Shame

Top Gear in New Orleans

This is a clip from a British reality show, Top Gear. In this episode, three Brits buy cheap cars in Florda and take a road trip across the Deep South to New Orleans. A video to another segment is posted at Crooks and Liars.

This clip shows the end of the trip, as the guys drive into New Orleans. Here’s a transcript:

[voiceover] My word; were we in for a shock. We had seen on the news what Hurricane Katrina had done, but seeing the devastation for real was truly astonishing.

[The Brits look around]

[Brit #1:] Oh, my god

[Brit #2:] Oh, look at this

[Brit #3:] Well, now this is extraordinary. Every house! I’ve been driving now, what about 15 miles. There isn’t a pavement, there isn’t a building, there isn’t anything that isn’t smashed. It’s such a vast scale of destruction.

[Voiceover] A year had passed since Katrina had blown through, and we sort of assumed that after 12 months the wealthiest nation on earth would have fixed it. But we were wrong.

How can the rest of America sleep at night knowing that this is here?

Well, how can we?

Happy Mardi Gras. I guess.