Driving along Wisconsin Avenue here last Sunday night, passing the National Cathedral, my wife and I saw the first flares burning in the roadway. Everything else was dark for as far as we could see. As we got closer, we could see policemen behind the sputtering red fires on the ground at every intersection. The traffic lights on one of the capital city's major thoroughfares still were not working, four days after tropical storm Isabel missed the city, passing far to the west.

Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses around here had no electricity. A storm with no name passed through the next night, Monday, and 100,000 more homes were knocked out. Schools were closed for miles and miles around. The Washington Times was running daily headlines in frustrated rhythm: "6 Days and Counting" ... "7 Days and Counting"

The sixth day, Tuesday, with an estimated 362,000 buildings still without power in Washington and its suburbs, was probably not the best day for the Bush administration to finally reveal actual numbers about what the reconstruction of Iraq (news - web sites) might cost. One that has been noticed and talked about in the streets of Washington, if not the corridors of power, is $5.7 billion to install a new electric power generation and distribution system in the country President Bush (news - web sites) decided we had to liberate this year.

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