to rebuild at www.time.com/lohuizen.

Not to sound pessimistic–anyone still remaining in the city at this date is an incurable optimist–but if we do get battered by another hurricane this year or next, look for a far greater permanent evacuation. The population of New Orleans proper is down a third from pre-Katrina, and downriver in St. Bernard and Plaquemine parishes, the decrease is even more drastic. But people are still drifting back into town as rebuilding continues.

Another hurricane will stop that dead in its tracks.

August 29–a Wednesday–will be the second anniversary of Katrina. On that evening, we’re having a Prayer Rally at the First Baptist Church of New Orleans, located at 5690 Canal Boulevard (behind All-Faiths Funeral Home, near the cemeteries). Will Graham, grandson of the famous evangelist, will headline a full program of well-known spiritual leaders.

We’re encouraging our churches to dismiss mid-week services and bring their people to this rally. Of course, everyone is invited to come and pray.

At this point, it may be that a prayer is all we have left.