He did have a webcam set up earlier today (I think it's down now) and it looked like it could have been a street below. Kindof in chaos, sometimes people milling around, a group of dark green trucks that looked military at one point. That said, the whole idea that he's in the middle of it and has arranged for electricity and somehow the internet connection is still on seems a little suspect.

SI

Yeah, he's the only guy in New Orleans with electricity and a working ISP.

I call bullshit.

He's got a generator, fwiw, if you had read his blog. Also he is working at an internet hub, or something of the sort, as well.

Going by the number of national guardsmen being sent it, the order to move priorities to combating the survivors rather than saving them, reports of rape and cnn reporting of sniper fire on people being evacuated from a hospital I just don't find it to difficult to believe this guy.

N.O. from above, after the floods.

It's amazing.

The police chief is talking about rapes....

http://www.wwltv.com/sharedcontent/n....4c55a2f6.html

Yes, absolutely. People in general and specifically in crises only believe what they want to believe, as well as focus on getting a cry out. It can take the form of fiction or semi-fiction or what we have seen a lot of, hyperbole and short-sightedness. Even if it is semi-true, one always have to be careful on not letting one peice of puzzle define the whole puzzle.

NO have had a high number of violent crimes, particularly sexual assaults. Does one believe they would have stopped despite the population drop?

Yes, but these are rapes happen INSIDE the convention center!! That's just ridiculous!

I notice Yahoo is now hosting the WWL streaming video.

Agreed. But ...


It isn't like there wasn't an effort to get things under control, they just went in way undermanned & apparently under too many restrictions & got their asses kicked for the mistake.

Cops or military, no difference here, they're truly damned if they do & damned if they don't.

Where else would they happen then? But I think your point is that such a place would be more "secure".

I think one of the truly sad facets to this situation is that in the past during disasters community members in this country have traditionally pulled together to help each other out. Neighbors pitch in with neighbors to clean things up and get things moving again. When a tornado came through my neighborhood as a kid, we were all out cleaning up the street for trucks to make it through, helping put tar paper (donated from the local Scotty's hardware) on holed roofs, etc. Aside from your occasional political unrest riot, it's not very often you see neighbor turn against neighbor when the opportunity to help each other out arises. It's just a very sad commentary on the state of that part of the New Orleans' community.

But a small aside as I've seen my first possible reason to criticize relief efforts: why did the Mayor have to "allow" the Convention Center population to cross a bridge to the dry side of the city to get out of the flooding? Wouldn't you be ENCOURAGING anyone who could walk to get the heck out of there anyway they could? Am I missing something?

About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses grew increasingly hostile. Police Chief Eddie Compass said he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob.

"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."

In hopes of defusing the unrest at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they can find. But the bedlam at the convention center appeared to make leaving difficult.

A military heliocpter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off the ground and flew away.
Tis is exactly why airdrops shouldnt be used to feed the people. Once the cargo drops there will be a mass stampede towards the parcel and alot will get hurt while the strongest get the bulk of the food and water. Help will come, it may take a while but it will get to them.

^^I thought about that possibility myself, but a depressing possibility to consider is that they wanted to keep the population "contained" in New Orleans, rather than let them across and lose control of them. It's a very cynical thought, but judging by the activities of the populace in the last 48 hours....

I do not think I could ever leave my pets behind. I know my grilfriend feels the same way. Heck, my girlfriend would probably save the dogs before she saved me.

Does anyone remember that scene from Black Hawk Down? The first one of the movie? That is what we are going to get if we do airdrops.

Sen. Hastert raised the question that many here have echoed, nothing wrong with that. I think the Federal Govt will come out badly in the Blame Game but I don't understand why anyone would have expected anything differently (as in getting relief efforts there faster)?

By the way, do you think when Madame Senator starts to "look forward to speaking with him in person as soon as we are able", she'll tell him 1) you're a sack of shit and 2) you will empty the treasury to rebuild or else I'll publically call you a sack of shit. He'll reply, "and that will be something new, how?"

We are very, very different people.

I would save my dogs before I saved Arlie.

Edit to add - I'd save my baby before I saved either.

I love my dog more than I do most people, it would be an extremely tough decision to make. I don't even want to think about it.

How about this decision: either you can have the spot on the bus or your dog can. This is what it really is there. You would rather send dogs and cats back than people?

SI

This thread has turned in a way that I cannot fathom. Utterly speechless.

I didn't say that. I said it would be a tough decision to make. I would take the spot for myself but at the same time I would have a very hard time doing it.

linky

The American Red Cross alone has received donations of $71.6 million since the storm struck on Monday, with an unprecedented 100,000 phone calls to its emergency hotline a day later, said spokeswoman Deborah Daley

.......Salvation Army spokeswoman Theresa Whitfield said donations had now jumped to $15.5 million from $4 million on Wednesday.

....... Pharmaceutical companies have donated $25 million in medicines, medical supplies and cash "and that number is growing by the hour," according to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

Schering-Plough Corp. said it contributed 100,000 units of Coppertone sunscreen in response to a request from the American Red Cross. And Canadian singer Celine Dion gave $1 million to the American Red Cross.

.........The Chronicle has counted more than $93 million in donations since the disaster struck. This compares to $30 million raised by international aid organizations three days after the Asian tsunami last December, the paper said.

---

Keep them coming in but make sure you donate to a legal entity, esp. online. There are already scams going around pretending to be Red Cross or Salv Army or Katrina Relief Efforts.

I knew someone would figure out a way to loot outside of New Orleans.

Two resources to verify if the charity is legit:

IRS Publication 78

Charity Navigator

Fats Domino is alive!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20050902/en_music_eo/17283

This may sound like a dumb question, but what do the pipelines exactly do?

Is it refined oil being pumped? Where is it being sent?

MSNBC reports the troops are now moving in with water and relief!! nice news

That, and even forgetting the cops, I'd hope that a place jam packed with people who act against those who tried to rape women within it!

I am just sick to my stomach what is happening in NO. I don't know what to say. But, this should never have been allowed to escalate to this level. A very, very sad week for the United States of America.

Any number of refined oils can be sent down the pipeline, from Aircraft fuel, to Heating Oil. They use a device called a piggy in some instances which is just like a cork, or stopper. It basically keeps the tail end of one type of fuel from mixing with the head of another type. I think some pipelines have gotten away from this with the digitally controlled valves, and they dont use the piggies anymore. The mixed fuel is either used in an industry that doesnt care what type of fuel it is, or sent back to the refinery to be reprocessed.

The oil would be pumped to large filling stations or holding tanks, or even directly to some industry that burns the fuel. Now that we are in the computer age is it very easy to track who uses what fuel and how much from the pipelines.

The whole pet thing seriously makes me wonder if people are truly grasping the levity of the situation.

My pets would get my spot without hesitation.
My son's spot? No. My spot? Yes.

And yeah, I would no more separate pets from owner's than I would parents from children.

Gotta stop watching the WWLTV news and videos and catch up on some reading. I came across this as I am interested in Mayor Nagin and the decisions that are being made. I came across this quote...


I wonder if Meffert is referring to a certain high profile politician in Baton Rouge.

This was a completely predictable disaster. In fact, in today's NYT:

So 9/11 happened. Fine, maybe 'nobody' could have foreseen that. People have been predicting this for years. And further more, the situation is the same as it would have been if there were a major terrorist attack: people need to be evacuated, people need food, people need housing, etc. And this, as opposed to a terrorist attack, was predictable. And still it has taken them 4 days to get food and water to people in a place that they were told to evacuate to.

What has the federal government done in the 4 years since 9/11?? They, along with the LA state goverment, were completely unprepared. The head of FEMA is a former lawyer from Oklahoma with no disaster relief experience, the same problem that FEMA had in 1992 with Hurricane Andrew. The patronage system and poor planning of this administration has killed more Americans, this time much closer to home, and it sickens me.

I think CNN just reported that they are now turning buses/people away from the Astrodome and that it is already overwhelmed.

They are limiting who gets in and they have only a small fraction of people who were supposed to find shelter there.

Given the setup, cots on the floor of the 'dome, I couldn't imagine how they would put 25,000 in there.

Not good.

Memphis has a couple of empty arenas. I have NO idea why they have not set up those as shelters.

Seeing how well things worked out at the Superdome & the Convention Center, I'm not entirely sure you're going to see too many venues willing to take the risk.

After reading the latest wire copy on those still awaiting evacuation, if things don't get calmer in New Orleans very quickly, I think there's a good chance that it's going to become difficult to find places eager (or even willing) to accept those refugees at all.

And that's going to open an entirely different kettle of fish.

Just watching all of this the past few days has made me reflect on how fortunate and truly blessed I am to have had the opportunity to get a good education and earn a good living to be able to live comfortably (and make sure my in-laws and my wife are comfortable) even during this time of crisis.

All class, they are. I know they're sick and tired but the city just took 11K into the Astrodome (and more in Dallas and San Antonio) and you're wishing on them the same fate you just came from?!?

SI

Well, to give the counterpoint to the "why can't you just be happy for what help you get" that I said above, anyone wanting to catch the entertainment that is Anderson Cooper just losing it on the air and ripping into Landreau, well, it's at crooksandliars.com on the front page. The transcript is in on the interdictor live journal.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/int...87269#t1587269

He basically just loses it on air, as much as a guy with a fairly calm exterior can. You can just see the frustration of someone who's been down there the entire week, he's impatient, hasn't had a good sleep all week, frazzled, and numb to what he's now seen. Even more impressive is that at the end of the clip, he regains his composure, realizes what he just said and tries to move on but I kindof doubt she'll ever be on his show again.

SI

As you know I'm Spaniard, so I just have the net information plus a very subjective in the tv, but I've the feeling that the US government hasn't done all it could to make easier this situation. I don't want to make criticism in any political idea, or begun an idiotic debate, but do you feel that all that could be done, has been done?

I´ve been in a less critical situation but similar (snowbound in a highway for a night) and I can understand that this people doesn't speak or act as normal people. They have been in a big stress for more than 100 hours, and their acts are a little wild. You can't measure this things at your home after a good sleep after a good meal, without any real worries. Be a country, a real country is in this moments. When all it's ok it's easy to be friends, it's in this bad moments where it's showed how strong a country is.

The thing is, I think it's obvious to most people that there have been major lapses in the size, speed, and direction of the government reaction to the crisis. I just don't think now is the time to be focusing our energies on them, we need to be getting people out of the hard hit areas, getting food and relief supplies to them, etc.

Fox and MSNBC are reporting that explosions are being heard around the Superdome. :confused:

Yeah, same on CNN, but they aren't talking about them. Probably nobody knows what is going on.

Uh, do you really think that with a Democrat (or another Republican) in office, the planning would have been that much different? Pull your head out of your ass.

NBC said it was some sort of industrial complex that had the explosion, but didn't really provide any details on what kind of damage has been done.

A bit of a morbid question, but do they autopsy all the bodies in a situation like this when they are collected? It would be interesting to see what the breakdown of hurricane deaths(drowning, crushed, etc) are compared to preventable ones(starvation, disease, criminal activities). I cant believe they still have not stabilized this situation yet, its absolutely unreal.