I'm glad you shared your resume. It's was what I was hinting at when I mentioned the biographical details you've revealed over the years, while trying to preserve your privacy by not getting into specifics myself.

It helps a lot to clarify that your present feelings about the disaster aren't just a continuation of your previous outrage about Bush. You're feeling a special empathy with other officials responsible for disaster response, and like all of us, you're looking at what happened on the Gulf and considering what could happen to your own home town in the event of a disaster.

Here in California, we've been reminded that most of the state's drinking water supply is carried by canals and aqueducts in the Central Valley. The part of the system that passes by the San Francisco Bay delta is mostly at sea level and protected by levees, which have been broken in the past by heavy rains and flooding. The earthquake off the northern coast a few weeks back triggered a tusnami alert, which fortunately never materialized. But the thought of a tsunami propagating just a few miles inland across the delta and breaking the levees has an unnerving similarity to the New Orleans experience.

We're not distant spectators to events on the Gulf coast. We know it could happen here too, wherever here may be, and that concern rises above partisanship. Thanks for sharing a unique point of view.