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So many upsetting stories in the last 24 hours I hardly know where to begin. Let's start with the weather:

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) -- Ernesto became the first hurricane of the Atlantic season Sunday with winds of 75 mph, and forecasters said it would strengthen as it headed toward the Gulf of Mexico, where it could menace a wide swath of coastline including New Orleans.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm could grow by Thursday into a hurricane as strong as Katrina, which struck the city a year ago Tuesday.

So the big question on everyone's mind is obviously whether or not New Orleans is ready for another storm. Unfortunately, getting a straight answer about this is harder than you might think.

Here's what Don Powell, Bush' Federal Coordinator of Gulf Coast Rebuilding, said this morning on Fox News:

...There is a widespread coordination, and I think we're ready. There's no question in my mind, we're ready.... There's been an extraordinary amount of effort by the Corps of Engineers on restoring and repairing the levees, and I believe that the levees are ready for the hurricane season.

But here's what the Army Corps of Engineers had to say yesterday:

Despite aggressive efforts to repair the New Orleans levee system, it isn't clear whether it would withstand a hurricane with heavy storm surge this year, the head of the Army Corps of Engineers conceded Saturday.

Lt. Gen. Carl Strock said the agency was tracking Tropical Storm Ernesto, churning in the Caribbean with 60 mph winds Saturday. The storm could be near hurricane strength by the time it reaches Jamaica today, the National Hurricane Center said.

Strock said he was confident the corps had done all it could to repair and reinforce 220 miles of levee walls, but he said many variables would determine whether the levees could withstand a major hurricane striking near New Orleans, as Katrina did Aug. 29, 2005.

"To pinpoint it to one thing and say 'yes' or 'no' is very difficult," Strock said.

It's nice to know that a political appointee, one whose previous gig was running the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), has more confidence in the levees than the group responsible for repairing them. Because should another storm come, its rhetoric, not concrete, that will help protect our fellow citizens.

But hey, at least city officials re on the case, right? Wrong.

Earlier today on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace said that one of his scheduled guests, New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas, had "apparently overslept" and missed his scheduled appearance as well as a briefing on Hurricane Ernesto, which could potentially menace the city a year after Katrina.

"We promised you an interview with New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas, but he apparently overslept this morning," said Chris Wallace after interviewing Democratic Senator Joe Biden.

"Not only did he not make it to our studio for this interview, but we also understand that he missed a briefing on Hurricane Ernesto this morning," added Wallace.

If I lived anywhere near this man's house, I swear to you I would have driven over today and delivered him a new alarm clock. He "overslept." Are you kidding me?

(Hat Tip: SusanG)

UPDATE: And then, there's this:

The American Society of Civil Engineers last year graded the nation "D" for its overall infrastructure conditions, estimating that it would take $1.6 trillion over five years to fix the problem.

"I thought [Hurricane] Katrina was a hell of a wake-up call, but people are missing the alarm," said Casey Dinges, the society's managing director of external affairs[...]

The Commission on Public Infrastructure at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, said in a recent report that facilities are deteriorating "at an alarming rate."

It noted that half the 257 locks operated by the Army Corps of Engineers on inland waterways are functionally obsolete, more than one-quarter of the nation's bridges are structurally deficient or obsolete, and $11 billion is needed annually to replace aging drinking-water facilities.

President Bush, asked about the problem during a public question-and-answer session in an April visit to Irvine, Calif., cited last year's enactment of a comprehensive law reauthorizing highway, transit and road-safety programs.

"Infrastructure is always a difficult issue," Bush acknowledged. "It's a federal responsibility and a state and local responsibility. And I, frankly, feel like we've upheld our responsibility at the federal level with the highway bill."

But experts say the law is riddled with some 5,000 "earmarks" for projects sought by members of Congress that do nothing to systematically address the problem.

"There's a growing understanding that these programs are at best inefficient and at worst corrupt," said Everett Ehrlich, executive director of the CSIS public infrastructure commission.

But here's the quote that really stood out:

"You see bridges and roads and potholes, but so much else is hidden and taken for granted," said Dinges of the Society of Civil Engineers. "As a result, people just don't get stirred up and alarmed."

This is one of the things I try very hard to get all of my students each semester to see. Most of what government does for us we now take for granted. Clean water, clean food, safe streets, public utilities, public parks, public schools, a national transportation infrastructure, building codes, EMS services... all of it exists only because of the direct involvement of our government. The problem is that none of us know, nor can we imagine, life before any of this existed, so we usually just take it for granted. We forget that it doesn't just happen on its own.

UPDATE II: Great Katrina column from Jonathan Alter. His conclusion:

After all the heat he took last year, how could Bush have blown the aftermath of Katrina? It's not as if he lacks confidence in the power of his office. He believes he can fix Iraq and transform the Middle East. He aspires to spread democracy to the far corners of the globe. But the fate of an American city and millions of his impoverished countrymen are apparently beyond his control, or perhaps just his interest.

Ouch.