...and a recall effort against the Mayor.

From what I understand, the feds,volunteers & the military are in the process of taking on the S&R roles in order to free up both police & national guard troops for getting the looting under control. That need appears to be growing pretty critical:

http://apnews.myway.com//article/200...D8CB55082.html
Managers at a nursing home were prepared to cope with the power outages and had enough food for days, but then the looting began. The home's bus driver was forced to surrender the vehicle to carjackers.

Bands of people drove by the nursing home, shouting to residents, "Get out!" Eighty residents, most of them in wheelchairs, were being evacuated to other nursing homes in the state.

"We had enough food for 10 days," said Peggy Hoffman, the home's executive director. "Now we'll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot."

I also believe, although it isn't being talked about in much more than hints right now, that there's a growing belief that the search & rescue phase is starting to transition into body recovery sooner rather than later.

The following link shows satellite imagery from around noon today, and I'm quite happy to say that my MIL and my place are two of the few dry areas in the town. If the looters can just be kept away, we might be in good shape..

However, my grandfather (wife's GF) has called the fire department and they say his house is almost under water in Kenner :( (which it looks like on the satellite.)


Edit: Forgot the link:
http://www.wwltv.com/perl/common/vid...ing_083105.wmv

Ok I have to say this - the Governor of LA really irritates me. She needs to suck it up, and get her emotions in check. It really drives me nuts when female politicos act like a bunch of blubbering women.

Although I'm sure Sen.Landrieu (D-LA) will manage to tick me off royally at some time in the future, I thought she did a pretty good job on Larry King Live just now.

She basically said that everybody - Congressmen, Senators, the President, the Feds, the state government, the local sheriffs, the mayor & staff, basically Everybody - is doing every thing they can as fast as they can.

She mentioned that the military was coming, adding a "hurry" to the end of it, but I really didn't get the feeling even that was a slam about their timeline, just an honest plea for the help they can bring. She also mentioned that her brother, the Lt. Governor (I don't think I realized they were related) had spent the past two days recovering bodies & helping with rescues, came across not as a "oh what a great guy my brother" but more like "My God, the Lt.Governor of a state is out there in a rowboat, if we're doing that don't you think we're doing everything humanly possible?"

She appeared to me to be taking the high road tonight, didn't try to score any political points nor make any political statements. She also scored high for getting visibly ticked off at Larry in an earlier segment.

I guess it just stood out to me because I'd just finished reading a piece on how strategists are already working on how to use Katrina against the President shortly & her performance was a pretty stark contrast vs what I'd read just minutes earlier. Props to her.

Reading one of the blogs at nola.com and you see more and more reports from hospitals that armed looters are breaking in and taking over the hospitals.

Sad. :(

I can't blame the female politicos. I have seen and heard more men crying over this on radio, TV, and on the phone (military friends who are have been called up) than any other event outside of 9/11

At the very least, the initial report of looters breaking in to Children's Hospital were completely false. The staff at the hospital apparently had to exert a lot of effort debunking that rumor today.

Hopefully, the other reports are also false; although, I fear conditions in the city tonight are going to be very bad.

This mean that a "Shoot to Kill" order is out on the looters then?

Haven't watch her. Is she crying alot, flip-flopping?

I believe in the end, people are going say they (the governor and mayor) were constantly a day late and a dollar short. For example, the mandatory evac orders should have gone out the day before and that martial (<--- look, I can spell that right - unlike some of the news media) law should have been declared yesterday. Of course there were political, legal and cultural ramifications that kept things from happening quicker. Even Dr Maestri is alluding to that.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I think the black civil liberty leaders will have the mayor crucified.

Just saw on my local news here that two little boys, both 8 years old, saw the hurricane coverage on the news and wanted to help. They took their piggy banks down to the Salvation Army headquarters downtown and donated all their money. About $60 total.

Warm fuzzies.

it comes down to this: what's more important to you, your integrity or your reputation afterwards.

Can we merge this with the "people suck" thread? Fucking looters destroying their own communities. I hope they each catch some hideous disease as a result of running around town slogging through debris, waste, and whatever other biohazards are out there. Would be quite deserving.

I'm hating the politicizing of this from the media. I just watched Aaron "Smacky" Brown's report on CNN, and he's just itching to blame everything on Bush*.

He was interviewing correspondents, and asking very leading questions about the speed in which Washington has provided aid. He was clearly upset when one answered that the Guard was on the scene very quickly (Bush had signed the National Disaster declarations in advance to make that easier).

So then he asked if the "military" part of the Guard was on the scene fast enough (something the governor would have had to request) then encouraged speculation that perhaps it didn't because everyone's in Iraq.

Just disgusting. I know every news outlet does this, and CNN is no exception. I know Brown is one of the worst. But to use all this suffering to make your case against Bush should be beneath the network. Not so, I guess.

I feel like making fun of Brown's stupid toupee right now.

* standard disclaimer - I have never voted for anyone named Bush, nor did I support W.'s candadacy in 2000 or 2004.

Actually, it looks like this news channel (Phoenix Channel 3) is running a telethon for the Salvation Army throughout their broadcast. They have news anchors answering phones during the breaks. How cool is that?

Do feel a tad guilty now for ragging on journalists earlier this afternoon.

Something else crossed my mind while wwltv again. Knowing how much donations to Red Cross (and Salv Army) will go directly to helping, do you think it might be more cost beneficial for the Federal Govt to give some of their millions to them as well? Seems to me it could do a lot of good very quickly.

Wasn't there a controversy over how the Red Cross handled the 9/11 donations?

And as far as the Salvation Army goes - I can hear the ACLU lawyering up on that one now.

Really? I was just told tonight that Kenner is in good shape, considering. I think maybe a certain lady is telling her daughter fairy tales so that she'll let her go back home (she is afraid she is losing too much Real Estate business. What Real Estate business?).

That's a good point (from wwltv) in that the news have been dominated by the outlawness but there are much more good going with tremendous humanitarian efforts being performed by many. Wonder why we don't see more of this? Oh wait....

The local news here has been giving the local efforts a lot of press (because everybody is tuned in around here). But as for the national coverage? Of course, you go with what butters the bread...

And Nancy Grace is covering the Natalie-Aruba case. Kinda interesting.

What else would you want her doing? She has a specialty: court proceedings.

From what I've heard and seen Kenner has water problems all over. Its hard to tell how deep exactly though. It could just be a foot of water everywhere, it could be more. But the word was everything from the lake to the interstate had a good amount of water.

The only video evidence I saw of Jefferson Parish was a quick shot of what looked like Williams Blvd near the Treasure Chest under water(which obviously would be no surprise) and the often shown shot of Clerview Mall and Vets with water. Both shots it was hard to tell how much water exactly.

My Grand Father (I love the guy and consider him my GF - he is really Mrs. Eaglesfan's GF - He is VERY colorful) is a retired fireman and has many friends that still serve. The information is very accurate. His home has between 8-10 feet of water in Kenner unfortunately :(

"It bleeds, it leads." In the end, people really don't care about the humanitarian mission, they want to see action, whether it's rescues or lootings. We're an ADD nation, and it needs to be exciting and dynamic to keep our attention for five seconds.

This is cool and I think more sports teams could help with this as well:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?...nfl&id=2148336

Where in Kenner is that EF? All my Aunts and Uncles and my Grandmother live in one little area of Kenner. They are on the West Esplanade side of Vintage(right off of Power), so I am hoping they didn't get 10 feet of water, but nothing short of no water in their homes would surpise me now.

Mrs. Eaglesfan is already asleep, so I can't tell you exactly where they are at. However, I think they are west of Loyola. I know they are a little west and north of the Esplanade Mall. However, Mrs. Eaglesfan usually drives and I think she takes exit 221 (Loyola I believe) and we go a bit north and west from there.

Dola - Actually it is a fair distance north of I-10 (at least 2 miles) and is close to the lake. I know we pass some very nice houses on the right that I was considering as possible buys. We also were looking at some houses a bit further north of their place that were very close to the lake.

Ack yea, I am not too surprised that that area would be hit hard, unfortunately. As if sinking houses in Kenner weren't bad enough. I wonder what impact, if any, standing water for a long period of time will have on houses that are still sinking in that area? It can't be good.

I'm a bit surprised given the inevitable stories with a sports angle that I haven't seen any articles talking about the Manning family. I'm assuming Archie and his wife got out of town ahead of the hurricane, and maybe Peyton and Eli don't want to make a big deal out of their connection to New Orleans at the moment.

I did see they interviewed Peyton on espn after the hurricane, but there are so many players from the New Orleans / South Mississippi area it would be hard to talk to them all...

These links may have already been posted, but they are some of the best images I have seen of the city.

Before: http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/k...h9_2004_dg.jpg

After: http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/k...31_2005_dg.jpg

The 17th St canal is on the left edge. You can see the breech about 1/6 from the top.

The older areas of the city are along the river and are dry. The French Quarter is in the lower right corner right at the big bend in the river.

The 9th ward is east of the image and is severely flooded, and uptown is south of the image and did not flood. The small bit of land in the very bottom right is the west bank which did not flood.

Kenner is significantly west of this image.

You don't think she could talk about other things? She does also have a show on Court TV.

dola

On the left side near the center of the image you see a what appear to be many very small buildings. These are a couple of large cementaries with the above ground crypts.

Let me know if you would like any other landmarks pointed out.

Breaking News now: AOne of the buses that got to Houston WASN'T from the superdome!
As per CNN. Seems that it was commandeered from someplace. This should have been coordinated beforehand.

Dola: It seems that stories from riders didnt gel with actual things that took place in the dome. Seems that there's no security and coordination. Youd think that there wuld be escorts on these things and a running password and checkpoiint checks. Damn what a mess.

While true, in a perfect world, either everyone can do all the paperwork, dot all the i's and cross all the t's, and make sure everything is perfectly coordinated (mind you, on something of this scale, we're talking about there still being a 5% chance of a screw up due to the number of people involved) and they could head out tomorrow or Friday or do it as fast as possible and hope to do the best they can.

SI

It's not about paper work it's about OPSEC (Operational Security) and following SOP's for Convoy ops and such. Just gets me irritated how those ''infiltrators'' breached the system and got into a ''secure'' area. Operations this big you'd think there would be verification of manifests and id cards and such.

I don't know why the media acts so surprised that others (not in the Superdome) would be trying to evacuate once they saw all the announcements, I know if I had a bus I'd be loading it with people to try to evacuate the place.

FNC (Phil Keating live report) is reporting there were gunshots in the Superdome just now.

CNN is reporting shot fired at a helicopter involved at the Superdome.

Why on earth would someone shoot at a helicopter right now?

I have no idea. People are crazy?

Is wwltv down for everyone right now?

Those aren't people shooting at a helicopter ... those are animals who happen to walk on two legs.

I spent much of yesterday thinking this but I don't believe I ever said it here.
NOW I'm ready to say it: we've got the wrong kind of helicopters in the air over New Orleans. Time to move the S&R choppers out & the gunships in.

Who is this idiot on CNN, and who exactly pissed in his cheerios? When he he was interviewing Haley Barbor awhile ago, he kept pushing him and pushing him to say the Feds aren't doing enuogh to the point Barber was like "look, I don't have time to argue. I'm just trying to give you an update on the situation." Then he interviewed a woman at the Astrodome, and was basically throwing gasoline on her anger to get her to break down.

From what I can tell, they've been in attack dog mode since sometime last night.

Okay, anybody actually surprised by this at this point? (the suspension of services, not the shots fired that we already knew about)
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050901/D8CBFD9O5.html

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The evacuation of the Superdome was suspended Thursday after shots were fired at a military helicopter, an ambulance official overseeing the operation said. No immediate injuries were reported.

"We have suspended operations until they gain control of the Superdome," said Richard Zeuschlag, head of Acadian Ambulance, which was handling the evacuation of sick and injured people from the Superdome.

He said that military would not fly out of the Superdome either because of the gunfire and that the National Guard told him that it was sending 100 military police officers to gain control.

"That's not enough," Zeuschlag. "We need a thousand."

He said that shots were fired at a military helicopter over the Superdome before daybreak.

He also said that during the night, when a medical evacuation helicopter tried to land at a hospital in the outlying town of Kenner, the pilot reported that 100 people were on the landing pad, and some of them had guns.

"He was frightened and would not land," Zeuschlag.

He said medics were calling him and crying for help because they were so scared of people with guns at the Superdome.

So then, we're talking about a month of that murky, nasty water just sitting there. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this pretty much (apart from the predictions that the storm surge would push the water over the levees) the exact "Doomsday Scenario" that has been predicted for years?

Here's an article from four years ago...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/581820/posts

We've also seen the AJC and National Geographic articles. No, it wasn't the direct storm surge, but the bottom line is that it seems like we are at the worst-case scenario. As it was pointed out in this thread, "the water has stopped rising" is probably not something to celebrate; it sounds like "the water has stopped rising"="it has gotten as bad as it can possibly get."

I'm not trying to be negative; I'm just trying to get a handle on exactly where we are. It seems like people were using the "doomsday scenario" soundbite before Katrina hit, but aren't using that terminology anymore--even though that looks like where we are.

Thoughts?

Just off-hand, I think you're hearing it less because it does seem like it could have been even worse than it is. There are buildings still standing, there are people still alive, etc.

Also, I think you may hear the doomsday comparison a little less because more people are aware of the background of the city's development now than they were a week ago. When it's all hypothetical, I think Mother Nature was perceived as the villian, or at least it's all just theory. At this point though, now that the storm has taken on a "face" it'd be hard not to sound like we're blaming the victims (which doesn't always go over well).

Ground evacuation efforts from the Superdome now also suspended, due to fires set around the neighborhood.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/0...act/index.html

Agreed, but at least my understanding of the "doomsday" soundbite was the whole water-in-the-city-for-an-extended-period-of-time thing, which it appears we're facing.

I hear you there, but it seems that the blame should be placed on those who made the foolish decision to expand the city the way they did. I don't really blame the victims individually as I blame mankind's arrogance in general. I just posted those three articles, and I've heard it said over and over again: because of the way the city is built, it wasn't a question of if, it was a question of when.

I didn't seen Aaron Brown last night and I haven't watched much CNN, partially because I have been working about 13-14 hours a day, but mainly because I can only stomach about 5-10 minutes of it. But, I was just wondering what "attack mode" is being initiated? You mentioned earlier that forces were already at work to blame the president for this or at least use this even to paint him in a negative light. How so? I guess the only route would be to say that the reaction time was poor and that not enough precautions were taken. I don't think this will have any legs. It sounds like a poor startegy.

You know, what I don't understand about the looting and shooting and fires, is why are people doing it?

I mean, all you hear on the news is how upset people are that "New Orleans wasn't prepared, even though the warning signs were there," (at least, in the interviews, there seem to be a lot of bitter residents who were the ones forced to stay there being to poor, frail, or old). Now they're trying to help these people. And the lootings, shootings, and fires just hinder that help.

Maybe it's some aspect of human psychology I don't understand (I don't understand much of human nature), maybe it's just their frustration and the heat, but I don't really get it... :(

/tk

I haven't been following this closely, but I know Germany and some Senator or Governor in the US is already using this to slam Bush's global warming policy. I believe words were said within hours of the hurricane dissipating.

Yeah, I don't see them getting to many followers on that bandwagon.

They think they can stop it and commandeer it somehow and out of despiration, envy and anger.

I agree. People should not be afraid to ask the hard questions now--even if they step on some toes--because it will help us rebuild the City smarter and better.

As I pointed out in the other thread, you are spot on in noting that it is general human nature to try to manipulate the environment to suit our needs. Maybe, in a best case scenario, this will get people living in all sorts of areas that are not really fit for lage scale human habitation (the middle of the desert, on major fault lines, exposed to Pacific Ocean Tsunamis, etc.) to evaluate their situations and start planning with "not if, but when" in mind.

tk, I also have a very hard time understanding why. My only guess is what Chemical Soldier said, trying to take matters into their own hand. I guess the level on panic on some people is so that it makes them do weird stuff.

"See a helicopter, got gun, will try to take control of helicopter so it can take me away from this mess..."

Sad, sad mess... :(

FM

I don't think they have any intention of taking the helicopter. I think they've dropped into "Lord of the Flies" mode and are trying to exert their brute force against anyone and everything other than themselves.

Well, I just saw this editorial in the New York Times:

September 1, 2005

Waiting for a Leader

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.

We will, of course, endure, and the city of New Orleans must come back. But looking at the pictures on television yesterday of a place abandoned to the forces of flood, fire and looting, it was hard not to wonder exactly how that is going to come to pass. Right now, hundreds of thousands of American refugees need our national concern and care. Thousands of people still need to be rescued from imminent peril. Public health threats must be controlled in New Orleans and throughout southern Mississippi. Drivers must be given confidence that gasoline will be available, and profiteering must be brought under control at a moment when television has been showing long lines at some pumps and spot prices approaching $4 a gallon have been reported.

Sacrifices may be necessary to make sure that all these things happen in an orderly, efficient way. But this administration has never been one to counsel sacrifice. And nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.

While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast's most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans's levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane's surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area's flood protection?

It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America "will be a stronger place" for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won't acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.

-----------------

While, sure, leadership means leading, and symbols matter, I think this editorial is pathetic. Hopefully this line of thiming wont go too much further than a crappy editorial like this. Attacking the president for this mess, or even using it as an opportunity to attack, seems pretty freaking weak. I dunno, what can a chimp-made-president do about the biggest flood ever? A great speech, made one day earlier, and saying that climate change is real after all would have saved not one life.

I don't think this administration (as f*cked up and horrible as it is and boy is it ever!) is to blame for inadequate flood protection or the erosion of wetlands. That's just absurd. While there may in fact be a connection between global warming and increased potency of hurricanes (who knows?), there will be plenty of scientists who refute that. While that sort of thing is fine for a mediocre effects-driven summer movie, I don't think it will stand up in this arena.

FoxNews talking with boat-borne rescuers who have been ordered to stand down TFN.
Apparently after the helicopters went away, the rescue workers in the boats had become the next object of target practice.

Extremely predicatable I know, but I figured it would at least take a little while longer than it did.

DingDingDing.

And it reminds me of a very disturbing thought I had on the first night -- when all is said & done and the recounting of tales from the warzone begins, I expect the amount of sexual assaults that are taking place will be staggering.

We've got a mini Post Apocalyptic wasteland in New Orleans right now. No law. No electricity. No running water. People devolve into the "survival of the fittest" mentality pretty quickly and will look to take advantage of the situation, or gain an edge, any way possible.

It probably wont be long before some dude puts on an old goalie mask and starts refering to himself as "The Humungus."

it's even sadder than I thought it could be... :(

FM

sorry, but what does "stand down TFN" mean?

FM

I started to agree with you ... and then realized that I'm really not all that surprised when you get right down to it.

Driving back home from taking my son to school this morning, it struck me that similar (or even less extreme) circumstances would be likely to produce similar things right here in my little rural town. Only difference would be the raw numbers of predators & prey.

Stand down unTil Further Notice aka don't go back out there until we tell you to.

FTr, that was my paraphrase, not an exact quote.

"You are the Duke of New Orleans! You are A-number-one!"

I imagine, in a fantasy world, that the State had the resources of the Federal Govt (proportionate to its size). In other words, instead of waiting for the massive bureaucracy to get their wheels moving and resources gathered from disparate sources and places, Louisiana and surrounding states would have the same thing and can act and move quicker.

Maybe the Confederates were right after all.

oh no, getting down to it, I guess one can't be really surprised, but it still saddens me to no end. I'm probably too naive for my own good...

FM

thanks, had never heard that abbreviation before.

FM

I agree with JiMG's assessment of the media (particularly CNN's) handling of the situation. A couple reporters seem hell-bent on making sure there is plenty of blame to go around. There will be a time and a place to second-guess things that occurred, but you can second-guess almost everything. Instead of trying to find solutions they are trying to dig up more problems, something that is not needed at this time.

Of course the Mayor of Biloxi and New Orleans are just as guilty of spreading the blame. Everyone is already full on into the political swing.

I think it would help short-term, but where would all the long-term assistance come from? I would think the recovery would take much more money than one state could hope to provide. Also, poorer states such as Mississippi could more easily be overwhelmed by the task. I agree that local response, in an ideal world, could have been better, but I think there would still be a number of different problems that would arise.

I guess I don't understand anyone would be surprised at the lawlessness going on. Hasn't history proved - every single time - that given an excuse (i.e., lack of protection and force), people will riot, loot, cause destruction in the inner cities?

Does anyone know where Belfast street would be on the after map?

Perhaps the middle ground would be the feds distributing the wealth but it is the states that control, manage and allocate. For example, a major hospital ship should be availabe to any coastal state (and under the jurisdiction of the state) within 12 hours - not from a centralized port far away.

This speaks to the idea of a Confederacy instead of a Federal system.

Right... Ther water resistent defense system is in place because we know hurricanes never hit us. Because we never had something like this in New Orleans happen to wake us up that our greatest nemesis is not the commies, not the nazis, but it's the water.

That sad, if the same kind of hurricane would hit us, you'd some serious damage here too, the only difference is that the water defense system is there to limit the damage. There are flooding incidents here every year (not from see, but from the big European rivers that stream into the Atlantic Ocean in the netherlands) and they keep us awake and remember the big hurricane in 1953. Mind you, it took almost 50 years to complete building the entire water defense system. New studies show that sea level will rise faster and the current system would have been great in 1960, but only be 'just good enough' in 2010. The water comes from all side (and not just 3 of 4 like with New Orleans), it's no exaggeration that our country would be flooded for 1/3rd and see all the important cities in trouble (The Hague, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, the rest of Holland and much more).

When I read about the pump to keep all dry being below sea level I almost had to laugh about it. It sounds silly and I even called it an insult to the powers of water.

Enough bashing from and/or to my country.
Right now, it's time to see how New Orleans can be rebuilt and with a water-defense system that can limit (limit, not avoid!) the damage. I'm not the person to ask for it, but I bet inside my country the knowledge is available to help out.

Thank you for wishing us go through that again.
Asshole.

Edit: This is probably the last thread to call someone that, let alone after my own previous statement, but I can't think of a better word to fit there...

Chemical Soldier been a bit overwrought lately, so take that for what it's worth.

I found my old house. :(

Frankly, as soon as the levee broke Sunday night (or was it Monday?) and it looked like water was going to fill most of the city, that was I figured it became the "doomsday scenario". When only a small portion of the city was underwater, after the initial storm hit- it seemed like the worst was over. But, again, as soon as the levee's broke, this became a major ecological catastrophe as the city turned into the lake it is now and pretty much condemned all of those buildings and the land they were built on.

SI

Sorry buddy. :(

Which is why I am very thankful I have the right to own a firearm. Situations such as we're seeing in NO only reinforces my belief that I need to be able to protect myself because there may be times when no one else can.

(and no Cam didn't pay me to say that :p)

Louisiana isn't exactly a rich state and neither are the areas around it. They wouldn't be able to mobilize nearly enough. Never mind that the red tape would only be slightly slower as the state governments seem as corrupt and inept as the federal government- it's just not as high profile because it's on a local scale.

SI

I'm just surprised at how much it affects me to see that. My family got out, so things should be rosey.

But thanks, Coug.

I think this cuts both ways, no? Sure, on one hand it's great to have the right to own a firearm, but on the other hand isn't that right part of what's causing the problem? If there was no right to own a firearm I reckon there would be a hell of a lot less shooting at rescuers (unless they were using bows and arrows or sling-shots). The fact that "looters" could break into the local Wal-Mart and steal guns and ammo is pretty alarming, no?

An armed society is a polite society.

The facts are (and I'm sure Cam has the numbers memorized) that gun control laws do NOTHING to curb violent crime. Outlaws have no problem getting illegal weapons.

Please don't get into a gun control argument in this thread.

Don't worry. It wont. Just needed to point out the obvious.

What makes me sad about the whole situation is that the longer it takes, the better chance that people can die from anything else other than starvation or chaos. Already the city had graves above ground and I believe a number of them are floating around. Combine that with the recently dead and whatever possible sewage could be in that water and I can see why people would become frustrated, scared and desperate at this time.

And what I don't understand is why the high hostility for the looting. Don't get me wrong, looting is bad and the people who are basically taking advantage should be prosecuted, but shot. I never hear this kind of talk after stores get looted after a team wins a championship. And I am not liking this zero tolerance policy, because that means the law enforcement/military will be forced to go after the people who are seeking water and canned goods as well. What do you expect for the people to do when there is no other option to survive?

FFS, is everyone in the White House press corps out there to either nail the President or suck up to him?

"Why didn't the President act earlier?"
(ok, I liked the allowances for looters of food/water question)
"What did the President feel when he dipped down in Air Force 1 and saw the tragedy?"

First a biting criticism and then a sappy layup question that McClellan beamed at so much he couldn't have written it better himself.

SI

There is a huge difference between survival foraging (gathering food, water, clothing, shelter, etc.) and what seems to be going on all over the city, which is looting of luxury items and other goods that having nothing whatsoever to do with survival.

But the crux of the issue (in my opinion) is that you've got a total breakdown of societal values, respect for law, and the rights of others. Chaos reigns, might makes right. Either you move to stop this or you're abandoning the city and the innocent inhabitants that remain to a primal landscape where it's truly predators vs. prey.

Just a little update (forgive the repeat post from another thread):

I'm still hanging out in a hotel in North Little Rock, AR. Just called many apartment complexes in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and Lake Charles. All of them are full thanks to many recent evacuees who thought of the same thing quicker than I did. I finallyfound two furnished corporate apartments that will be available in Shreveport, LA in a week (actually the second one will be available in 10 days or so.)

Looks like I'm moving to Shreveport for a few months. Hopefully, LSU Medical School in New Orleans will be able to transfer my contract and get me work in the Shreveport area since there is an LSU Medical School there.

And then have the obvious pointed back at you