After Hurricane Gustav in 2008, north Baton Rouge residents were left without electricity for nearly two weeks. Across the street at Exxon Mobil's Baton Rouge refinery, the second-largest refinery in the country, workers were dealing with their own mess.
The refinery hadn't properly shut down before the storm and, as a result, a cooling tower that was still operational toppled over in the winds. More than 500,000 pounds of pollutants were released to the flare, burning for 12 days.
That accident put refinery workers in danger and the fumes and pollutants coming off the flare added another burden to nearby residents. They couldn't stay inside because of the loss of power and stifling heat, and they couldn't stay outside because of the toxic chemicals billowing from the refinery.
This is something that has been brewing on my mind for the last few weeks, as I have spoken with folks about Louisiana politics, and the fact that the Democratic Party has pretty much had a stranglehold on the State Legislature for the past 40 + years.
Many Republicans say it is time to give their party a chance to run Louisiana, mainly because the State Legislature has been run by the Democrats for all of that time, and we still rank near the bottom in darn near every category we don't want to rank near the bottom in.
To paraphrase my father ... if bullshit were energy, the folks making that argument would be bigger than Entergy. Simply put, that dog don't hunt.
