Hurricane Devastates New Orleans, Miss. & Alabama

[slum_goddess]

holy shit, is this true? New Orleans Prisoners Riot, Take Hostages

A deputy at Orleans Parish Prison, his wife and their four children have been taken hostage by rioting prisoners after riding out Hurricane Katrina inside the jail building, according to WBRZ.

Officials are expected to hold a press conference regarding the riots at 9 p.m. ET.

A woman interviewed by WBRZ said her son, a deputy at the prison whose family is among the hostages, told her that many of the prisoners have fashioned homemade weapons. Her son had brought his family there hoping they would be safe during the storm.

[DudeAsInCool]

100s, Maybe 1000s Perish

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/31/D8CAVTG89.html

[Malicious Intent]

BBC

Water from Lake Pontchartrain is pouring into New Orleans after the failed attempts to plug breaches in the barriers which are supposed to protect the city.

The pumps which usually assist are no longer working because of the rising levels.

"The water will rise to try and equal the water level of the lake, which is 3ft (1m) above sea level," Mayor Nagin said.

"I'm on the 27th floor of a very un-air conditioned building looking out over the city. And I'm looking uptown and where there was dry land, there is now several feet of water."

[DudeAsInCool]

How to Help:

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/stormcente...donations_x.htm

[DudeAsInCool]

NBC Plans Benefit This Friday:

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/CA6253044.html

[DudeAsInCool]

“Roving Bands Of Looters Are Breaking Into Stores... [stealing] Guns And [Arming] Themselves”...

"Looters went to extraordinary means to get into the Rite Aid drug store on Carrollton Avenue and Oak Street in Uptown New Orleans, where metal storm doors were rolled shut on the doors and windows.

"Looters commandered a fork lift, which they used to ram into the metal and peel open the protective covering to get inside the store. That allowed a steady stream of looters, many wheeling shopping carts, to stock up, primarily with food, candy, any soft drink or water or alcohol, and cigarettes.

"After much of the store had been emptied, a pair of looters carrying handfuls of candy and chips stopped briefly to talk to a newspaper reporter. 'They still have come canned foods in there if you want some.'"

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...t_id=1001051366

[The Hunter]

Water, and food fine go for it to survive. As to the rest, they dont need it, and that is just looting. its martial law, Id shoot em.

[Shawn]

No wonder they're stealing guns to arm themselves then. ;)

[The Hunter]

In retrospect it does make my post look a bit odd. I still stand by it though. At times you have to draw a line, and with all that is going on there, they really dont need armed drunks.

[Ken]

If it's just food/water, and if it's only for survival, then fine.

However I'm seeing a lot of images of people packed with clothes and electronics, smiling away.

The gun stealing calls for being shot on site. We already had a police officer shot in the head when he tried to stop some looting.

The images and video I've seen of the looting are disgusting and show a very greed driven mentality, not one of survival.

[Ken]

No wonder they're stealing guns to arm themselves then.

The people stealing guns are not looking to protect themselves.

Just ask the police officer who was shot in the head.

[The Hunter]

IMHO if they are stealing nonessentials, its time to lock, and load. If its not stopped now its just going to get worse.

[Kooperman]

When they evacuate the city all those TVs, boom boxes and bicycles won't be going with them.....

[DudeAsInCool]

30,000 National Guard Troops Deployed

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national...artner=homepage

[Kooperman]

The New York Times editorializes on George Bush's speech about Hurricane Katrina:

NYT

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....

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.

For the rest of the editorial click here:

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/08/th...lasts-bush.html

[slum_goddess]

jesus fucking christ, i dint think it possible but after reading that callous shit, i hate him even more.

[Kooperman]

Biloxi Newspaper Slams Relief Effort, Begs for Help

By Greg Mitchell

Published: August 31, 2005 10:15 PM ET

NEW YORK

The Sun Herald of Biloxi, Miss., in an editorial today, criticized the relief effort in its ravaged area so far, and told officials and the nation-at-large: "South Mississippi needs your help."

It angrily revealed: "While the flow of information is frustratingly difficult, our reporters have yet to find evidence of a coordinated approach to relieve pain and hunger or to secure property and maintain order. People are hurting and people are being vandalized.

"Yet where is the National Guard, why hasn't every able-bodied member of the armed forces in South Mississippi been pressed into service?"

Pointedly, it declared that earlier today, "reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics."

It added: "We need the president to back up his declaration of a disaster with a declaration of every man and woman under his command will do whatever is necessary to deal with that disaster."

The newspaper has managed to publish two print editions this week as well as keep its Web site updated.

For the text of the editorial click here:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...t_id=1001052870

[Kooperman]

US won't let Canada help Katrina victims

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/31/235829/261

[Kooperman]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/31/205843/351

After 9/11, the administration was eager to put Bush at the top of the "pile", a cheap show of determination in the aftermath of disaster. Somehow, I don't think Bush standing atop one of these shattered levees and speaking through a bullhorn to the citizens of New Orleans would have the same effect right now.

[Kooperman]

Weaseling

This morning, about 7:05 am Eastern time, George Bush was interviewed by Diane Sawyers on ABC's Good Morning America. This is what he said:

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Mm. Here is a quote from an article originally published on June 8, 2004 in the Times-Picayune:

For the first time in 37 years, federal budget cuts have all but stopped major work on the New Orleans area's east bank hurricane levees, a complex network of concrete walls, metal gates and giant earthen berms that won't be finished for at least another decade.

"I guess people look around and think there's a complete system in place, that we're just out here trying to put icing on the cake," said Mervin Morehiser, who manages the "Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity" levee project for the Army Corps of Engineers. "And we aren't saying that the sky is falling, but people should know that this is a work in progress, and there's more important work yet to do before there is a complete system in place."

...

"I can't tell you exactly what that could mean this hurricane season if we get a major storm," Naomi said. "It would depend on the path and speed of the storm, the angle that it hits us.

"But I can tell you that we would be better off if the levees were raised, . . . and I think it's important and only fair that those people who live behind the levee know the status of these projects."

...

The Bush administration's proposed fiscal 2005 budget includes only $3.9 million for the east bank hurricane project. Congress likely will increase that amount, although last year it bumped up the administration's $3 million proposal only to $5.5 million.

"I needed $11 million this year, and I got $5.5 million," Naomi said. "I need $22.5 million next year to do everything that needs doing, and the first $4.5 million of that will go to pay four contractors who couldn't get paid this year."

And here is an excerpt from May of this year:

In the event of a slow-moving Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane (with winds up to or exceeding 155 miles per hour), it's possible that only those crow's nests would remain above the water level. Such a storm, plowing over the lake, could generate a 20-foot surge that would easily overwhelm the levees of New Orleans, which only protect against a hybrid Category 2 or Category 3 storm (with winds up to about 110 miles per hour and a storm surge up to 12 feet). Soon the geographical "bowl" of the Crescent City would fill up with the waters of the lake, leaving those unable to evacuate with little option but to cluster on rooftops -- terrain they would have to share with hungry rats, fire ants, nutria, snakes, and perhaps alligators. The water itself would become a festering stew of sewage, gasoline, refinery chemicals, and debris.

I guess it all depends on what one means by "nobody" and "breach" and so on.

http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/200...557635057638481

[KiwiCoromandel]

Fresh water needed after Katrina.......

A lack of clean water is the most immediate health threat posed by the murky green water flooding Louisiana and Mississippi, health experts warned yesterday as authorities declared a public health emergency after Hurricane Katrina's devastation.

Even apparently clean water is likely to be contaminated, and food will become spoiled and dangerous very soon in the summer heat, officials said.

"This afternoon, I've declared a public health emergency for the entire Gulf region. That will have the effect of dramatically simplifying and accelerating the procedures necessary to expedite emergency actions," health and human services secretary Mike Leavitt told a news conference.

"We are gravely concerned about the potential for cholera, typhoid and dehydrating diseases that can come as a result of the stagnant water and conditions."

The flood destroyed sewage systems, and may have washed toxic chemicals and agricultural products into the mix.

"The biggest problem is the sewage contamination of the water," said Dr. Glenn Morris, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Maryland Medical School in Baltimore.

"Just simply splashing around in the water, if there is sewage contamination there is a risk you could get it onto your hands and get it into your mouth," Morris added in a telephone interview.

Viruses such a hepatitis A could be a threat, said Morris. Experts worried about bacteria such as Vibrio cholera, which causes cholera, enterococci and dangerous strains of E. coli.

"I think the biggest problem is going to be the drinking water supply," said Dr. Alan Decho, a microbiologist at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

"It is not under pressure now and any time that happens, the surrounding water could seep into the water pipes and contaminate things," Decho said in a telephone interview.

A little bit of bleach will kill bacteria and viruses in water but not parasites, nor will it remove toxic chemicals. Boiling will kill living contaminants.

Most deaths after a disaster such as a hurricane come when people try to get back into their houses and are electrocuted or hurt by debris, experts said.

NO THREAT FROM THE DEAD

But despite traditional fears about unburied bodies, the remains of the dead will pose no immediate threat to health, although they may later.

"Diseases are caused by viruses and bacteria. If the body doesn't happen to have those viruses or bacteria, then the risk is less," Morris said.

"If you are talking about people who have drowned or if they have died of trauma, then there is much less likelihood that they might serve as a source of contamination."

The US Food and Drug Administration issued warnings about food.

"Perishable food such as meat, poultry, seafood, milk and eggs that are not properly refrigerated or frozen may cause illness if consumed, even when it is thoroughly cooked," the FDA said in a statement.

"Do not eat any food that may have come into contact with flood water," it added. Medicines also may be contaminated by flood water.

Mosquitoes are not an immediate threat but may be later on, health officials said.

But there is little danger of new infections such as malaria, Morris added. "You have to have somebody who is infected with the illness to infect the mosquito," he said.

Leavitt said his department was sending in medical supplies and field hospitals hurricane victims and patients evacuated from flooded or damaged hospitals.

HHS said Louisiana state officials have received 27 pallets of medical supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile, including bandages, ice packs, blanket, sterile gloves, and stethoscopes.

"We are...erecting a network of up to 40 medical shelters," Leavitt said. There will be 10,000 beds and 4,000 medical staff, he said.

HHS had found 2600 hospital beds in the surrounding states and 40,000 nationwide that could be used.

A final concern – generators. Experts said carbon monoxide poisoning from generators was a threat after such disasters.

source:AP

[KiwiCoromandel]

Looters rampage in New Orleans......

Looters rampaged through flooded streets and survivors scrambled to get out on Thursday as shell-shocked officials tried to regain control of the historic jazz city reduced to ruin by Hurricane Katrina.

An operation to bus more than 20,000 refugees to the Houston Astrodome was suspended temporarily when shots were fired in New Orleans at helicopters being used in the evacuation, a local government spokeswoman in Houston said.

The incident was part of the chaos that prompted New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin to order police to drop rescue operations to fight the crime that gripped the besieged city.

An angry Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco told reporters: "We will do what it takes to bring law and order to our area. I'm just furious. It's intolerable," she said of the growing crime wave.

As more national guard and army troops headed into the region to help with relief efforts, thousands of people waited hours or waded through floodwaters to catch rides out of New Orleans, one of the world's most famous tourist destinations and the birthplace of jazz.

Storm survivors sheltered in the Superdome football stadium scrambled to get out of the city, clambering on to 300 buses that shipped them 560km west to the Astrodome in Houston.

The first of more than 20,000 people began arriving early on Thursday at the stadium, where Red Cross workers set out thousands of cots and "comfort kits" that included various toiletries and a meal.

But the operation was put on hold when shots were fired at Chinook military helicopters being used to transport the evacuees.

"We were told they are shooting at Chinook helicopters and the operation has been put on hold until daylight," said Gloria Roemer, spokeswoman for Harris County Judge Robert Eckels.

Elsewhere in New Orleans, gunshots repeatedly rang out and fires flared as looters broke into stores, houses, hospitals and office buildings – some in search of food, others looking for anything of value.

They broke windows, tore down security gates and knocked down doors, then hauled away what they could carry or cart.

Similar scenes were playing out in Mississippi where looters freely ransacked stores in Biloxi and Gulfport, both shattered by the storm that slammed into the US Gulf Coast on Monday with 225kph winds and a 9m storm surge.

Hundreds of people are believed to have died in what officials say will be one of the worst natural disasters in US history.

Nagin, the New Orleans mayor, estimated it would be 12 to 16 weeks before residents of the city could return. A million people fled the New Orleans area before Katrina arrived. But former Mayor Sidney Barthelemy estimated 80,000 had been trapped in the city.

Amid the gloom was good news that floodwaters had started to drop in New Orleans, which is mostly below sea level and was inundated by water from Lake Pontchartrain after levees broke.

"Water is now flowing slowly out of New Orleans," the US Army Corps of Engineers said in a statement.

It said it would it would open holes in parts of the city's levee system to let water drain out while at the same time attempting to fix several large breaches torn out by Katrina's storm surge.

Corps officials estimated it could take a month to get the water out.

Some people left homeless in Mississippi and Louisiana were frustrated with relief efforts.

"Many people didn't have the financial means to get out," said Alan LeBreton, 41, an apartment superintendent who lived on Biloxi, Mississippi's seaside road, now in ruins. "That's a crime and people are angry about it."

The Biloxi Sun Herald newspaper said in an editorial emergency supplies "simply are not getting here fast enough" and asked "why hasn't every able-bodied member of the armed forces in South Mississippi been pressed into service?"

US president George W Bush flew over stricken areas on his return to Washington from his Texas vacation and said, "We are dealing with one of the worst natural disasters in our nation's history."

"This recovery will take a long time. This recovery will take years," Bush said.

His administration declared a public health emergency amid concern about outbreaks of disease and began working with Congress on emergency legislation to assist recovery efforts from the disaster that some officials said rivaled the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Bush warned against price-gouging of gasoline in the aftermath of Katrina and condemned the looting.

"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be looting, or price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving, or insurance fraud," Bush said in an interview on ABC's Good Morning America.

The storm was having a national impact as gasoline prices soared. The hurricane cut a swath through a region responsible for about a quarter of the nation's oil and gas output.

The administration said it would release oil from the nation's strategic reserves to offset losses in the Gulf of Mexico, where the storm had shut down production.

The US coastguard reported at least 20 oil rigs or platforms missing in the Gulf of Mexico, either sunk or adrift, while officials estimated 95 per cent of regional oil and natural gas production and eight refineries along the coast remained shut down.

Several crude pipelines on the Gulf Coast remained out of service due to power outages, damage and flooding.

source:AP

[KiwiCoromandel]

and...just to show that global warming has no particular favourites and doesn`t lean to the left...... :)

China evacuates 790,000 as typhoon slams into coast..........

China evacuated more than 790,000 people as powerful Typhoon Talim slammed into its east coast yesterday after barrelling across Taiwan, where it left three dead and dozens injured.

Talim was forecast to be the strongest storm to hit China this season and the observatory in Fujian province issued its highest-level alert, warning of potential landslides, flooding and widespread damage.

With a radius of 250 kilometres, Talim was packing centre winds of up to 144 kilometres per hour, according to the central weather bureau in Taiwan.

The China Meteorological Association said the storm made landfall at Putian city in Fujian late afternoon, bringing torrential rain and strong winds.

State television showed rising seas off the coast of Fujian as rains hammered coastal roads, but winds did not appear as strong as they were in Taiwan where three people died and 59 were injured on Wednesday and yesterday.

Nearly 500,000 people have been evacuated in Fujian and another 291,000 from neighbouring Zhejiang province, according to local officials, while some 30,000 fishing vessels returned to harbour.

Most flights from Fujian's capital Fuzhou were cancelled yesterday and schools province-wide have been ordered to close until Monday, state television said.

Talim is "probably the strongest typhoon China will experience in terms of wind this summer," said National Meteorological Centre expert Zhang Ling.

Wang Dongfa, head of Zhejiang's meteorological bureau, said they expect the typhoon to focus on Fujian but nevertheless warned of torrential rain to Wenzhou, Taizhou and Ningbo cities and surrounding areas.

East and south-east China are prone to typhoons and have been pummeled by dozens over the past 50 years.

Talim churned through Taiwan Wednesday but by late yesterday had largely left the island as it churned towards China.

Two men drowned in southern Tainan and northern Miaoli counties while a 60-year-old woman was hit by lightning in the southern Changhua county, the National Fire Agency said.

Offices, schools and financial markets closed in Taiwan, all domestic flights were cancelled and many trains and international air services were delayed.

An air raid drill slated for Friday in Taipei was postponed until next week.

Electricity was cut to 1.7 million homes but most were expected to be reconnected before the end of the day.

In Taichung, a bridge connecting Kukuan, a popular hot spring, was submerged by flash floods, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of tourists.

In the northeastern county of Ilan, powerful waves smashed into the port of Wushi which was closed by the authorities.

Among those injured were eight prisoners and a policeman, hurt when their van rammed a crash barrier.

In the capital, where the rain and winds were less severe than elsewhere, bars, karaoke lounges and restaurants were crowded as people took advantage of the national holiday declared as a result of Talim.

Most air and land traffic was expected to return to normal yesterday as the typhoon moved away.

source:AFP

...What`s that you say..?.." there`s no such thing as global warming "...Oh well..... :)

[KiwiCoromandel]

New Orleans mayor issues 'desperate SOS' ...........

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has issued an urgent plea for relief, saying the flooded city lacked food for thousands of Hurricane Katrina's refugees and buses to evacuate them.

"This is a desperate SOS. Right now we are out of resources at the Convention Center and don't anticipate enough buses.

"Currently the Convention Center is unsanitary and unsafe and we are running out of supplies for 15,000 to 25,000 people," he said in the statement read by CNN.

Gunshots and mayhem were hampering the evacuation of the city and more troops were ordered in to assist and control crowds of desperate survivors trying to escape the hurricane's destruction.

Shell-shocked officials tried to clamp down on looting in the historic jazz city reduced to a swampy ruin by Monday's storm. Bodies floated in the streets, attackers armed with axes and steel pipes stripped hospitals of medicine and authorities said they could still only guess at how many people had died.

"We don't have numbers. It could be in the hundreds, or the thousands," US senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana said of the statewide death toll. "I think it's going to be shocking."

Federal disaster declarations covered 234,000sq km along the US Gulf Coast, an area roughly the size of Britain. As many as 400,000 people had been forced to leave their homes.

Violence broke out in pockets of New Orleans among the wandering crowds grown hungry, thirsty and desperate to escape the flooded city and 32C temperatures.

"We want help," people changed outside the city's convention center."

Boat rescues were delayed because of the danger and police rescuers shifted their focus to fighting looting and other crime that gripped the city.

A national guard official said as many as 60,000 people had gathered at the increasingly squalid Superdome stadium for evacuation.

But the evacuation was suspended after reports that someone fired at a military helicopter sent to ferry out survivors. A National Guard soldier was shot and wounded in the arena on Wednesday.

Nearly 5000 national guard troops were mobilised in Louisiana. The military said the number would rise to 21,000 by Friday and 30,000 in the next few days, mostly in Louisiana and Mississippi but also in storm-stricken parts of Alabama and Florida.

Convoys of police and state trooper cars raced down Interstate 10 toward New Orleans with lights flashing, and state police from around the nation were on the way.

"We will do what it takes to bring law and order to our area," an angry Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco said.

"I'm just furious. It's intolerable."

source:REUTERS

[The Hunter]

http://www.herald.ns.ca/breaking/stories/n23232019.html