[Trindelm]

With this Toxic Gumbo festering in New Orleans there's a lot of talk about West Nile. But given the chemicals and especially the oil slicks that lay down a prohibitive layer, the larvae will not be able to breathe thus lessen the doomsday scenario of a West Nile outbreak.

Any thoughts?

[pup55]

in light of the fact that larvae can spawn in any bucket or other object that can hold water, there will be plenty of opportunities for mosquito-borne diseases.

West Nile is a side issue. Throughout its history, this area has been plagued with yellow fever and malaria, which are even deadlier. Of more immediate concern are cholera, typhoid and dysentery, which in the 19th century was common in all of these river towns.

[cheRand]

My theory is that there will be a spread of some of the communicable diseases to the host communities who take in refugees from the diaspora. I hope at my local shelter, (Camp Gruber, which took in about 1250 people) we get jazz and not hepatitis. <g>

So NOLA is an interesting "case study" in diaspora. Lack of transportation from a highly population-dense area festered a lot of disease already. And then the people carried their "density+infrastructure-failure" health problems to areas with a lower amount of density+infrastructure-failure. We're seeing some kind of a transmission model.

I'm reading about the Trail of Tears in about 1838 when groups of about 800 or 1000 people went on a couple of months' travel without advance preparation, and you see the same mortality (obviously) among the very yong and very old: Food shortages along the way. Deaths from cholera and dysentary. Physical exhaustion from walking 10 or 15 miles a day. Stress, showing up as mutiny and alcohol intoxication.

In both NOLA and the Trail of Tears, the migration looks like, as someone said, "A pig passing thru a boa constrictor."