I am, frankly, appalled by the lack of empathy demonstrated by some of the commenters here at RedState relative to Hurricane Gustav.

All this started even before the storm came ashore. At least give us a chance to assess the damage before rolling out the cynicism.

Two million people have fled the Gulf Coast. Some of my friends stayed behind because they are exceptionally well-prepared to deal with the aftermath. They will be the first ones cutting tree limbs and helping others out in the aftermath. Some of the elderly and infirm have not left because the certainty of the trauma of evacuation is judged to be worse than taking the risk of riding it out. That’s the case for my mom and dad, who had plans to leave but opted out at the last moment because of health concerns. (N.B.: They are not eligible for the Darwin Awards because they’re 83.)

I blogged about the uncertainty of storm evacuations here. I blogged about my personal trek here.

Sorry for the wall-to-wall TV coverage. Look at it this way: sitcoms are mostly in rerun, American Idol’s new season hasn’t started yet, and Jerry’s Kids usually dominate Labor Day coverage anyway (you’re probably not empathetic about them, either). Two million of us are away from home and TV is the best way for seeing what’s going on back home. Sorry to inconvenience you.

Sorry, too, to interrupt the convention, but Bobby Jindal has his hands full right now. If the McCain/Palin ticket deserves the high office they seek, they will be able to turn these lemons to lemonade, as one poster here has suggested.

Sorry that Gustav and Katrina got more press coverage than everyone would like. New Orleans is, after all, a major metro area that was destroyed to a degree that no American city has ever been. Gustav, but for a couple of degrees of trajectory, could have been much worse. Hurricane Andrew received plenty of coverage in 1992; it had been a Cat 5 in Florida, and I ran from it, too. Rita, one month after Katrina, devastated South Louisiana but was mostly ignored by the media.

It looks like, as was predicted (and I blogged about the other day), Port Forchon was ground zero for Gustav. Port Fourchon is where 18% the nation’s crude oil consumption comes ashore.

It would appear at this time that the bulk of my company’s oil and gas producing assets are not affected. All of our production is shut in right now, but it will be coming back on in just a few days. We are in the middle of drilling a well, too, and all the rig workers were evacuated last Friday. It’s costing us an extra $100,000 per day to be shut down. My hope is that the new well hits and hits big.

OK, so I’m done apologizing. Oil and gas prices may well be on their way back up. I ain’t sorry about that. Screw it.