I am in KC. Liz and the boy are in North Louisiana at her folks' place. As for our house, we can only hope that it is still in Covington.

I can tell you it is an odd feeling to see The Weather Channel guy reporting a hurricane from your local grocery store's parking lot.

Our house is 20 miles west of where the eye apparently hit (well, the third landfall anyway). In the midst of all of the concern for New Orleans and Gulport, nobody seems to be talking much about Slidell, which it looked like to me took the brunt of the eye wall and, although above sea level, had to be greatly affected by the storm surge.

Hopefully, a friend of mine will be able to inspect my house today at some time. There are a lot of lives that are going to be devastated by this storm. One can only imagine if this thing would have arrived 10 to 15 miles east of where it did.

Slidell has looked really bad in the few images I have seen of it. Downed trees, wind damage, etc. I can't find the link where I saw the Slidell pictures, though. It seems like because of floodwaters that reporters are pretty much trapped wherever they were stationed before the storm so they have little way of figuring out what is happening in other places.

I'm glad to hear you guys are all right-- hang in there, Sam!

Great to hear you and the family are OK, Sam. Hang in there. Let us know if there's anything we can do.

They finally evacuated the Times-Picayune building today, but the WWLTV blog is still updating.

Martial law has been declared, for the first time in American history since World War II. Interestingly, the first time martial law was declared in America was by Andrew Jackson after the Battle of New Orleans in 1814.

Sam, I don't know you man but I work at Starbucks. When you get an address let me know I'll send as many goodies as I can. My staff wants to donate to as many families as they can, so let me know. andrmadr@aol.com

Be well.

Comedian Andrew Madrid

Having spent many a summer with relatives and mardi gras with friends down there, it is hard to describe how painful it is to see one of my favorite places in the world destroyed.

Everyone I know, as far as I know and have heard, is ok, but have most likely lost everything.

I can't understand, why there did not seem to be a contingency plan in place to plug a major floodwall break such as occured.

They had to know that such a break would occur when a strom the strength of Katrina hit.

I read somewhere (and I can't find the link now because I've read so damn much about this disaster) that it was assumed that the levees would suffer immediate, catastrophic in the event of a Category 5 hurricane. The slow-motion failure we have been seeing was regarded as a low order of probability. Plus, the barges carrying concrete and gravel to plug up the holes have been unable to navigate the wreckage-clogged waters around the city and canals. And apparently the logistical sticking point with the drop-the-big-sandbag-from-a-helicopter approach to emergency levee repair is a lack of suitable slings to suspend the sandbags from the helicopters.

Still, your point stands. Everybody knew something like this was probably going to happen some day. Sure does makes those Army Corps of Engineers budget cuts look short-sighted.

As an aside, the folks at the Times-Picayune deserve a Pulitzer for their coverage.

I saw an exhibit in New Orleans back in the late 1990's that predicted exactly what is happening right now with almost eerie accuracy. I think it was at the aquarium. At that time the leading solution was to build a wall around the CBD and Vieux Carre while they figured out a long term solution. Hindsight is easy of course but looking back that could have made at least some difference-- the destruction would still have been massive but at least there would be a place from which to stage relief. It is crazy that politicians of all stripes and at all levels have not dealt with a problem that they all knew was coming for at least a decade or two--probably longer.

The more I look at everything the more I am in awe. I really can't comprehend how hundreds of thousands of people can be displaced for what could be months. It makes the horrible July of '03 in Memphis look like a brief flicker of the lights.

I found this four part NPR series that I remembered hearing a few years back about the plight of New Orleans. Good reporting and they also discuss what was being done by an assortment of folks to address New Orleans problems before it was too late (the segment titled "An Unlikely activist" about a banker trying to save the wetlands is especially interesting).

I raise your pulitzer prize for the T-P, with the T-V
wwltv.com

These guys are camped out in a data center in the Central Business District. Somehow, they are still connected.

Quote of the Day:
"The National Guard, FEMA, the NOPD, and City authorities DO NOT have the city under control."

check out katrinacane...

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

Holy shit. Is this really happening?
"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 with a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet."

Yeah brother it is. And it really, really, really fucking sucks.

NOLA.com has just reported that Memphis music legend Alex Chilton is among the missing in New Orleans. I know he's among thousands and thousands, including many who are close to Memphilter denizens, but I thought it should be noted.

Elizabeth and her father went down to Madisonville today to survey the damage. Amazingly, our house escaped totally unscathed. My next door neighbor had a tree on his house, as did a few others.

When I moved to New Orleans, I was torn between living in Uptown or on the North Shore. Many times while crossing the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway, I wondered if I had made the wrong decision. I wonder no more.

We're so glad y'all are safe and your house is OK.

I have been thinking a lot about the "what can we do" scenarios as far as helping after Katrina and I think that Rodney hit on an interesting idea in the job posting he sent out earlier this week over memphiskrewe, and that is trying to give temporary employment to people who have been displaced. I imagine a lot of employers are generally reluctant to hire people who they know will be leaving in a few months, but doing so would be a major boon to the affected people that are dispersing across the country. Larger corporations especially could help in that regard in that they would have people that would already know basically know the system of a company. Obviously I am not a CEO but I am going to encourage my employers to give preference to people affected by the hurricane when they hire for the season--

The Times Picayune is deservedly pissed off. I also found this article from the Times Online to have good insight; I did not know that FEMA waited until Wednesday to decide that Katrina was an event of national significance, an apparently important distinction in response planning.

Hey.

I just wanted you to know that I am leaving my assistant position open through Monday. So, far I have over a dozen applicants. Some of them obviously need time to get together resumes, or photocopies, as they are completely in disarray. If you know anyone who would be interested, then send them to http://www.livejournal.com/users/seahorsekabob/.

Thanks.