SWG Tales

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050831/ap_ ... MlJVRPUCUl

here are some tidbits

NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Katrina probably killed thousands of people in New Orleans, the mayor said Wednesday " an estimate that, if accurate, would make the storm the nation's deadliest natural disaster since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

"We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water," and other people dead in attics, Mayor Ray Nagin said. Asked how many, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

There will be a "total evacuation of the city. We have to. The city will not be functional for two or three months," Nagin said

Nagin estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people remained in New Orleans, a city of nearly half a million people. He said 14,000 to 15,000 a day could be evacuated

"We are looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in," Nagin said on ABC's "Good Morning America, "and the other issue that's concerning me is we have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue."

With the streets awash and looters brazenly cleaning out stores, authorities planned to move at least 25,000 of the New Orleans' storm refugees to the Houston Astrodome, 350 miles away, in a vast, two-day convoy of some 475 buses.

As the sense of desperation deepened in New Orleans, hundreds of people wandered up and down Interstate 10, pushing shopping carts, laundry racks, anything they could find to carry their belongings. Dozens of fishermen from up to 200 miles away floated in on caravans of boats to pull residents out of flooded neighborhoods.

On some of the few roads that were still passable, people waved at passing cars with empty water jugs, begging for relief. Hundreds of people appeared to have spent the night on a crippled highway.

In one east New Orleans neighborhood, refugees were loaded onto the backs of moving vans like cattle, and in one case emergency workers with a sledgehammer and an ax broke open the back of a mail truck and used it to ferry sick and elderly residents.

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.


and last but not least

"I can only imagine that this is what Hiroshima looked like 60 years ago," said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour after touring the destruction by air Tuesday

ummmmmm, huh? I believe we bombed hiroshima, not flooded it...

I'm so proud he's from IL:

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp ... tml#075833


OK, OK, so there's some merit to his thinking, right? People who live in areas that can be affected by natural disasters are stupid. They just keep building it back up after disaster strikes. So where should we all be living then? I mean Cali and Florida are right out. Move now, idiots. But I guess you could count all coastal states, really. They could all be hit. So we got the midwest...no, tornados and the flood-prone Mississippi there...The North can get some terrible terrible winter snows...Obviously not "paradise" Hawaii cuz of the volcanos...And haven't they been talking about some super volcano under Yellowstone that could devastate the whole western half of the US? Can't go anywhere west, obviously. No, I got it. Alaska. Yeah Alaska.

Damnit, no. Bears.

Maybe we should look to Disney for the answer.

* breaks into song and dance to the tune of under the sea *

Well, admittedly not reading that nola entry, I have to say that the very idea of New Orleans and how it currently (or should I say previously) is absurd.

It would be comparable to erecting walls in a lake, and pumping water out of that lake, and then building houses there, entrusting that those walls would never break.

Granted, that's not how it happened, but even without Katrina, NO was literally lower than the lake next to it, and the river and ocean on the other side of it.

So not quite the same as living in an area that gets the occassional tornado.

more updates:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hurricane_ka ... MlJVRPUCUl

clips:

- New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out, cops turned in their badges and the governor declared war on looters who have made the city a menacing landscape of disorder and fear.

"They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said of 300 National Guard troops who landed in New Orleans fresh from duty in Iraq. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."

from one hellhole to another...man these guys deserve praise...

The chaos deepened despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government relief effort
President Bush called the biggest in U.S. history.

New Orleans' top emergency management official called that effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly lawless city.

About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans convention center grew ever more hostile after waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead. Police Chief Eddie Compass said there was such a crush around a squad of 88 officers that they retreated when they went in to check out reports of assaults.

"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."

Col. Henry Whitehorn, chief of the Louisiana State Police, said he heard of numerous instances of New Orleans police officers " many of whom from flooded areas " turning in their badges.

"They indicated that they had lost everything and didn't feel that it was worth them going back to take fire from looters and losing their lives," Whitehorn said.

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

"You can do everything for other countries, but you can't do nothing for your own people," he added. "You can go overseas with the military, but you can't get them down here."

The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.

"They've been teasing us with buses for four days," Edwards said. "They're telling us they're going to come get us one day, and then they don't show up."

At one point the crowd began to chant "We want help! We want help!" Later, a woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd ..."

"We are out here like pure animals," the Issac Clark said.

"We've got people dying out here " two babies have died, a woman died, a man died," said Helen Cheek. "We haven't had no food, we haven't had no water, we haven't had nothing. They just brought us here and dropped us."

Tourist Debbie Durso of Washington, Mich., said she asked a police officer for assistance and his response was, "'Go to hell " it's every man for himself.'"

"This is just insanity," she said. "We have no food, no water ... all these trucks and buses go by and they do nothing but wave."

FEMA director Michael Brown said the agency just learned about the situation at the convention center Thursday and quickly scrambled to provide food, water and medical care and remove the corpses.

UMMM, don't they have tv's or read the newspaper????
"hurricane? wha hurricane?? New orleans under water??? Shut up man, quit messin with my head"

As he watched a line snaking for blocks through ankle-deep waters, New Orleans' emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the
Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy," he said. He added: "We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."

FEMA officials said some operations had to be suspended in areas where gunfire has broken out, but are working overtime to feed people and restore order.

n Washington, the White House said Bush will tour the devastated Gulf Coast region on Friday and has asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former
President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign for victims.

The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness.

well good thing he is getting right on top of the situation and surveying the damage a WEEK LATER...a place not an hours flight from his ranch...

Donald Dudley, a 55-year-old New Orleans seafood merchant, complained that when he and other hungry refugees broke into the kitchen of the convention center and tried to prepare food, the National Guard chased them away.

"They pulled guns and told us we had to leave that kitchen or they would blow our damn brains out," he said. "We don't want their help. Give us some vehicles and we'll get ourselves out of here!"

"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. "And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together."

well good thing he's made that clear to the AG...and those people should work together, damn them for sitting around waiting to be "rescued" just because they have no food, vehicles, water, supplies, and are being shot at...