Katrina's aftermath

[N.O. Mayor] Nagin said both both New Orleans airports are underwater and there would be no electricity in the city for four to six weeks. Natural gas leaks have been reported throughout town, he said.

---

In New Orleans' central business district, Karen Troyer Caraway, vice president of Tulane University Hospital, said water at the facility was initially rising at the rate of a foot an hour and had reached the top of the first floor.

"It's dumping all the lake water in Orleans Parish," Caraway said. "It's essentially running down Canal Street. We have whitecaps on Canal Street."

"We now are completely surrounded by six feet of water, and are about to get on the phone with FEMA to start talking about evacuation plans," Caraway said. "The water is rising so fast, I can't even begin to describe how fast it is rising."

Caraway said she didn't know whether any pumps had been turned on to pump the water, but said, "they're not going to be able to compete with Lake Pontchartrain."

Tulane hospital has moved its emergency room to the second floor, Caraway said. It has been on emergency generator power for the last 24 hours, but if water continued rising rapidly, that power will be lost, swamping the power source.

WATCH: CNN/Money: Katrina closes 123 Wal-Marts

Actually it is -- as of 12 noon.

• 'Significant' death toll in New Orleans | WATCH
• Survivors 'screaming for help' | WATCH
• Washington moves to help Katrina's victims
• Huge relief effort under way | WATCH
• CNN/Money: Katrina closes 123 Wal-Marts
• CNN/Money: Oil hits record near $71 | WATCH
• CNN/Money: Katrina disrupts air travel
• U.S.: Air strikes flatten insurgent safe houses
• GM recalls 804,000 pickups, SUVs

http://www.ezthemes.com/previews/s/sunsetridetheme.jpg

unfortunate way to put it. (sorry.)

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/weather/0508/map.new.orleans/images/super.new.orleans2.map.gif

As does this:

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2005/08/29/GR2005082900046.jpg

That latter from this story. Selections:

The damage to the 17th Street Canal and its levee means that the water from Lake Pontchartrain is now free to flow down to inundate hundreds of thousands of homes and other buildings here.

Once it flows in, the water will not drain from New Orleans because of the very levees that protect the city and that largely held during the hurricane. Those levees, built to keep water out, are now keeping the water in, and reports from across the city indicate that water levels are rising.

Authorities plan to use helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach in the damaged levee, the Associated Press reported. The breach is said to be about 200 feet long. There were reports Tuesday that other levees may also have given way in the hours since the storm passed.

--

At the Superdome, designated by Mayor Ray Nagin as one of 10 refuges of last resort for people who were unable to evacuate, National Guard troops allowed dozens of refugees to sleep on the walkway surrounding the huge building as conditions inside deteriorated, but authorities refused to let them leave.

As many as 10,000 people took shelter in the Superdome starting Sunday when Nagin ordered the mandatory evacuation of the city. As the hurricane struck Monday morning, the high winds tore off much of the outer skin covering the Superdome's 9.7-acre roof and punched two holes clear through it, allowing rainwater to leak in.

By Tuesday, bathrooms were filthy, trash barrels were overflowing and stadium aisles and steps were slick with humidity because of the lack of air conditioning since the power failed during Katrina's onslaught. Under those conditions, some of the refugees were allowed to take their bedding out onto the concourse to cool off and breathe some fresh air.

One group was dismayed to hear on a newscast that authorities in suburban Jefferson Parish were not allowing residents to return until next Monday, the Associated Press reported. The group groaned, and one woman cried.

"I know people want to leave, but they can't leave," said Gen. Ralph Lupin, a National Guard commander at the Superdome, the AP reported. "There's three feet of water around the Superdome."

Doug Thornton, a regional vice president for the company that manages the Superdome, said two people have died there, the news service reported. He did not provide details.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/dancingwkatrina/ ( = http://dancingwithkatrina.blogspot.com/ )

http://www.livejournal.com/users/katrinacane/friends/

http://www.cs.umbc.edu/~evans/hollow.html

Some of these might be in the list Ned linked.

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/WEATHER/08/30/katrina/top.katrina.tues15.ap.jpg

Martial Law in effect in Jefferson Parish and Plaquemines Parish. 60 percent of homes in Plaquemines Parish under water.

--

A spokeswoman describes Jefferson Parish as a "very dangerous" place. Jackie Bauer says there's gas leaks everywhere, water needs to be boiled, there's no commercial power, no pumping stations and the water's toxic.

And there's still some deep water in some neighborhoods. Bauer says there are other dangers -- snakes in the water, other vermin, loose dogs and cats everywhere. She says -- quoting now -- "We kind of have to fight for survival with them."

--

Entergy reports 1.1 million outages in Mississippi and Louisiana.

--

Two dead in Slidell in rising waters after attempting to get back to their homes. The victims had initially evacuated.

--

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port did NOT suffer major damage as a result of Hurricane Katrina. And a port official says the flow of oil could resume within "a matter of hours" once its power supply is restored.

She said something about the fact that since the French Quarter was not flooded [2-3 feet of water], they are now pumping the flood water out of other places and into the quarter. High political scandal looming over how the aftermath is being handled, so Liz imparted.

that's not going to happen. the coast guard is going to rescue and evacuate as many people as it can, and the ones who aren't rescued will die.

I know, but the people in the Quarter don't know the pumps are out, of course.

Well, consider that as part of the looters vision. Shit, if you're gonna die, might as well get some stuff first. I know that if I was going to die, and I was trapped in a house surrounded by sewage, gas, and oil, running through some increasingly deep water for some free smokes and some nice clothes to die in wouldn't be such a horrible idea. Not like anyone is going to miss it.

HOUMA -- Winds in excess of 100 mph tore through Terrebonne Parish on Monday morning, damaging homes and ripping down trees and knocking out electricity, but saw little flooding, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said.

i'm still not seeing the logic of stealing tvs and the like. how are they going to watch them?

but i guess if you can get a small radio and some batteries you can listen to the news...

On a lighter side, someone mentioned Shepard Smith and the "none of your fucking business" answer he got from a NOLA native. Here's a link from crooksandliars.com.

Much better than that is this CNN late-night weatherman, who apparently had been on the air for too many hours.

If you survive, you get a TV. One that was probably going to be completely annhilated by 10 ft of water. Just hope that it doesn't reach the second level of your home, assuming you have one.

>but i guess if you can get a small radio and some batteries you can listen to the news...<

Looking through websites, I know two of the TV stations are off the air completely with their transponders destroyed. Everyone else fled town while they had the chance. Plus that giant bridge is down too. Its a mess.

(edit: it was pretty disturbing to see the WWIT folks run off, apparently after one was told about her family and the other ran to a copter. they were replaced during a replayed bit in about a minute with little actual explaination)

"It's downtown Baghdad," the housewife said. "It's insane. I've wanted to come here for 10 years. I thought this was a sophisticated city. I guess not."

not the best time to judge, really...

Here's an older story from the Times-Picayune speculating on what could happen if 'the big one' hit. More than slightly prescient.

The debris, largely the remains of about 70 camps smashed by the waves of a storm surge more than 7 feet above sea level, showed that Georges, a Category 2 storm that only grazed New Orleans, had pushed waves to within a foot of the top of the levees. A stronger storm on a slightly different course -- such as the path Georges was on just 16 hours before landfall -- could have realized emergency officials' worst-case scenario: hundreds of billions of gallons of lake water pouring over the levees into an area averaging 5 feet below sea level with no natural means of drainage.

That would turn the city and the east bank of Jefferson Parish into a lake as much as 30 feet deep, fouled with chemicals and waste from ruined septic systems, businesses and homes. Such a flood could trap hundreds of thousands of people in buildings and in vehicles. At the same time, high winds and tornadoes would tear at everything left standing. Between 25,000 and 100,000 people would die, said John Clizbe, national vice president for disaster services with the American Red Cross.

"A catastrophic hurricane represents 10 or 15 atomic bombs in terms of the energy it releases," said Joseph Suhayda, a Louisiana State University engineer who is studying ways to limit hurricane damage in the New Orleans area. "Think about it. New York lost two big buildings. Multiply that by 10 or 20 or 30 in the area impacted and the people lost, and we know what could happen."

Hundreds of thousands would be left homeless, and it would take months to dry out the area and begin to make it livable. But there wouldn't be much for residents to come home to. The local economy would be in ruins.

The scene has been played out for years in computer models and emergency-operations simulations. Officials at the local, state and national level are convinced the risk is genuine and are devising plans for alleviating the aftermath of a disaster that could leave the city uninhabitable for six months or more. The Army Corps of Engineers has begun a study to see whether the levees should be raised to counter the threat. But officials say that right now, nothing can stop "the big one."

xp

>"To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.<

He's not exactly wrong, you know.

Knowing rotten mother nature luck, there could be another hurricane hit in the area before the end of the year. :( It won't matter how strong the hurricane would be at that point.

Officials at LSU and local hospitals say they are triaging thousands of people being brought from outside the Baton Rouge area for medical care. The people are being bused in.

--

The American Red Cross says it has thousands of volunteers mobilized for the hurricane. Spokesman Bradley Hague said it's the "largest single mobilization that we've done for any single natural disaster." The organization has set up operational headquarters in Baton Rouge.

--The Environmental Protection Agency dispatched emergency crews to Louisiana and Texas because of concern about oil and chemical spills.

--The Coast Guard closed ports and waterways along the Gulf Coast and positioned craft around the area to conduct post-hurricane search and rescue operations.

--The Agriculture Department said its Food and Nutrition Service would provide meals and other commodities, such as infant formula, distilled water for babies and emergency food stamps.

--The Defense Department dispatched emergency coordinators to Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi to provide communications equipment, search and rescue operations, medical teams and other emergency assistance.

--The Health and Human Services Department sent 38 doctors and nurses to Jackson, Mississippi, to be used where needed, and 30 pallets of medical supplies to the region, including first aid materials, sterile gloves and oxygen tanks.

Some six-thousand National Guard personnel from Louisiana and Mississippi who would otherwise be available to help deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are in Iraq.

Even so, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the states have adequate National Guard units to handle the hurricane needs. He said about six-thousand-500 National Guard troops were available in Louisiana, about seven-thousand in Mississippi, nearly ten-thousand in Alabama and about eight-thousand-200 in Florida.

--

Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard says there is no plumbing and the sanitary situation is getting nasty. He told WAFB-TV that he is carrying around a bag for his own human waste.

Regarding the last bit: EURGH.

i was gonna say. they shouldn't break their backs cleaning up the city when hurricane season isn't even over yet.

This may come as a shock, but not everyone here is from Great Britain.

Put me down for that crazy information fetish too, I guess.

the bbc is good for american news because it's not quite as tainted by conservative interests as u.s. cable news is.

It's a fair assessment. I'd say this, though -- w/r/t Iraq, I find it important to document what is going on, a continuing acknowledgement and bitter, sick anger. There are thousands of people who have died now, our fellow citizens, far more Iraqis, others, and the decisions and mindsets of the people currently in charge of our government are part and parcel in terms of how this will get resolved, what if anything will come of what's been happening now for almost two and a half years. If it is pornography to observe what is being said, how it's being said, where the second thoughts are emerging among that horrific clique of hawks, the emerging sense that 'mistakes were made' -- and that people are dead because of it -- then call it that if you must. But I will watch and I will call attention to it because I want it documented, even in this own small one-person way of mine. We are not living in a cocoon, but I think our government is doing its best to pretend we should. I find that contemptible -- and whatever else I think about it, without pretending I've never used understatement and sarcasm about it all before, I don't find anything at all about Iraq simply 'most unfun.'

As for Katrina, you can call it my realization that this is getting worse all the time. No, I won't be posting about it forever. But it is happening right now, and I admit my attention is on it, and perhaps some of the information might be useful to other folks. Perhaps I am wrong.

Finally, the reason for said BBC 'fetish' is simple -- when 9/11 happened, I realized that CNN and other mainstream American media outlets would swiftly become unwatchable, their sites unreadable. I felt the jingoism coalescing almost immediately. Since that time I rely on the BBC site for basic world news, and while they obviously have their own biases at work which it would be foolish to ignore, I have not chosen to look back.

Jeff Parish President. Residents will probably be allowed back in town in a week, with identification only, but only to get essentials and clothing. You will then be asked to leave and not come back for one month.

holy shit.

http://www.abc-cafe.com/chrisfennessy/images/splash_page/BHH2001.jpg

yes, that's exactly it. it's not snobbishness -- all those cgi american flags and that bombastic music is egregious and nauseating.

are, i should say.

There are several reports that the Uptown area remains unflooded, particularly around Magazine and Jefferson (at least to Webster), and along Baronne Street (though it was unclear where on Baronne).

If you think Ned only dwells on "misery" then you might be dwelling on it yourself. You obviously havent' seen the hundreds of positive and sunny posts that Ned makes all over the place that have nothing to do with death, nor destruction. I should say am most familiar with Ned of ILM, but still.

i'm finding it hard to pay attention to much else.

I hope Rock Hardy is doing fine.

god whatever.

xpost - my impression was that many tourists were unable to leave

really, if this type of thread bothers you so much, then why post here? yer posts are not constructive AT ALL.

Indeed. So can we move on? Ethan said his piece, I said mine, we know where we stand. (xpost with JBR)

once their planes were gone, airlines wouldn't fly in cuz they didn't want to get their planes stuck in the aftermath. i'd imagine amtrak and greyhound did something similar. rental cars were probably all gone. and maybe, just maybe, she didn't have several thousand dollars to hire a limo.

xpost THANK YOU NED

xpost - 3 that wasn't exactly what i was saying, but let's drop it anyway. i just wanna hear about what's happening where several of my relatives live.

Like anything, it depends on the context. Video of desperate people and the obligatory "please Mr & Mrs. Survivor tell us how you feel" live cameras are completely inappropriate. However, I'm completely fascinated by the civic infrastructure and logistical aspects of big natural disasters like this. I'm watching these helicopters shots of NOLA and wondering how the hell the city engineer finds even something to start in on.

Yes, it's a desensitizing attitude toward the very real human catastrophe that's going on but what are you going to do? A small disaster is a tragedy, but something on this scale is a statistic - it's almost impossible to get your head about it.

x-post

---

3:53 P.M. - N.O. Mayor Nagin: Priorities - 1. Rescuing people. 2. Fixing levee breaks. 3. Taking care of refugees in Superdome and hospitals.

3:43 P.M. - Senator Vitter: New Orleans will "absolutely" be rebuilt.

3:25 P.M. - With conditions in the hurricane-ravaged city of New Orleans rapidly deteriorating, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Tuesday that people now huddled in the Superdome and other rescue centers need to be evacuated.

"The situation is untenable," Blanco said during a news conference. "It's just heartbreaking."

3:15 P.M. - Charity Hospital is out of commission and they are trying to evacuate patients, but it is hard to get there because rising water is surrounding the hospital. They will try to evacuate the patients to other cities.

god, thats just incredible, that this even has to be a talking point, you know?

Because we are MAN, and because it just wouldn't do to learn our lesson.

I'm thinking about it a lot too. I was in NO back in January and also wandered about though Houma, Grand Isle and everything along LA-1. The one report I read about LA-1 was that it was covered in 4 feet of grass and muck.

Hi
I would like thank everybody from replying about the Soulja Slim Festival and I will have a web site up soon with all the information about this event but for now here is a little info:Starting on Sept 23-24,05 there will be events leading up to the festival which is Sept 25 in City Park.You can email me or call my offfice at 504-284-6678 and ask for me Mrs Linda CEO of Cut Throat Commity Records. Thank you and God bless

(That said, I would be interested in a historical overview of the city's topographical history -- when the levees were built, etc.)

I'm also sad about Lousiana Music Factory and all those studios with all those masters.

I've been trying to check in with the brass band dudes, it seems like most of them got out or are okay but a lot are unaccounted for. Lil' Stooges are all from the 9th ward, I think.

Especially if the core of the town (xpost whoever built it -- Spanish were probably the first, yeah) was originally on the high ground, as I gather it was (thus the French Quarter etc.). In otherwards, for a small settlement in unstable land but near an obviously important potential river port area, they doubtless chose what was best going to work.

4:21 P.M. - WWL-TV Reporter quotes officials as saying there may now be 60,000 people in the Superdome and that more people are still being urged to go there.

...but they just said they're trying to evacuate it? I assume they're just doing their best to get people to one spot *for* evacuation but still.

(This all said, 3's concept is amusing the hell out of me.)

Jesus, I never even thought about this til now.

Meanwhile here's some stuff from nola.com's blog (this includes a few things I've already posted):

Users report that the area near West Jefferson Hospital is dry, as is the 1700 block of N. Turnbull and St. Edwards near Transcontinental.

Walnut Bend and the Algiers area is reported to be doing well, with clean water and gas service.

There are several reports that the Uptown area remains unflooded, particularly around Magazine and Jefferson and Mag. and Webster; Prytania and Napoleon. Similar reports re the Garden District.

Baronne Street downtown is dry.

Port Street in the Marigny was dry this morning.

Canal Blvd. around Harrison is underwater, but a user posts that the water does NOT seem to be rising at all, regardless of what the nat'l. media reports.

(Am glad that Adam and Rock are OK.)

I finally got through to my family down in south Louisiana today. They live just north of Baton Rouge, on high ground, and had no damage, other than fallen trees. But they have no power, and don't know when they'll get it back, so they're boiling in the late August heat and humidity. Still, my sister said they would never complain, given what people are suffering not too far away. She had little idea of what's happening, because their TVs don't work. It's probably just as well. I heard from a Louisiana National Guard source that there are bodies everywhere in the far south, but the authorities aren't publicizing this.

My sister said she and the rest of the family are anticipating opening up their front yard to refugees in tents. They want to do something, anything. She said the sense of powerlessness to help the afflicted that those who emerged unscathed feel is agonizing. I know that we are going to see in the next days and weeks the strong backs and stout hearts of the people of Louisiana made manifest in the relief effort. My great aunt Hilda Moss, who died when I was a boy, was a Red Cross worker when the 1927 flood devastated so much of the state. When they told her that a woman had no business going into the back country to bring relief, she disguised herself as a man, commandeered a boat, and brought help to stranded country people. That's the spirit of Louisiana that I know. It's driving me slightly crazy to be sitting here in an office in downtown Dallas instead of down there helping.

The inmates would be moved to state prisons including the highest-security at Angola. Corrections spokesman Pam LaBorde says it's quite a logistical situation to accomplish.

Richard Leland, who had traveled from his California home to experience a hurricane, admitted: "I got a little more than I had expected."

Remind me not to be next to this fucker when the big earthquake hits.

The senator's wife, Tricia, told him the news Monday night. She had rode out the storm in their house in Jackson.

But it's horrible to think of all of those places being destroyed or damaged. The Half Moon. Tipitina's. And of course, all the wonderful people down there.

My wife and I met each other face-to-face in New Orleans. One day, we drove all the way down LA 45 until it dead-ended at a refinery. To think that all of that may be gone now. It's horrible.

This is a horrible analogy, but forgive me, I'm producing a sports-talk show right now. Just like one sees more of a football game from the huddle than from the Goodyear blimp, I can only imagine the ungodly horrors that are taking place basically before our eyes everytime a helicopter's camera swoops over the devastation.

I admit I thought, "No tears for you, Senator Fuckface."

(I'm sure my motives for being interested in disasters are far worse than Ned's. I've always regretted that in November 1963 I turned off the TV and went out to play 15 minutes before Lee Harvey Oswald was shot. I could have seen it! And this last July I was telling people "I know some people who lost a friend in the London bombings." Of course, it affected me, to know London ILX was going through grief, but also it was like I was passing along gossip, as if to say "Look at me, I'm in the know, I'm connected to this thing" (from which I was actually very distant). It's human, I'm human. And there's a sense in which these Big Stories become a conversation piece and connection between a lot of us. I must say, I enjoyed ILX immensely in the weeks following 9-11.)

I think a few have gone around already. Fuckers.

And yeah, Don just posted on ILM, so that's cool.

Here's hoping Fetchboy gets the news and gets out -- again, he's in the best place to be comparatively speaking, but remember he's also keeping an eye on his grandpa.

Well, given the fact that there's 1.3 million people in the New Orleans metro area, and there's 2.6 million in the entire state of Mississippi, I'd say you're comparing apples and oranges. Of course they're going to give more coverage since it hit New Orleans: It has the capacity of being the biggest disaster since 9/11, if not having a death toll *exceeding* that. If it was going to hit Houston, and Houston happened to be poorly designed as well and the possibility of it flooding everything and killing the entire populace was there, you can bet your ass the non-destination of Houston would get just as much interest.

two illuminating articles:

When the levee breaks [from www.pnionline.com]

It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.

-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.

This picture is an aerial view of New Orleans today, more than 14 months later. Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city and the sun is out, the waters continue to rise in New Orleans as we write this. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until until it's level with the massive lake.

There have been numerous reports of bodies floating in the poorest neighborhoods of this poverty-plagued city, but the truth is that the death toll may not be known for days, because the conditions continue to frustrate rescue efforts.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. (Much of the research here is from Nexis, which is why some articles aren't linked.)

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:

The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.

The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.

"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest."

That June, with the 2004 hurricane seasion starting, the Corps' Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don’t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can’t stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn’t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can’t raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season, as you probably recall, was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane- and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs. According to New Orleans CityBusiness this June 5:

The district has identified $35 million in projects to build and improve levees, floodwalls and pumping stations in St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. Those projects are included in a Corps line item called Lake Pontchartrain, where funding is scheduled to be cut from $5.7 million this year to $2.9 million in 2006. Naomi said it's enough to pay salaries but little else.

"We'll do some design work. We'll design the contracts and get them ready to go if we get the money. But we don't have the money to put the work in the field, and that's the problem," Naomi said.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount.

But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach. The levee failure appears to be causing a human tragedy of epic proportions:

"We probably have 80 percent of our city under water; with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet. Both airports are underwater," Mayor Ray Nagin told a radio interviewer.

Washington knew that this day could come at any time, and it knew the things that needed to be done to protect the citizens of New Orleans. But in the tradition of the riverboat gambler, the Bush administration decided to roll the dice on its fool's errand in Iraq, and on a tax cut that mainly benefitted the rich.

And now Bush has lost that gamble, big time. We hope that Congress will investigate what went wrong here.

The president told us that we needed to fight in Iraq to save lives here at home, and yet -- after moving billions of domestic dollars to the Persian Gulf -- there are bodies floating through the streets of Louisana. What does George W. Bush have to say for himself now?

LA National Guard Wants Equipment to Come Back From Iraq

August 1, 2005, 9:07 PM CDT

JACKSON BARRACKS -- When members of the Louisiana National Guard left for Iraq in October, they took a lot equipment with them. Dozens of high water vehicles, humvees, refuelers and generators are now abroad, and in the event of a major natural disaster that, could be a problem.

"The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission," said Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider with the LA National Guard.

Col. Schneider says the state has enough equipment to get by, and if Louisiana were to get hit by a major hurricane, the neighboring states of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida have all agreed to help.

"As Governor Bush did for Ivan, after they were hit so many times, he just maxed all of his resources out, he reached out to Louisiana and we sent 200 national guardsmen to help support in recovery efforts," Col. Schneider said.

Members of the Houma-based 256th Infantry will be returning in October, but it could be much longer before the rest of their equipment comes home.

"You've got combatant commanders over there who need it they say they need it, they don't want to lose what they have, and we certainly understand that it's a matter it's a matter of us educating that combatant commander, we need it back here as well," Col. Schneider said.

And even if commanders in Iraq release the equipment, getting it home takes months.

"It's just the process of identifying which equipment we're bringing home, bringing it down to Kuwait, loading it on ships or aircraft however we're gonna get it back here and then either railing it in or trucking it in, so we're talking a significant amount of time before that equipment is back home," Schneider said.

Louisiana pleas for continued federal funding

As they try to assess the damage from Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana officials pleaded with the White House Tuesday to waive federal rules that would push a portion of the cleanup and recovery costs onto the state.

Calling the destruction “well beyond anything that has happened in our history,” the state’s congressional delegation asked President Bush to authorize the federal government to pick up all of the post-disaster bill.

Normally, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) pays 75 percent of the costs of debris removal and rescue efforts while state and local governments pay the rest. Frequently, FEMA will pay the whole tab for the first 72 hours.

The delegation asked that FEMA pick up 100 of the costs even beyond that, as was done in Florida last year after a series of hurricanes.

The request came as water continued to breach a major levee in New Orleans, pushing flood waters ever higher and prompting Gov. Kathleen Blanco to order an evacuation. New Orleans’ water pumping system has collapsed and much of the southeastern part of the city is under water.

“Louisiana sits at a perilous crossroads,” the nine-member delegation wrote. “This incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state. Without your direct intervention, we will not receive this much-needed assistance.”

There was no immediate response on the request from the Office of Management and Budget.

"We've been very fortunate that the loss of life in Alabama has been very, very minimal," said Jim Walker, the state's homeland security director.

Nevertheless, Walker characterized damage in the state as "extensive."

"We do have water in the streets, still, in Mobile. We have coastal roads that have been closed," he said. "We've got roads that are out. We've got a bridge that's out."

That bridge is the Cochrane-Africatown USA Bridge on U.S. 98 in Mobile, which is the detour route used for transporting hazardous materials not allowed in downtown tunnels on Interstate 10.

The bridge was closed Monday when an oil rig broke loose in the storm and jammed under it. Officials fear it could have damaged the structure. (Full story)

The closure will force trucks carrying hazardous materials to make a 70-mile detour, said Tony Harris, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Transportation.

The Bankhead tunnel, which takes U.S. 98 under the Mobile River, also was closed by water covering its entrances, Harris said.

The Interstate 10 tunnels in downtown Mobile were open, but only one lane in each direction was available because of pumping operations to keep the tunnels dry, according to the Alabama DOT. Pavement in the tunnels was wet, but there was no standing water.

I-10 was passable through Alabama, but only to the Mississippi state line, Harris said.

Aerial footage of Dauphin Island off the coast showed flooding, but most of the structures appeared to be mostly intact.

In the coastal town of Bayou La Batre a number of boats swept up by the storm were pushed deposited inland in wooded areas.

In a demonstration of Katrina's reach, more than 182,000 of the customers without power Tuesday were in the Birmingham area and another 132,000 were in and around Tuscaloosa, both more than 150 miles inland.

Alabama Power spokesman Bernie Fogarty warned customers they would be in for a "prolonged outage."

Of course, because no one in the North cared about Hurricane Hugo and it go no coverage whatsoever. And the only reason this storm (apart from the fact that it may be the most deadly since Galveston at the turn of the 20th century, of course) is getting interest is because its in a tourist location. Uh huh. Riiiight.

Tulane University

Current Status

August 30, 11:45 a.m.

Dear Tulane Faculty, Staff, Students and Friends:

As you all know by now, New Orleans and the surrounding parishes were severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The physical damage to the area, including Tulanes campuses, was extensive.

Unfortunately, conditions in the city continue to deteriorate, making it virtually impossible to begin recovery efforts. On a very positive note, in Tulanes case, we are very thankful that all of our people are safe, including all the students and staff who evacuated to Jackson, Mississippi.

We have started the process of assessing the condition of our campus facilities and determining how long it will take us to reopen. This assessment process will take days because many of the answers will be determined by how quickly the city and its services become operational. The situation is further complicated by the fact that! there is no power in the city, water levels continue to rise, all city roads are blocked, and the vast majority of our workforce had to leave the parish as part of the mandatory evacuation order. It is unclear at this time when people will be allowed to return to the city.

Given the uncertainties, we cannot determine at this time when employees and students should return to campus. We will do the best we can to keep you appraised of our situation and progress.

Also, I want to remind you that the universitys main website is not operating at this time and we do not know when we will be able to bring it back on-line. Due to this, the Tulane email system is not functioning. However, this website (emergency.tulane.edu ) will continue to have the most up-to-date information about university operations and the Tulane Alert Line at 1-877-862-8080 and 1-504-862-8080 will also have! the most current information available. These communication vehicles are the best source of information about Tulane since phone and cell service are unreliable.

I realize that you have many more questions than we have answers at this time. However, Im sure you understand the complexity and difficulty of the situation we face. Nonetheless, we are determined to move forward as quickly as possible and make Tulane University an even stronger and healthier institution. We have been in New Orleans for 171 years and we look forward to another century in this great city.

Scott S. Cowen

pat robertson and jerry falwell are southerners who said 9/11 was god's retribution for america's sin.

First footage of Slidell and Eden outside of New Orleans is coming in on WWL.

Eden by a miracle has been spared with only a rapidly receding 4 foot flood. Slidell... well, some of the footage looks Tsunami level. 20 foot surge from the lake quoted. The centre looks sort of intact if heavily flooded, but the lake fringe - about two blocks deep ... there doesn't seem to be anything left at all. Just debris. I pray enough evacuated.

"Been hit and been hit hard." - Slidell Police Chief. "Water lines torn loose... no communications, isolated from outside world... just local communications... concerned people with famalies may try to come back... can't supply basic needs of life. Many, many days until electricity restored... Need to get the message out that the emergency care workers have had no fatalities or injuries, to reassure the famalies." --- (Paraphrased) "As to city fatalities, we don't know. But seemingly no major fatalaties as of yet."

xpost right stence but you and jody don't jump up to blast anyone who suggests pat robertson and jerry falwell might be assholes.

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050830/capt.capm10208301856.bush__capm102.jpg

I attribute this more to stupidity than apathy, for what it's worth.

i'll admit that i feel lucky to be in a city where "acts of god" like this are rare if not nonexistent, but we're still a big-league target for terrorism obv.

What part of the Southern Shoreboard is "rural"? This is a stupid fucking argument. You can't go across any section of shoreline in the US without bumping into a city or vacation destination.

anyway new york is just as susceptible to hurricanes (see: 1820s) so laugh away when it happens here, just don't expect me to not call you an asshole then, too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/05/americas_katrina_hits_us/img/8.jpg

look. just please stop it with your "northerners drive like this" shtick. your attitude is exactly as smug as the attitude you're criticizing.

we have red states, you have blue states, we have centers of conservatism and fundamentalist religion, you have "liberal" tourist meccas. we even have uneducated poor people and some of them aren't even white!!

This is pretty much exactly where I live (Mag and State, a block from Webster) and very close to where Kyle/Fetchboy indicated he would be staying. So that's a slight silver lining for the shit-covered stormcloud of today.

i am disgusted by both of those "commentators," and i am disgusted when people do it on the left to those in the south. WHERE DID I SAY FUCKING OTHERWISE YOU FUCKING MORON?

sorry if i don't find one of the best cities in america underwater, some of the poorer parts of america devestated, and god knows how many people dead 'hilarious' or 'justified' because some of their elected officials are republican. i'm an asshole that way.

HELLO YOU DUMBSHIT WHERE DO YOU THINK MY FAMILY'S FROM??!??!? WHERE DO YOU THINK MY GRANDFATHER'S BURIED??!?!?

No. New England (or really anyplace about Virginia) doesn't get many hurricanes compared with the south and Gulf Coast..

However, they do show up on occasion.

i'm getting really sick of these talking heads lambasting people who didn't evacuate.

The issue is the water, from what I understand. Hurricanes form in the South Atlantic, starting off the shores of Africa and moving west, until eventually forming and then generally gunning into the Carribbean. Cyclones almost never form in the North Atlantic, due to the cold temperature of the water, and those that do hit the northeast are storms that typically tiptoe up the coastline, pushed back by the prevailing winds and fronts (which also typically makes them fairly weak hurricanes, in comparison to the Category 4s and 5s that land in the Southeast and Gulf).

who else is watching this snake guy on cnn?

Andrew?

parts of the northeast are susceptible to big storms -- the eastern end of long island usually gets battered pretty hard, and so does the jersey shore. not as extreme as the southeast, but there is a lot of flood damage, felled trees, etc. many of those towns (esp. in jersey) are working-class beach communities with the same flimsy-houses-on-stilts that you see in the south.

i was worried about that. using sandbags to close a 200-foot hole in a flooding levee seems like a herculean job.

In 1955 Diane, even though it was down to a category 1, dumped so much rain that it caused extreme damage in Connecticut. Among other things, it washed away the new top soil in the yard in front of the house my parents had just had built. So forever after we had scrawny, scraggly grass compared to our neighbors. We'd lament this every now and then, but mainly didn't take the lawn all that seriously.

But yeah, the Caribbean and gulf get the brunt of the hurricanes. For some reason, Florida hadn't been hit for something like 30 years before Andrew. Now it seems to get hit once a month during the season.

We've all read how the water would naturally drain into the bayous if the levees weren't there, etc

To put it another way: if you're in a space ship, and there's a hole causing all the air to be sucked out, you don't try to make a bigger hole to make the vaccum stop from sucking out everything. Your only option is to try and plug the hole.

(BTW, its now being said that the flooding shouldn't be 12-15 ft, but more like 9. still pretty bad.)

Hi Brendan, I only have a moment must
get to a meeting, but wanted to post summary of Governor and Army Corps news conference from my perspective but dont have time to see if you have covered this yet.

They are planning to try to close the largest breach in the levee with whatever measures will be effective over the long run, Army Corps is thinking of using large shipping containers filled with sand, and or large sand bags, they will be brining in large cranes, barges, air asssets,
and manpower, and should be at it by tomorrow. The largest breach is 300 ft plus and there is a smaller one as well.

The water has been rising all day, early AM it ws knee deep at the KatrinaDome, by afternoon it was thigh deep. They are contemplating, planning to see about evacuating all the 25,000 to 30,000 (count according to a registered nurse in the Dome @ mid day)
somewhere else for now they are brining in all the people they rescue to the Dome.

They say that the entire city will have to be evauced, but the biggest challenge according to the FEMA Head of staff on scene is that there is little or no dry land to move them to in the city. They will see about building tent cities, temp housing, bringing in dormatory barges, and locateing them in the neightborhoods peopel are from as much as possible so that they can attend school, church etc. He said they will have to "recreate" New Orleans.
He , the Army Corp head said that they have the authorization or will get the authroization to do whatever needs to be done.

The double long bridge to Slidelle is totally broken in countless places, I counted over a hundred breaks or missing sections, the briges were built in sections and many of them are tilted, or just gone, missing, from both spans, though there are intact lengths, quite long, so neither is complete at this point. There is at least one car stuck out on the span.

There is NO power in the city, and no operating sewers, and growing looting and loss of order. Most of the city, up to 80% is under differeing depths of water, but according to some reports the flow is slowing. There are thousands who need rescuing, but the authorities will concentrate on the life threatening situations, and on brining in supplies to feed and water these people in the city before trying to organize evac.

The Dome is getting tough, at least one hospital is evacing its cases to the dome, Tulane is evacing as they will lose even their temp generators soon.
The dome cannot be cooled with the temp generators they have and they will lose them soon to water rising.

There are fires buring several commercial structures that I observed and a large fire in the distance possibly at the oil facilities. The police and presumably fire units cannot navigate the streets due to water, and the fire units planned to station their units on the elevated freeway sections in the event the water rose as it is.

The Governor sounds pretty stable considering the pressures and the stress, she is determined to rebuild and to save all that can be saved. The Army Corp staff and FEMA both sound excellent and well organized, The National Guard is still 50% in the USA, and they say they have the assets they need for now, some of the neighboring states are sending help from their guaards. There is general shock among the people I sense, including the news media and I appologize for being so hard on them in past posts, they are unprepared for such catastrophic conditions and are doing the best they can. Everyone involved should get traumtaic stress support asap, especially the Governor and the high staff. There are many airlifts underway, I saw Coast Guard and Army units, and this is working well it appears, but what will be done with many of these people? There will be a great many.

The rest of the coast I did not have time to get much imput on but I sense that it may be even worse, but unreachable, many parts of it were totally wiped out, I saw one fly over that showed total devastation, just foundations and rubble to the East.

In general I think finally the scope of the disaster is getting through to the top leaders and to some of the people, thoiugh many will still be in shock. Keep up the news sharing, you are doing great. I will check back soon.

haha that's still a few feet taller than most people.

a second one, or the same one that was reported this morning?

This type of thing is what made me wonder about blowing out the levees sooner rather than later.

if anyone knows, is there still water flowing into the french quarter? what's the water level there now?

http://www.foxnews.com/images/175841/10_1_083005_katrina_stormsurge3.jpg

When the levee breaks...

You are not alone.

This is nothing compared to most people's connections to the area, but I can mentally connect some of the pictures I'm seeing to sites I've been to on my summer road trip from spring 2002...(this is literally the day after I stayed at 3's place in Athens)... I distinctly remember being on that bridge in Mobile where the oil rig crashed into, for example.

it will take a long time, if the communities hit by ivan last year are any indication.

I think that's the way nature wanted it all along. Lake Pontchartrain is getting its way.

Although, while we all know better, there shouldn't be any finality re: sentiments relating to the city of New Orleans itself. This tragedy is unprecedented no doubt.. this is not unlike what happened in Anchorage in 1964 (The 9.0 Prince William Sound earthquake that pretty much devastated the city, even though the quake itself was relatively far away.).. but Anchorage is alive today. New Orleans is hangin' on and will remain alive.

This scientist says global warming has nothing to do with it. Der Spiegel says Katrina is emblematic of future environmental catastrophes.

Conclusion: expect this to be politicized in the following weeks and months.

Conclusion 2: this might be worthy of a separate thread.

Explain how this is unprecedented?

I mean, I've been through really mean earthquakes in L.A., but none of them ever "destroyed" L.A.

(Not to discount the large number of very small cities that get smashed by tornadoes every year.. )

(And, duh, not to discount the tsunami from half a year ago, which still dwarfs Katrina's aftermath.. as painful as it looks right now.)

Not that I want to turn this into a pet issue or anything, but it seems so obvious to me. Hurricane season is FUCKING BRUTAL every year now.
Incidentally, the Central Pacific Hurricane Season will actually be below average this year. Only two or three storms are projected to form there.

Well, it's pretty unprecedented for New Orleans, for starters.

Well, it's not Babylon. It takes a lot to kill a city. But it's fucking devastated, that's all I'm saying.

My God, who does? Who wants their friends and loved ones, or ANYONE'S friends and loved ones, to be fucking weather refugees? Or worse?

which is why the "our tsunami" rhetoric bugs me -- what, are we ENVIOUS of their disaster? do we need to reappropriate it so we can turn the sympathy we extended to them back upon ourselves? i mean, i realize this is a major catastrophe, but people were saying "our tsunami" before anything even happened.

I can't get either right now, though really I'm not too surprised...

also, how long before the early statements of "Oh don't worry; we've got ALL the National Guard we need" are visibly disproven?

Conclusion: expect this to be politicized in the following weeks and months.

...and will come up during next year's election cycle, when people start pointing figures about slashed funding, lack of troops, etc

i say it with wuv. i do think your unrepentant anglophilia is a little quirky, but hey, so is madonna's.

I was in for a while, but cut it off. You're not missing anything major. It's a bunch of clueless local newscasters. The one woman who kept pointing to a barbecue she saw as evidence of the local spirit, again and again, despite protests that that they were only doing it to get their food warm for a change... she pissed me off.

haha

they'll get funding coming out of their eyeballs. this'll be an opportunity for bush et al to prove how much they care about WHAT'S GOING ON RIGHT HERE AT HOME (tm).

Also, to cook up as much stuff from the freezer before it goes bad, probably.

i know. i was saying before that they remind me of those swinging cages on coney island's wonder wheel.

also, how long does a hurricane last? how long will it be before these people can return to their homes (what's left of them anyways)?

That was pointed out, too. But no, it's spirit! Talking point! She wants to work for Fox someday.

LOOTERZ GETS BEER

(Quick note, Gem -- these questions at least were answered with various links up above, so scan through before asking! )

luck of the draw, but like I said, don't bother. No insight there, no breaking news. Buncha local news morons throwing around big hunks of obviousness.

Jimmy Mod, didn't you see the invisible capo on the first fret of teh Prez's guitar?

I did!

Climate Instability + Current Political Situation = Ruin

it's estimated that 1.3 million people live in the new orleans metropolitan area. only 2.6 million people live in all of mississippi, which includes areas not damaged by katrina.

what is a realistic estimate of people who are now homeless?

i don't know if there has been a realistic estimate at this point, across louisiana, mississippi and alabama.

also, how long does a hurricane last?

depends. katrina's dissipated from hurricane strength by this point. the flooding's the bigger issue now.

how long will it be before these people can return to their homes (what's left of them anyways)?

depends. for some it may be months.

Jimmy Mod, didn't you see the invisible capo on the first fret of teh Prez's guitar?

It's in the key of 'F'...

"There's a war that needs to be fought and won in America first. The war against nature."

Gem, it's being said that at least 1,000,000 might be homeless.

Do you realize that two of the "newscasters" were unashamedly wearing trucker caps? I don't want to seem classist or give any lack of sympathy to anyone, but please, these are not anchormen. Stop looking to Louisiana newscasters for information. Even now.

erm, i did 'scan' through - most reports seem to conflict on some of those issues and i haven't seen anything on population. i thought this was the thread to ask such questions. guess not, sorry.

Shit is *really* gonna fly:

8:04 P.M. - Mayor Nagin: Unhappy that the helicopters slated to drop 3,000-pound bags into the levee never showed up to stop the flow of water. Too many chiefs calling shots he says.
7:59 P.M. - Mayor Nagin: Pumps at 17th street canal has failed and water will continue pouring into the city. Nine feet of water is expected on St. Charles Avenue that will be nine feet high. Water is expected to spread throughout the east bank of Orleans and possibly Jefferson Parish.

This afternoon I reached Phil Frasier of the Rebirth Brass Band at his hotel room in Atlanta, where he has fled with his family from his home in the flooded Gentilly area of New Orleans. Three members of the band are still in the city, and Frasier hasn't reached them yet. He says the group still plans on keeping its September 10 date at the Cabooze in Minneapolis, though you might not want to hold your breath. As I speak to him, he has the news on in the background.

Any news about the Treme [neighborhood, reputed birthplace of jazz]?

Last I heard it was underwater. We've always lived in the Treme, but we all moved out of the Treme [in recent years], you know.

Before all this, your [soon-to-be] wife was organizing the Soulja Slim Hip-Hop Festival. Could you tell me about that?

The stuff that she was doing, it was called the Silence the Violence Festival. It was in honor of our son, who was the victim of a crime, he was murdered three years ago. What she was doing was trying to do something positive by putting on that festival, to help our kids, and maybe if she could reach out to someone, so that nobody else would fall victim, or to tell them that them that that's not the way to go. We were going to give out school supplies, bring a bunch of bands, and get guest speakers.

Seems like New Orleans will need more than a benefit now. Are you thinking of doing something like that?

Yeah. Soon as I regroup with my band, we'll put everything on the table and decide where we'll go from here.

I've been hearing for years about how the levees need to be looked at. Is anybody down there angry about this?

Oh, yeah. Including myself. I mean, they knowed the storms was coming, and the levees were built back in the '60s and '70s. I guess they were just putting the money in other places. But they should have put the money to save the city, save the people.

An uprising at Orleans Parish Prison and widespread looting contributed to a deteriorating situation in Louisiana's largest city Tuesday in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina Tuesday, according to witnesses and second-hand accounts from evacuees.

The problem is being compounded, officials said, by a breakdown in the ability of public agencies to communicate with one another, said New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas.

Thomas said he confirmed with New Orleans police that an uprising - and possible “hostage situation” - took place at the parish prison sometime late Monday or early Tuesday. Details were sketchy, but Thomas believes the uprising took place when prisoners were being evacuated in the storm's aftermath.

It's not clear how many prisoners were involved, or how many hostages were taken, as Thomas said he has been unable to contact police since evacuating to Baton Rouge on Tuesday. Cell phones are not working.

“The most frustrating thing about this whole thing has been communication,” Thomas said. “We have to devise a better system.”

Thomas said one report he received had a deputy being held hostage with his four children. Thomas said he was trying to verify the situation Tuesday evening.

He said looting has also escalated and an atmosphere of lawlessness has developed as police resources have been almost entirely devoted to search-and-rescue operations for people trapped by floodwaters on roofs and in attics. “Widespread looting is taking place in all parts of the city” - from uptown and Canal Street to areas around the housing projects, Thomas said.

“People are going in and out of businesses at Louisiana and Claiborne (avenues), taking clothes, tennis shoes and goods,” Thomas said. “It is inconceivable to me how people can do this.”

“People are leaving the Superdome to go to Canal Street to loot,” Thomas said. “Some people broke into drug stores and stole the drugs off the shelves. It is looting times five. I'm telling you, it's like Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Yeah, they're wearing trucker caps...probably because that's all that's around, and they haven't showered. That broadcast is from the building with the tower in the city, and they didn't evacuate (yet). Look around: the sign is taped to the door, and you can see a light switch behind them.

There's also a story I just read talking about the looting. Apparently, cops have been assisting and looting themselves (big shock there, especially in New Orleans, the most crooked cops in America), hauling away TVs in their cruisers and smashing jewelry cases so that no one cuts themselves trying to get in.

I did!

Thank you for your arguments, presentation of facts and reports, and your sustenance of this thread. I have needed a place to deal with this today, and you all have provided it.

This scares me so much, even though I haven't been there in two years. I guess its been a couple of years since I've felt real, hard loss.

We still cannot get people into the affected areas, so most production is remaining shut-in. Several platforms were left running on timers which will or have expired, allowing them to shut-in. There is no available phone service or power in the coastal areas east of ICY. Most generator systems will need to be purged and the fuel checked for water before even emergency power can be started. Mobil phone service is very patchy at best, and the landlines into Lafayette are overworked - please keep your communications at a minimum until further notice. Phones are non-existent from the Atchafalaya Basin eastward.
We will continue to try and get fueling stations up and running to allow us to field helicopters, but right now everything must be flown out of ICY or westward, and the standard fuel depots are not running or no longer in existence. We are extremely limited in the areas we can survey until fuel depots and heliports are up and running again.

From a helo pilot:

I just heard from our flight, which we sent to Venice and Fourchon for a look. There is a single building standing in Venice. The fuel tank is nearby but floating, along with huge amounts of debris from everywhere. All the nearby docks, boats and barges appear destroyed. There is lots of water inside the levees and destruction everywhere you look.

Fourchon looks OK at first glance. The roads even APPEAR POSSIBLY passable. The airport at Golden Meadow looks OK but no-one was around and there was no electricity. I know for a fact they have generators so we may be able to get fuel there later in the day. If our base fuel tank survived and the fuel is not contaminated, we have extra generators and will be trying to get that fuel system going. If Fourchon survived the fuel system on platform X might have as well.

Flight following will be a big problem. I will probably launch a small helo to orbit near GM to relay flight plans. Just for information, the Sikorsky that was abandoned at our base just before the storm hit is floating upside down on our heliport.

Damn....uhh...I dunno. Follow the blog then and NOLA.com. But I'm sure you're doing that already.

is this still true? i know that there was a major crackdown on police corruption about a decade ago, and a complete top-to-bottom restructuring of the police department. have the changes stuck at all?

The Craigslist postings didn't improve my mood much.

As far as I know, yes. They're still the lowest paid in the nation.

http://www.nola.com/cgi-bin/prxy/photogalleries/nph-cache.cgi/cache=3000;/nola/images/3684/2075007.jpg

Just got a firsthand account that the water is creeping up Napoleon Ave. A friend who lives at Baronne and Marengo confirmed that the water is just starting to come up Marengo St. towards St. Charles. Four of them there are leaving town as I write this. After reports that downtown has devolved into complete and total anarchy, I am fearing for their safety at the hands of mercenary carjackers trying to get out of town. Fortunately my friends are armed.

i've heard that rookie cops make something like $13,000 a year. that's even less than the average entry-level starting salary in tucson (another very poor city -- jobs that would easily net $35k/yr in new york were netting about $18k).

Not politicize this? Fuck that shit. Someone is to blame. There is hell to pay.

i'll repost what chris posted on the other thread: the washington post article by the director of the king county, washington dept. of emergency management.

Destroying FEMA
By Eric Holdeman
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; A17

SEATTLE -- In the days to come, as the nation and the people along the Gulf Coast work to cope with the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we will be reminded anew, how important it is to have a federal agency capable of dealing with natural catastrophes of this sort. This is an immense human tragedy, one that will work hardship on millions of people. It is beyond the capabilities of state and local government to deal with. It requires a national response.

Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why, at this moment, the country's premier agency for dealing with such events -- FEMA -- is being, in effect, systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security.

Apparently homeland security now consists almost entirely of protection against terrorist acts. How else to explain why the Federal Emergency Management Agency will no longer be responsible for disaster preparedness? Given our country's long record of natural disasters, how much sense does this make?

What follows is an obituary for what was once considered the preeminent example of a federal agency doing good for the American public in times of trouble, such as the present.

FEMA was born in 1979, the offspring of a number of federal agencies that had been functioning in an independent and uncoordinated manner to protect the country against natural disasters and nuclear holocaust. In its early years FEMA grew and matured, with formal programs being developed to respond to large-scale disasters and with extensive planning for what is called "continuity of government."

The creation of the federal agency encouraged states, counties and cities to convert from their civil defense organizations and also to establish emergency management agencies to do the requisite planning for disasters. Over time, a philosophy of "all-hazards disaster preparedness" was developed that sought to conserve resources by producing single plans that were applicable to many types of events.

But it was Hurricane Andrew, which hit Florida in 1992, that really energized FEMA. The year after that catastrophic storm, President Bill Clinton appointed James Lee Witt to be director of the agency. Witt was the first professional emergency manager to run the agency. Showing a serious regard for the cost of natural disasters in both economic impact and lives lost or disrupted, Witt reoriented FEMA from civil defense preparations to a focus on natural disaster preparedness and disaster mitigation. In an effort to reduce the repeated loss of property and lives every time a disaster struck, he started a disaster mitigation effort called "Project Impact." FEMA was elevated to a Cabinet-level agency, in recognition of its important responsibilities coordinating efforts across departmental and governmental lines.

Witt fought for federal funding to support the new program. At its height, only $20 million was allocated to the national effort, but it worked wonders. One of the best examples of the impact the program had here in the central Puget Sound area and in western Washington state was in protecting people at the time of the Nisqually earthquake on Feb. 28, 2001. Homes had been retrofitted for earthquakes and schools were protected from high-impact structural hazards. Those involved with Project Impact thought it ironic that the day of that quake was also the day that the then-new president chose to announce that Project Impact would be discontinued.

Indeed, the advent of the Bush administration in January 2001 signaled the beginning of the end for FEMA. The newly appointed leadership of the agency showed little interest in its work or in the missions pursued by the departed Witt. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Soon FEMA was being absorbed into the "homeland security borg."

This year it was announced that FEMA is to "officially" lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.

FEMA will be survived by state and local emergency management offices, which are confused about how they fit into the national picture. That's because the focus of the national effort remains terrorism, even if the Department of Homeland Security still talks about "all-hazards preparedness." Those of us in the business of dealing with emergencies find ourselves with no national leadership and no mentors. We are being forced to fend for ourselves, making do with the "homeland security" mission. Our "all-hazards" approaches have been decimated by the administration's preoccupation with terrorism.

To be sure, America may well be hit by another major terrorist attack, and we must be prepared for such an event. But I can guarantee you that hurricanes like the one that ripped into Louisiana and Mississippi yesterday, along with tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, floods, windstorms, mudslides, power outages, fires and perhaps a pandemic flu will have to be dealt with on a weekly and daily basis throughout this country. They are coming for sure, sooner or later, even as we are, to an unconscionable degree, weakening our ability to respond to them.

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050830/capt.capm10208301856.bush__capm102.jpg

What can they do? There's no airports available. The ports are all a mess. The roads are in pieces.

>Why are there hundreds or thousands of people just walking the highways with no other way to evacuate and nowhere to go? <

Some are poor. Some people's cars are ruined. Some never had them to begin with. Even if there were cars or buses or whatever, they may not be able to make it through the roads.

>Why can't vehicles be sent in to transport them somewhere?<

See above.

>Why aren't there more makeshift shelters in non-affected areas (or are there?) <

I'm sure there's tons of shelters. But they're just that. Shelters. They're already beginning on building refugee camps in Texas for the million or so displaced in Louisiana alone. There's simply not that many places to go.

>And why wasn't there a better evacuation plan in place to begin with
with all our homeland security-preparedness at whatnot? <

Evacuation orders were given with what, Sunday evening? If you waited till then to get out, well, it was only about 15 hours until the hurricane hit. For 1.3 million people. On only a couple freeways. There's just not going to be any easy way to get that many people out of one area to, say, 60 miles away. Its impossible to come up with one.

>And do we really not have enough troops to go in because of Iraq or is that not true.<

Not true. Pretty much every state in the Southeast, and soon enough, the US, is sending troops in. There will be more than enough.

Obviously, there's all sorts of issues, like how the levee upgrades were being managed. But almost anything like that isn't pushed ahead sans political gridlock and BS in this country unless people see bodies. I'm sure it will be convienent to blame George Bush for all this, and I'm no great fan of him, but this has always, always been an issue in New Orleans. Now, then, 10 years ago, 100 years ago, etc.

Will it? How? How is blaming anyone for this convenient?

Well, look already. People are posting pictures of him playing guitar. Do I think that was a smart photo op to take? Hell no. Is there a whole lot that George Bush can do at this point to fix issues in New Orleans? No. Is it solely the fault of George Bush that the levees weren't improved to the point where they were flood and hurricane proof (and who knows if the new levees even would be?)? No. So what's the point in blaming him solely (after all, where's the pictures of Louisiana's governor?) for what's happening? Well, you tell me.

nice to see people are reaching out and offering to let total strangers into their home:

http://photos24.flickr.com/38773217_1c7c38d560_o.jpg

Big Guitar
No, but I saw it on TV. My wife said it was the Hard Rock Casino in Gulfport. Most of the stuff they show, she seems to be able to identify from memory.

this is the guy who cut short a vacation to go sign a fucking useless terri schaivo related bill. made a rather large show of it. one person. already essentially dead. what is he or his advisors thinking to do that today? no blame for a hurricane hitting a city built below sea level, but c'mon... utterly moronic.

xposts

OK.

No.

http://photos32.flickr.com/38736100_688097b767_o.jpg

Again, its a stupid thing to do not to be in Washington or New Orleans. I entirely agree. He should at least look like he's doing something, rather than all of us watching WWL see the anchors and officials there say "gee, I hope the President comes soon". That's not the point. We're already discussing whether or not its the result of global warming, which, while perhaps there are climate changes that make hurricanes more likely now (though no one actually knows one way or the other), really doesn't matter because there's been hurricanes as long as time itself has been recorded.

What the hell? How could that possibly still be upright and in one piece?

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. (Much of the research here is from Nexis, which is why some articles aren't linked.)

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:

The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.

The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.

"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest."

That June, with the 2004 hurricane seasion starting, the Corps' Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don’t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can’t stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn’t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can’t raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season, as you probably recall, was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane- and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs. According to New Orleans CityBusiness this June 5:

The district has identified $35 million in projects to build and improve levees, floodwalls and pumping stations in St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. Those projects are included in a Corps line item called Lake Pontchartrain, where funding is scheduled to be cut from $5.7 million this year to $2.9 million in 2006. Naomi said it's enough to pay salaries but little else.

"We'll do some design work. We'll design the contracts and get them ready to go if we get the money. But we don't have the money to put the work in the field, and that's the problem," Naomi said.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount.

But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach. The levee failure appears to be causing a human tragedy of epic proportions:

"We probably have 80 percent of our city under water; with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet. Both airports are underwater," Mayor Ray Nagin told a radio interviewer.

i am not as well-versed as i'd like to be in the biohistory of the basin but i'd imagine that it's a problem that's existed as long as the army corps of engineers, morelike.

Louisiana could have tried to raise the money itself, but instead argued with the government over funding until it was too late.

SELA was a government program that, voila, became an under-funded mandate (like many programs during the bush administration). nor do i think it is necessarily "fair" to claim that louisiana should carry the burden alone considering the federal government as far as i can tell, thru the corps of engineers, was responsible for maintaining the canal and pump system.

Hell, the work could have been done a decade or more ago; everyone was aware of the problem then, and nothing was done.

SELA was started 10 years ago. something was done.

The only thing it proves is that politicians will argue as the world falls apart around them, and probably afterwards too.

not quite what i'm inferring but to each his own.

xpost - alan there's a topicality and urgency that was present to it after recent hurricane seasons, even drudge had a 'nola endangered' hed that he's trumping now, and despite this bush still ignored reality, still cut funding, still persisted in his attempts to dismantle fema, still continued chipping away at this country's readiness and security. his fuckups here are merely a small part of a much larger pattern.

But they chose to spend their money elsewhere as well. Who built the Superdome? There's some sense of self responsibility as well here, seeing as they live there.

>SELA was started 10 years ago. something was done.<

"started". So no one realized until 1995 that maybe, just maybe, a big city filled with people all under the sea level that existed solely because there were pumps and levees might be in trouble in case it has a hurricane?

Well, Mr. Smugly, I couldn't find any pictures of her playing a guitar.

And it's good to see those kind of Craigslistings. The only ones I saw were the NIGGERS QUIT LOOTING messages.

the superdome is much older than SELA.

"started". So no one realized until 1995 that maybe, just maybe, a big city filled with people all under the sea level that existed solely because there were pumps and levees might be in trouble in case it has a hurricane?

they realized it for sure, try READING my post next time: In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts.

But this part of it is all bullshit. I didn't vote for the man, I have no love for him, etc, but its BS. Its people trying desperately to find any possible failing the man had to drag him through the mud with. You've basically got a state who didn't want to fund the program, the federal government who was but also didn't want to, and they argued for the last couple years over who should until it was to late. People just want to villify George as the villian because its convienent to them. Take that article: " even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically"...well, it had. Over a two year period. That's not much to look at realistically, but if you write it a certain way, it makes it look like it was blatantly obvious to anyone that 2005 was a surefire busy year for hurricanes.

also, this from Marketwatch:
While most storms have only a regional impact, Katrina could be the rare beast that has national or even international consequences.

"There is a real sense of foreboding about the economy now that Katrina has struck with full force," said Bernard Baumohl, executive director of Economic Outlook Group. "The Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf region represent the soft underbelly of the U.S. energy industry."

Katrina took aim at a vulnerable chokepoint for U.S. energy markets. The region not only produces a large percentage of domestic oil and gas, it is also a transportation hub for both imported and domestic production.

And much of the petroleum that Americans use is refined at facilities along the ravaged Gulf coast.

Less supply of energy means less production and consumption.

In addition, New Orleans and other Gulf ports handle $150 billion in cargo each year, accounting for about a fifth of U.S. imports and exports. The cities hardest hit account for about 7% of U.S. trade.

Major exports include grain, poultry, paper, rice and chemicals. Major imports, aside from petroleum, include steel, rubber, plywood and coffee.

The magnitude of the storm's destructive swath is only gradually becoming clear. A complete assessment of the damage to the region's economy could take months or even years, said John Norris, chief economist for Morgan Trust Management.

Even in the best-case scenario, production of crude petroleum, natural gas and refined gasoline are likely to be severely stunted for at least several weeks as Gulf production and refineries go back on line.

Last year, Hurricane Ivan, which tracked further east than Katrina, knocked out about 10% of U.S. energy production for about four months.

About 22% of Gulf oil and 5% of Gulf natural gas production can be expected to be disrupted for more than a month from Katrina, according to a Kinetic Analysis Corp., which has developed a computer model for hurricane assessment. About a quarter of all U.S. domestic oil and gas is produced in the Gulf.

About 50% of oil and 28% of gas production in the Gulf can be expected to be disrupted for 10 to 30 days, the company said.

The storm likely caused $24.3 billion in damages, said Chuck Watson, director of research for Kinetic Analysis. If the breaks in the levees in New Orleans are not repaired within the next six hours or so, damages would increase by $8 billion to $10 billion, he said.

Just before the storm hit, Kinetic Analysis was estimating the storm could cost $50 billion, but the storm weakened slightly and shifted to the east.

If disruptions in Gulf energy supplies are limited, retail gasoline prices could top $3 a gallon for a couple of months, said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for Global Insight. High energy prices would likely cut consumption and knock 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points off U.S. gross domestic product.

"We are not at the worst-case scenario," Behravesh told MarketWatch. "But we are moving in that direction" as companies assess the damage to their facilities.

In a worst-case scenario, the storm could shut down deliveries of as much as 25% of U.S. energy needs for several months.

In that case, gasoline prices would average $3.50 a gallon for the next four to six months, Behravesh said, cutting U.S. growth to zero in the fourth quarter.

You're missing my point. Its not as if they can't come up with funding for public works projects in some way. They just chose to spend it elsewhere and depend on the federal government instead. When the federal government decided not to spend the money, the Louisiana state government decided to fight about it (big shock, given the disinterest in federal highway funds all those years).

>they realized it for sure, try READING my post next time: In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts.<

So then why wasn't more done from a state level? Oh, that's right, they were too busy fighting with the federal government over funding. Now we get to watch the blame game. Well, here's where the blame should go: all the leaders in Louisiana state and pretty much everyone in Congress or the Presidency over that time who decided to put off building the necessary levees until the last decade.

ok so since 1995 is much later than 1695 when the first frenchman put his boot in the swamp (or whenever), everything is just too late anyway?

incidentally, how many mayors survive the loss of a sports team? i mean yeah stadiums are profiligacy defined but you know damn well the political pressures surrounding them, in any city; that money is always "better" spent.

but fuck it, this "well they were below sea level, and right on the coast!" is a fucking nasty look-what-she-was-wearing argument. the city had been saying for YEARS "we're vulnerable down here, send $$" and now that hell and highwater have come, the realists reply with "well look how vulnerable you were"

well let's imagine how well life would work if no one, anywhere was permitted to live w/in 100 miles of a coastline, 75 miles of a major faultline, 50 miles of a major river, or in any region affected by seasonal violent meteorology... they're just asking for it otherwise! isn't that the logical extension of that argument?

Is that any different than saying "Lets point fingers just to point fingers"? I mean, Bush is as much at fault as any other president over the last 50 years, as much as any US Congress, as much as his advisors who probably told him that they could cut funding there, as much as the various people in Louisiana's government who passed on finishing the projects and left it up to the federal government to take care of at some time far in the future, etc. Its a huge, horrible tragedy, and its fallacy to put it in the lap of any one man, no matter how unliked.

So therefore, its okay for states to ignore issues within themselves and demand federal dollars, even as they spend state funds on less urgent needs (eg, football stadiums)? The Saints, btw, never would have left: they were an expansion team. New Orleans did lose the Jazz, however, to Utah after being financially unsuccessful.

talking about it now is probably a bit useless and ugly while people are still swimming to safety, so I apologize for reposting the picture (though it is seriously going down in history next to 'my pet goat').

my thoughts are utterly with New Orleans right now, though I can't pretend I can even begin to imagine what it must be like there. I've heard from my friends at Tulane, they're all safe, just dazed and wondering what happens next.

xpost alan the saints are frequently mentioned as a team likely to move already with the superdome. considering how much of nola industry is tied into the tourist dollar and how much that status is due to the sugar bowl and 'the super bowl should be in new orleans every year' cw i'm not sure the superdome isn't the rare case of a stadium being slightly justified under the usual 'good for business' logic.

Its because A) The Superdome is old B) The Saints aren't all that profitable. Its a small population base for a NFL city, and a poor one at that.

>considering how much of nola industry is tied into the tourist dollar and how much that status is due to the sugar bowl and 'the super bowl should be in new orleans every year' cw i'm not sure the superdome isn't the rare case of a stadium being slightly justified under the usual 'good for business' logic.<

Well, the Superbowl being around for a week every 5 years or so is tough justification for it, given the costs involved. I'm sure the Kingdome in Seattle did its fair share of business...but it was mired in debt when imploded. Olympic Stadium in Montreal is much the same. Besides, I don't know that the Super Bowl being in New Orleans every few years some how made New Orleans more of a tourist destination. I'd love to see the numbers on it, but I can't imagine so.

"Oh, Katrina, tra-la-la" (etc.)

look not to be pedantic but the point is it's essential to everyone that someone live and work in places where shit like this happens. rivers, coastlines, and alluvial plains are the bases of civilization; i really can't listen to a general tone (not that anyone has really struck it very hard if at all here) of argument that these places are somehow frivolous.

No one's saying that its frivolous. There's just a general question of blame over what occurred right now that people are beginning to have. Sure, there are coastlines and places next to faults and so on...but New Orleans had a set of circumstances that was special that makes it especially vulnerable; more so than other cities. St. Louis may be near the Mississippi River, but it would take a catastrophe beyond the realms of what we know in weather to cause this kind of devastation to its metro area. Its near miraculous this didn't happen in 1992 or 1995 or 1998 or 2001.

xpost - o yeah i definitely wasn't disagreeing with geoff, i was just curious how many cities aren't 'asking for it' by the argument floating around (i could even imagine scenarios where atlanta ('it's hot! the entire city was doomed to dehydrate eventually!') or boise ('it's cold! they were doomed to freeze to death eventually! plus that blue astroturf - they were asking for it!') or even denver ('that thin air! and coors promoting incest! they were doomed to have three legged babies eventually!').

BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Kathleen Blanco called for an
evacuation of the 20,000 storm refugees from the
Superdome after she visited the hurricane-damaged
stadium Tuesday evening for the second time of the
day.

She set no timetable for the withdrawal but insisted
that the facility was damaged, degrading and no longer
able to support the local citizens who had sought
refuge in the Dome from Hurricane Katrina.

“It’s a very, very desperate situation,” Blanco said
late Tuesday after returning to the capital from her
visit, when she comforted the exhausted throngs of
people, many of whom checked in over the weekend.
“It’s imperative that we get them out. The situation
is degenerating rapidly.”

Blanco also said the people in the New Orleans
hospitals were being moved out.

The Dome has no electricity, holes in the roof have
let in water and the sanitary conditions are growing
worse, Blanco said.

“It’s a little rough in there,” Blanco said.

Also word on Slidell:

Slidell Police and emergency officials continued to mop up Tuesday
after the devastating flooding that overwhelmed much of the southern half of Slidell following the glancing blow from Hurricane
Katrina’s eye wall.

Entire neighborhoods in low-lying areas were under
more than seven feet of water, leaving many families trapped in attics or on second floors.
Slidell Police and St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies have
been combing through neighborhoods hit by the flooding since after the strongest winds
ceased Monday afternoon, said Capt. Rob Callahan, a Slidell Police spokesman.

Police had rescued more than 100 people as of Tuesday afternoon, he
said, none of whom were injured.

At the height of the storm Monday, major flooding extended from Lake Pontchartrain through Olde Towne and up to Fremaux Avenue

But by Tuesday afternoon, much of the
flood water had receded from neighborhoods closest to the lake such as Oak Harbor and Eden Isles. Many portions of Pontchartrain
Drive and its adjoining neighborhoods still were beneath at least three
feet of water.

Late Tuesday, Gov. Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher described a disturbing scene unfolding in uptown New Orleans, where looters were trying to break into Children's Hospital.

Bottcher said the director of the hospital fears for the safety of the staff and the 100 kids inside the hospital. The director said the hospital is locked, but that the looters were trying to break in and had gathered outside the facility.

The director has sought help from the police, but, due to rising flood waters, police have not been able to respond.

Bottcher said Blanco has been told of the situation and has informed the National Guard. However, Bottcher said, the National Guard has also been unable to respond.

(...something about this seems weird to me -- if there's actual danger then by all means this is fucked but I'd want to know more about this.)

Well, apparently New Madrid is overdue for a nice big earthshaker, so they say. The last one there changed the Mississippi River's course.

And there's that Yellowstone/supervolcano thingie.

Info on parish and road access:
St. Charles: Only St. Charles parish residents can return to their homes. There is no power, low fuel and no food. If you must return home, please bring supplies with you. Hwy 90, I-10, Hwy 3127 and Airline are all open. However, there is water on Airline near the St. Charles/Jefferson Parish line.
Terrebonne: No road closures. Use Hwy 90 or the Sunshine Bridge.
Lafourche : As of 2 p.m. Monday, the curfew was lifted. Go directly to your homes. Hwy 1 is closed between Golden Meadow and Grande Isle.
St. James: Open to residents only.
St. John: Open to residents only. You need your ID.
Jefferson: You can return Monday with your ID. You will be allowed to collect your belongings and will not be allowed to return for a month.
Orleans: Closed. The Highrise is not safe to cross. Many parts of I-10 are flooded.
Plaqeumines: Closed.
St. Bernard: Closed.
St. Tammany: I-10 and the Twinspans are destroyed, but the Hwy 11 bridge is intact.
Washington: No information available. Lines are busy!
Tangiphoa: No information available. Lines are busy.
Other road information:
--Hwy 90 between Lafayette and St. Charles Parish line/Lafourche parish line is open.
--Hwy 308/Valentine, south of that area is closed.
--Hwy 3185 (Thibodeaux Bypass) is closed.
--La Bourg Larose Hwy is closed.

And with that I'm getting some sleep. Hope everyone's friends and loved ones are okay.

My GF went to Tulane. Came home weeping. Christ.

Uhh.. looters? Might it not just be desperate cold/wet/injured people going to a hospital for help?

they could want drugs.

Donation to the Red Cross would be a good start. Donate what you'd spend on a night of drinking at a bar. ILX alone could raise hundreds of thousands of dollars at that rate ; )

xpost -- i already made my donation. it was more than my average night of drinking.

re why serious work wr2 hurricane preparedness has taken so long (i.e., not really before the late 1960s): i'm pretty sure that i've read that certain ecological changes in and around new orleans didn't really come to a head (or were paid attention to) until then -- like the erosion of marshlands (caused by the levee building), the effects of offshore drilling, etc.

you mean a phone and a fax machine?

http://photos24.flickr.com/38776762_18668c88d0.jpg

The uk.gov chief scientist was on C4 news last night talking on this subject. He said that they cannot conlcusively link the increase in intensity of hurricanes over the last 30 years to climate change because the data before about 1950 consists mainly of 'Wow that was a biggie'. It could be a part natural cycle, a rising trend due to climate change, or a climate change trend overlaying a natural cycle and there is no way of knowing. whta is known is that hurricane power has been shown to be proportional to surface sea temperatures in the carribbean and the gulf and that these have risen by half a degree over the last thirty years mainly due to a weakening of the gulf stream and other eastward currents that take warm water away from the carribean (and the corresponding deep conveyors that bring cold water back in). The slowdown of the North Atlantic conveyor is posited to be one of the effects of climate change and if this the case then the carribbean will warm and hurricanes will continue to increase in power.

Hopefully the $3.50 a gallon gas prices and corresponding high heating oil prces this winter are going to force people to re-evaluate their energy use habits.

i wish, but i doubt it.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned,
Bush strummed a C chord while New Orleans sank

If only we had an organization like the Army Corps of Engineers and National Guard to help out, but they are all over in Iraq looking for, Osama Bin Ladin, er, I mean weapons of mass destruction, er, I mean bringing freedom to the men and women of Iraq, er, I mean just the men of Iraq, except of course the Sunnis. who are pissed off about the constitution and will plunge the country into chaos..... never mind.....

7:49 A.M. - Governor Blanco: Four Navy ships headed to New Orleans with food and water.
7:38 A.M. - CNN report...another attempt will be made to sandbag the 17th Street Canal.
7:24 A.M. - Slidell Mayor Ben Morris: Electricity is six to 12 weeks away.
7:06 A.M. - Governor Blanco wants the Superdome evacuated within two days.
6:57 A.M. - Governor Blanco: "Absolutely necessary" that the Army Corps of Engineers drop sandbags into the levee breach.
6:50 A.M. - Sen. Landrieu: The whole parish of St. Bernard is gone.
6:27 A.M. - (AP) Conditions in New Orleans hospitals deteriorate. Click for story.
6:22 A.M. - (AP) No time to count the dead as rescue efforts Click for story.
6:20 A.M. - Governor Blanco: Estimated 20,000 people in dome and they will be dispersed around the state to rescue centers being set up. Situation 'unteneable' in Superdome.
6:13 A.M. - Governor Blanco: Essential personnel will stay in city, but general public needs to go. Logistical nightmare to bring in food and water.
6:11 A.M. - Governor Blanco: We have found places around the state to house the refugees, we just need to get them out.
6:10 A.M. - (AP) -- Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman says the Bush administration will release oil from petroleum reserves to help refiners affected by Hurricane Katrina.
5:55 A.M. GOVERNOR BLANCO: Stopping the looting is important, but saving lives a higher priority right now. Not sure where looters think they are taking the stuff since city may soon be under water.

Barbour comparing it to Hiroshima, despite the cataclysmic scale of this, is kind of disgusting.

Hurricane Andrew first brought to national attention the damage and power a hurricane can do. Maybe it took Katrina to remind the state and federal governments that infrastructures and utilities as they stand now cannot withstand even a minimal hurricane.

Its not like its being used for anything else right now. Besides, it actually has power and water.

Anyone following the Interdictor and his cam on LJ, btw? Dude is obviously a survival nut getting his wet dream for the world to see, but its pretty interesting nonetheless. It sounds very boring, but I just watched water start moving into his region of the city (St. Charles?) and begin to pool.

http://www.tv-heads.com/networkpages/darynkagan.jpg

Results 1 - 10 of about 19,000 for gregory peck zombie. (0.27 seconds)

I've seen his posts. He IS nuts and I have to wonder what the hell he's going to do when he's finally told to leave. Expect all sorts of whining.

9:22 A.M. - (AP) Looting broke out in some New Orleans neighborhoods today, prompting authorities to send more than 70 additional officers and an armed personnel carrier into the city.

My feeling is that he's staying no matter what. He seemed dead set on not being noticed by patrols yesterday. He's completely mad. I feet bad for his girlfriend.

i read his quotes in the paper this morning, and even that broke my heart. she said something like: "you can't hold me for ever" ... it is indescribably sad.

I picture him using that knife in his icon on anyone who would dare interrupt his struggle for survival.

If you're on the cam, you've got a special treat: you're watching the flood progress (hasn't moved in 24 hours) and the looting of a hotel.

We're seriously considering trying to restore some order to this city since the government has totally given up (and probably couldn't do anything anyway). The police have been looting according to reports, and the honest ones are under siege at their precincts as automatic gunfire was unloaded at one near the Quarter.

I know it's dangerous, but I've got some experience with Foreign Internal Defense, and if there's a chance of slowing down this Planet of the Apes deterioration, someone's got to take the first step. I mean, it's Lord of the Flies out there right now. There's no order at all. No respect for private property, no respect for life.

The situation has got to be desperate for a lot of people sweltering in the heat with no food and water, no place to crap, no clean clothes, no place to sleep.

Hm.

This story is not about me but 15 members of my family who now call the Superdome home.

I was awakened a couple of hours ago by a very disturbing phone call regarding the fate of some of the rugeees who followed the mayor's advice to seek shelter at the dome as a last resort.

The media has laid it all out for us: no plumbing,no power, and recent reports of criminal activity. From a family menmber I was told that a young girl had been assaulted and the death of a man from apparent suicide.

My sister said they did not eat Tuesday because all their rations and food supply
had run out.

The one thing she seemed distraught about was the lack of political presence.
They want to know that the very people who were elected by them care enough to be among them during this horrific ordeal. I was also asked to call the radio station to get the word to the officials about the dire straits the evacuees are in. They fear for their well being and safety of themselves and the children in their care.

Let the media in for all the world to see the situation as it really is. If the officials are ashamed then maybe they should be among their people at the Superdome.

I did return a call a call to let her know that the Navy is sending ships with necessary supplies. They are leaving Norfolk, Virginia, this morning
according to CNN but no word on when they are expected to arrive.
Please share this story with the only radio station still on the air as they are hoping against hope someone, somewhere will hear them out and give them a glimmer of hope.

Bless you all in the Crescent City.

There's your New Orleans police, protecting the people. Look, you had to know this was going to happen.

And I said "if they can". Look, they might starve, die of dehydration, or end up with typhoid. You got any better ideas how to eat or drink?

-- nero (abc12...), August 31st, 2005.

Can anyone actually cite a source that says our ability to respond was somehow diminished by having troops in Iraq? If it's true, it makes me angry, but so far I've only seen speculation.

Just now I put "Katrina" into Google, and guess what one of the first things that comes up is:

http://www.katw.com/

it's apparently more an issue of equipment than troops. the helicopters are over there, for one thing.

Col. Schneider says the state has enough equipment to get by, and if Louisiana were to get hit by a major hurricane, the neighboring states of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida have all agreed to help.

http://www.ww4report.com/node/1016

11:30 A.M. - Emergency Operations Director Walter Maestri: Evacuees from New Orleans and the east bank of Jefferson are flocking to the west bank, overwhelming the facilities.

here you go - the NYT reports that 6000+ guard troops from LA and MS are in Iraq, and both states have requested help from the outside

That's assuming that MS, AL, and FL wouldn't be having problems of their own which is clearly the case now. That quote is from August 1 - certainly things were a lot more optimistic back then.

Surely there is a place where it stops being "looting" and starts being survival. I wish they would put in the minimal amount of effort it would take to refer to them as, I don't know, "flood victims" rather than "looters".

xpost

re the evacuation: carnival cruise lines issued a statement saying they're looking into the feasibility of getting one of their ships to new orleans. it would be difficult, but it's not out of the question.

Oh man, that would be, like, the greatest thing ever.

"Asked whether the governors were short of Guard members for the hurricane mission, a Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman said, "The numbers would suggest otherwise.""

Virtually every state in the nation is sending in National Guardsmen. That would be the expected response anyhow.

No one, anywhere, in any place of power, has said that they lack the manpower needed to deal with the disaster because of Iraq. LA's National Guard, by itself, never would have been able to deal with the disaster anyhow, and given that what's been occurring has been happening over a period of several days now, having people transported in from TX, AR, OK, VA, and other completely unaffected areas was going to have to happen anyways. Its what is occurring now and has been occurring for some time.

I was just thinking exactly the same thing and posted on ILM.

On another board I go to, someone posted two pictures, one of some black dudes w/Diet Pepsi and some other stuff...the others of two white skateboard looking kids w/some food....captions called the blacks "looters" and said the whites were "Carrying food they found at a grocery store"....finders keepers, looters weepers...

-Things are beginning to improve, basically by not getting worse. The predictions of flooding continuing en masse haven't yet come to pass.

-Work is continuing to sandbag the broken levee.

Watching the Cam from Interdictor: No surprise at the weather (clearly very sunny). No real water coming up to St. Charles anymore. Several vehicles on the street. Not many people on foot. Military and police vehicles have been driving through regularly, as long as vehicles towing boats.

from the cam: LOOOOOOONG line of vehicles going down St. Charles now. Now a small mob of people.

that would be rather counterproductive, wouldn't it? I mean, Bush is hardly a petulant and political guy. the state governments have said by their actions, at the least, that they have insufficient manpower and equipment. the newspapers and other commentators, who don't have to please anyone to get a response, have noted that a large chunk of the manpower and equipment is in Iraq.

LA's National Guard, by itself, never would have been able to deal with the disaster anyhow,

you miss the point. the current disaster may have been greatly compounded by the failure to stop the levee breach (assuming that would have worked, but we can't know either way). that failure apparently was due to their preoccupation with rescue missions. if they had had more people and equipment, it would have been more likely that both would occur simultaneously.

Finding Bread"

no news on their site. they're playing in atlanta on sunday, hopefully they already evacuated themselves and their equipment.

Jefferson: You can return Monday with your ID. You will be allowed to collect your belongings and will not be allowed to return for a month.

How long were neighbors of Chernobyl or Three Mile Island supposed to wait to return to their homes? I mean, fuck.

Is that basically the argument? Because they aren't saying so, its true?

>the newspapers and other commentators, who don't have to please anyone to get a response, have noted that a large chunk of the manpower and equipment is in Iraq.<

There's a good chunk of manpower and equipment in Iraq. Fine. Here's my question; What good is a Apache helicopter in a flood? How about an M1A1 ? Not much. The question is "has the fact that there are troops in Iraq in any way retarded the ability of Louisiana to help itself?" Everyone says "no". In fact, none of the newspapers who have reported the people being in Iraq have made the claim either, as well they shouldn't. To say such at this time would be obvious politicism.

>that failure apparently was due to their preoccupation with rescue missions. if they had had more people and equipment, it would have been more likely that both would occur simultaneously.<

You're assuming that all the equpiment in Iraq has pertinance to the mission of saving lives in Louisiana. This is not true. There is nothing that A-10 Warthogs or Personnel Carriers can do to plug that hole. Even merely having helicopters is facetious, given that the minority of the helicopters are capable of heavy lifting operations, and furthered by the number of helicopters from outside LA that are being used in the effort.

Besides, if it was true, don't you think somewhere in the blogoshpere or media, someone would have leaked this already?

sorry he didn't post the link...just wrote out the captions and pix himself...he's not on the board now...

Residents in close proximity to Chernobyl never did. Three Mile Island, as far as I know, never touched off any long term evacuations.

say, who else has remembered that the nomination hearings for John Roberts start next week? We gonna have a fun September...

President Bush is considering an address to the nation asking citizens to conserve energy, a top White House source says.

Bush ordered the release of oil from federal petroleum reserves to help refiners affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Bush returned to Washington on Wednesday to oversee the federal response to the historic disaster. He plans to coordinate federal efforts, across more than a dozen agencies, to assist hurricane victims.

"Still undecided is whether or not to call for a nationwide effort to reduce energy consumption during this emergency," a top Bush source explains. "It is seriously being considered."

i like the "coordinate" bit. He's going to be in his office with 3 telephones and multiple email windows running, issuing orders for the next 72 hours.

oh yeah, and gasoline at the local supermarket jumped 17 cents per gallon from its price on monday morning.

WWL-TV reported that the Miller Brewing Co. was sending several truck loads of water to the region from its Albany, Ga., plant.

Yeah, that's going to go down real well...

Cue Annie Potts: "Yeah, it's a sign, alright; 'Goin' Out of Business.'"

and certain loons believe that the rest of the world doesn't care.

perhaps this site is true: http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/

Well, the biggest problem was that the lake would drain in, but now that everything is equalized, the only real problem is that it'll take longer to repair the levees and then pump out the water.

One bit of good news is that New Orleans doesn't appear to face a threat of being surrounded by even more water than it has outside its levees right now. By yesterday, the water level in the Mississippi had dropped about 11 feet since Monday, as the storm surge that had pushed upriver from the Gulf of Mexico, temporarily reversing the river's course, receded. Yesterday, the water level in the stretch of river that runs through the city was down to a level of about 4.28 feet, well below the flood level of 17 feet and low even under normal circumstances, hydrology experts said...

The rain that Katrina dumped on Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday won't affect the river's water levels because many of the rivers in the area flow directly into the Gulf. Rain that Katrina deposits in Tennessee and farther north isn't likely to reach New Orleans for at least two weeks, Mr. Richards said.

Parts of Kentucky, Ohio, and other areas where Katrina was headed have been unusually dry, meaning less runoff from the storm, Mr. Richards said.

Likewise, the water in Lake Pontchartrain isn't likely to rise, said Richard Keim, assistant professor at the School of Renewable Natural Resources at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. The fresh water source that feeds it is only about as large as the lake itself, so while much rain has fallen in the area, not much will end up in the lake, says Mr. Keim. The larger question is when the storm surge will recede into the Gulf, the lake's other water source. Lake Pontchartrain has only two narrow, winding outlets to the Gulf, so it is unclear how long it will take them to empty.

<HIPPIEFUCK>hahaha, only during emergencies though!<HIPPIEFUCK>

woah woah woah...people...slow down...let's not do anything rash....jeez you'd think a major american city had just slid into the ocean...oh wait.

Police officers were asking residents to give up any guns they had before they boarded buses and trucks because police desperately needed the firepower: Some officers who had been stranded on the roof of a motel said they were being shot at overnight.

jesus christ, fuck

Urine isn't a problem. It is, for the most part, fairly sterile. You can actually drink it if you absolutely had to.

Police fought a losing battle to stop widespread looting and the sweltering city of 480,000 had no drinkable water and no electricity. SHARKS WERE REPORTED SWIMMING IN THE STREETS and even the Superdome – a shelter of last resort for 20,000 people – was at risk from the rising waters.

Wednesday August 31, 2005

Mark Schleifstein
Staff writer

The catastrophic flooding that filled the bowl that is New Orleans on Monday and Tuesday will only get worse over the next few days because rainfall from Hurricane Katrina continues to flow into Lake Pontchartrain from north shore rivers and streams, and east winds and a 17.5-foot storm crest on the Pearl River block the outflow water through the Rigolets and Chef Menteur Pass.

The lake is normally 1 foot above sea level, while the city of New Orleans is an average of 6 feet below sea level. But a combination of storm surge and rainfall from Katrina have raised the lake's surface to 6 feet above sea level, or more.

All of that water moving from the lake has found several holes in the lake's banks - all pouring into New Orleans. Water that crossed St. Charles Parish in an area where the lakefront levee has not yet been completed, and that backed up from the lake in Jefferson Parish canals, is funneling into Kenner and Metairie.

A 500-yard and growing breach in the eastern wall of the 17th Street Canal separating New Orleans from Metairie is pouring hundreds of thousands of gallons of lake water per second into the New Orleans area. Water also is flowing through two more levee breaches along the Industrial Canal, which created a Hurricane Betsy-on-steroids flood in the Lower 9th Ward on Monday that is now spreading south into the French Quarter and other parts of the city.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin warned Tuesday evening that an attempt to plug the holes in the 17th Street Canal had failed, and the floodwaters were expected to continue to rise rapidly throughout the night. Eventually, Nagin said, the water could reach as high as 3 feet above sea level, meaning it could rise to 12 to 15 feet high in some parts of the city.

Louisiana State University Hurricane Center researcher Ivor van Heerden warned that Nagin's estimates could be too low because the lake water won't fall quickly during the next few days.

"We don't have the weather conditions to drive the water out of Lake Pontchartrain, and at the same time, all the rivers on the north shore are in flood," he said. "That water is just going to keep rising in the city until it's equal to the level of the lake.

"Unless they can use sandbags to compartmentalize the flooded areas, the water in the city will rise everywhere to the same level as the lake."

This isn't the first time that the 17th Street Canal has proved to be a hurricane-flooding Achilles heel. Following a 1947 hurricane that made a direct hit on New Orleans and Metairie, officials were unable to clear floodwaters from Metairie through the canal for two weeks.

Sewage from a treatment plant that stagnated in the canal created enough sulfuric acid fumes that nearby homes in Lakeview painted with lead-based paint turned black.

The slow-motion flooding of the south shore mirrors a similar flooding event during Tropical Storm Isidore, when weather conditions blocked water from leaving the lake as heavy rainfall pushed its surface higher and higher, causing extensive flooding in low-lying areas of Slidell a day after the storm had passed by.

Van Heerden said water flowing through New Orleans. back door used a weakness that he and many others have been concerned about for years: a V-shaped funnel formed by the joining of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet and the Inner Harbor Navigation Channel. Storm surge as high as 18 feet pushed through the funnel, into the Industrial Canal and on to the lake. It's that surge water that is thought to have caused breaks in the Industrial Canal levees breaks that lake water is now flowing through into the 9th Ward.

Water entering that funnel also is thought to have topped levees surrounding Chalmette and eastern New Orleans, causing extensive flooding in both places.

Van Heerden said that if there's a silver lining to this disastrous event, it's that the eye of Katrina didn't go directly over or to the west of the city. If that had happened, the storm surge could have been much higher and would have directly topped levees all along the lake and much more rapidly filled the bowl, which would have meant an even higher death toll than is anticipated from this slow-moving event, he said.

This flood event contains many of the features used by federal, state and local planners early this year to begin shaping what was supposed to be a catastrophe recovery plan for New Orleans: failed pumping stations, breached levees, rooftop rescues, makeshift medical triage zones.

In drawing the plan, officials assumed that it would take several days to a week before enough manpower and equipment could be staged to deal with many of the problems they're facing now, such as how to close the breach in the 17th Street Canal.

There, the problem is how to close the hole quickly. Strategies suggested during tabletop exercises indicated it could take several days to position barges and cranes in place to more permanently fill such a gap, assuming it was part of the worst-case, storm-surge-driven flooding scenario.

The slow-motion reality of the collapsing canal wall has the state Department of Transportation and Development and the Army Corps of Engineers working into the night to plug the breach and try to stem the flooding in Lakeview, West End, Bucktown and large swaths of East Jefferson.

A convoy of trucks carrying 108 15,000-pound concrete barriers - like those used as highway construction dividers - was en route to the site Tuesday night, said Mark Lambert, chief spokesman for the agency. Helicopters will lift the barriers above the hole and drop them in place, even as another 50 sandbags, each weighing 3,000 pounds, are also being maneuvered into place.

"That's 800 tons of concrete," Lambert said. .What we are trying to do is just stop the water from going into the city."

More difficult will be the overtopping of levees along the Industrial Canal caused by the high lake water flowing in. Lambert didn't say how the state would address that problem.

The problems caused by floodwaters will only get worse, according to van Heerden and the earlier tabletop exercises. For one, if the water in the city does rise to the height of levees along the lakefront, it may be difficult to open floodgates designed to keep the lake out that would now be needed to allow the lake to leave. Van Heerden said the rising floodwaters also would cause major pollution problems in coming days, as they float dozens of fuel and chemical storage tanks off their fittings, severing pipelines and allowing the material to seep into the floodwaters.

"In our surveys of the parish, a lot of the storage tanks we looked at weren't bolted down with big bolts," he said. "They rely on gravity to hold them down. If an industrial property is 5 feet below sea level and the water gets to 5 feet above sea level, that's 10 feet of water, and I'm certain many we looked at will float free.

"You'll see a lot of highly volatile stuff on the surface, and one spark and we'll have a major fire," he said.

http://old.mises.org:88/NO2

The feed from Interdictor's 11th floor hideaway on Poyadras St., on the corners of Camp and St. Charles. On a ten second delay, apparently.

This is like some end-of-days, Tom Clancy/Stephen King shit.

Events like this make it clear how tenuous a toehold the concept of civilization” really has, huh?

Yes. Matter of fact, all the kooks have. Alex Jones is calling the Superdome a concentration camp, while christian kooks are claiming that the hurricane was revenge for gambling, prostitution, homosexuality, and NO's abortion clinics.

3:18 P.M. - WWL-TV's Thanh Truong reports the water from the Lake is rising to meet with the River in Uptown.

3:10 P.M. - (AP) President Bush flew overhead in Air Force One to assess the damage in Southeast Louisana and the Gulfport-area of Mississippi.

"Daddy, the top came off."

Dude sure does like lookin' out airplane windows.

expo

Did you hear about the man in Queens who had his gas station torn down by the head company because he refused to raise prices? He said it was nonsense and that there was no reason to raise prices because gas was still the same price. Within 2 weeks, officials came to Queens and took his gas station apart!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/31/0836/62623

http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html

The stories are coming in a rush and nearly all of them are miserable.

At least one person is comparing the evacuation of New Orleans to the situation in Gaza.

Meanwhile:

Searching for Jesus' finger

Wednesday, 2:10 p.m.

In the garden behind St. Louis Cathedral on Royal Street lies an
incredible tangle of zig-zagging broken tree trunks and branches, mixed with
smashed wrought iron fences.

But right in the middle, a statue of Jesus is still standing, unscathed by the storm, save for the left thumb and index finger, which are missing.

The missing digits immediately set off speculation of divine intervention.

New Orleans has a long history praying to saints for guidance and protection in times of great peril. In fact it was Our Lady of Prompt Succor who was said to be responsible for saving the Ursulines Convent in the French Quarter from a raging fire that consumed the rest of the city centuries ago.

Since then, New Orlenians have prayed to the saint for protection from natural disasters. On Saturday, Archbishop Alfred Hughes read a prayer over the radio asking for Our Lady's intervention to spare the city a direct hit by Hurricane Katrina.

Many in the Quarter are now saying it was the hand of Jesus, the missing digits to be precise, that flicked the hurricane east just a little to keep the city from suffering a direct blow.

And the search is one for those missing fingers.

Shortly after Katrina passed, several men went to Robert Buras, who owns the Royal Street Grocery and told him they know who has the finger. Buras said he'd give them all the water and beer they need if they bring him the finger.

They told him they'd find it and asked to be paid upfront. But Buras told them he wouldn't take it on credit

"I'm going to find Jesus' finger,'' Buras said. ''I've got a lead on it.''

it's in a grilled cheese sandwich.

It would have been easy to miss, Milo, but Blount upthread posted an article (linked to the words "aw shit" or something like that) which stated that the petro lines that go to Atlanta would be directly affected by the rigs affected by Katrina. So, it's a special case there, much to the misery of driving Atlantans' wallets.

I'm glad his pace his picking up.

Platoons of Christian soldiers were dispatched to the city's remaining Wendy's.

well it's not like they'd send him in the middle of the damn thing. not that i'd mind, but...

Otherwise, we just wasted a lot of fuel for some doof to go "Man, I guess that IS bad, huh?"

And don't get me started about how the first image of Bush coming back to Washington as thousands have died in a tragedy was him walking down the stairs of Air Force One with Barney tucked under his arm…

Just as I figured. Is there any reason this tradition exists? Ok.. granted, there are a gazillion dumb symbolism traditions in every country I suppose. I'm just pissed because we're dealing with a major tragedy where time's of the essence, and to have our president go into the air, and waste fuel, just so he can nod and go "yeah, shit be bad down there" just seems so incredibly fucking stupid.

Also, as tempting as it is to mock the feeble minded nutjobs, can we stop talking about what idiots like Falwell have to say? Or just leave any Christian talk out of this in general? Religion is obviously not figuring into the mess happening right now in Orleans.

Looting: The police are looting. This has been confirmed by several independent sources. Some of the looting might be "legitimate" in as much as that word has any meaning in this context. They have broken into ATMs and safes: confirmed. We have eyewitnesses to this. They have taken dozens of SUVs from dealerships ostensibly for official use. They have also looted gun stores and pawn shops for all the small arms, supposedly to prevent "criminals" from doing so. But who knows their true intentions. We have an inside source in the NOPD who says that command and control is in chaos. He reports that command lapses more than 24 hours between check-ins, and that most of the force are "like deer in the headlights." NOPD already had a reputation for corruption, but I am telling you now that the people we've been talking to say they are not recognizing the NOPD as a legitimate authority anymore, since cops have been seen looting in Walmarts and forcing people out of stores so they could back up SUVs and loot them. Don't shoot the messenger....

"The FUCK you lookin' at, man? This is as close as i'm gettin' that shit!"

xpost -- er, yes Kingfish...I linked to that edition and various nola.com stories throughout the day.