Ladies and gentlemen, I\u2019m not proud, but this run almost finished me off. Anyone tech-savvy enough to download the .kml file behind this google map and interrogate the time signatures (geeeek!) will be able to work out that I ended up dragging my sorry ass round this embarrassingly short course in the world\u2019s slowest time. I had visions of staggering into the hotel bar at run\u2019s end like something out of Ice Cold in Alex<\/em> and asking for a whisky sour and a litre of house saline (\u201cwarm water, one teaspoon salt, five of sugar and three straws please barman!\u201d). I won\u2019t say I burned off all the Jambalaya, but hell, I gave it my best shot.<\/p>\n

I must admit that the heat wasn\u2019t my biggest concern when I set out. New Orleans has had a relatively troubled past and as a result has some similarly troubled parts of town. The logical solution to a starting point in the French Quarter and a nice six mile loop takes an out-of-towner along the river, through the up-and-coming Marigny and into the Lower Ninth Ward.<\/p>\n

For those of you who don\u2019t know the city, Old New Orleans \u2013 the French Quarter, Bourbon Street etc. \u2013 was built on a natural levee on the curve of the Mississippi. More modern parts of town, for example the Lower Ninth, were built behind artificial levees about 10 feet below sea level, and as a result were \u2026 about 10 feet below sea level after Hurricane Katrina paid her visit in 2005.<\/p>\n

Lucy and I both spent the majority of our waking hours over the past decade on the fringes of the (re)insurance industry, for which Hurricane Katrina was a Major Loss Event. Having seen the effects at a narrow industry-wide level, we thought it would be worth paying a visit to the Hurricane Katrina Museum, situated one floor below the Mardi Gras Museum \u2013 turn left at the artfully stranded boat by the cathedral.<\/p>\n

Having always considered Katrina a natural disaster (hurricane \u2013 go figure) it was a surprise to me to hear it classified as man-made: to see exhibits detailing the mammoth but all too often counterproductive efforts undertaken by the federal flood protection programs over the years; to see clearly-explained design flaws in the levees themselves; and to see minute by minute dioramas of how and why they failed. After a room of hurricane tracks and a room of soil science, the rest of the museum focuses on the human cost and suffering of those in New Orleans at the time \u2013 those trapped in their homes and the tens of thousands suffering in the temporary shelter in the (Mercedes Benz sponsored) Superdome while the federal government struggled to help. It is pretty harrowing stuff.<\/p>\n