Katrina's aftermath

I guess I am more sad than mad now.

they reported that someone shot at a helicopter and that's why they stopped evacuating.

Not enough power workers to fix outages
By KEITH DARCÉ
Business writer

The 6,000 power line workers currently assembled in southeastern
Louisiana won’t be nearly enough to restore power to the 990,000 utility customers who are still without electricity in metropolitan New
Orleans, the region’s electricity suppliers said Wednesday.

But getting more workers to the area might be impossible until late this week because many utility crews from neighboring states are still restoring power to southern Florida, which was hit surprisingly hard by Katrina, said Chanel Lagarde, spokesman for Entergy Corp., the state’s largest power supplier.

“There are severe limits on resources at this point,” he said. “We are told that the utilities in Florida are expected to wrap up later this week. Many of those (workers) will come directly here or to the east” in coastal Mississippi and Alabama.
The atmosphere of near-anarchy in New Orleans is another major concern, said Arthur Wiese Jr., vice president of corporate communications for Entergy.

“We can’t send workers out and put their lives in jeopardy,” he said late Wednesday afternoon from one of the company’s storm command centers in Jackson, Miss. “Once we have facilities back operating, we have to know that our workers can get to work safely.

“We are as alarmed as anyone over the chaos in the city. It is a very serious question,” Wiese said.

Those problems further validated earlier predictions by Entergy managers that many people in the hardest-hit parts of the state could be without electricity for a month or more.

Flooding and road blockage from debris remained the most immediate barriers to repair crews moving into the most damaged parts of the region.

A main transmission line running 25 miles between Madisonville and Bogalusa suffered catastrophic damage, with at least 18 miles requiring repairs, said Mark Segura, vice president of transmission and distribution services for Pineville-based Cleco Corp.

Transmission lines connect power plants to community substations and supply electricity to large numbers of customers.

Even so, by Wednesday night Entergy had restored power to 181,829 customers in Louisiana and Mississippi, mostly in areas not affected by flooding, Wiese said. “We are making good progress where we can get access.”

All of the region’s power and telephone companies were struggling to restore services in the wake of Katrina.

Nearly every customer of New Orleans-based Entergy and Pineville-based Cleco in metropolitan New Orleans remained without power Wednesday night, for the second day since the storm ripped through the region.

Communication was another problem, for utility workers as well as everyone else in southeastern Louisiana. Telephone services, over both wired and wireless networks, remained sporadic and, in some cases in Orleans, Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes, completely dead.

Nearly 81,000 wired phone lines were dead in southeastern Louisiana, said BellSouth Corp., the state’s largest phone service provider. And more phone lines were expected to fail as backup generators at communications terminals that survived the storm ran out of fuel.

BellSouth reported several key breaks in the company’s fiber-optic line system, the backbone of its communications network.

Work crews focused on repairing major cables, firming backup power to switching centers and restoring phone service to emergency personnel, local officials and hospitals, the Atlanta-based company said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.

“We are doing everything possible to assess the extensive damage this destructive storm has caused,” said Bill Oliver, president of BellSouth’s Louisiana operations.

Call volume created its own problems in the parts of the network that were working. Many people trying to make calls to and from the region were met with busy signals or messages saying that circuits were busy.

Wireless phone networks experienced similar troubles.

Cingular Wireless lost at least 700 antennas, or cell sites, throughout the region, according to a company operator.

Verizon Wireless also lost portions of its network, but spokesman Patrick Kimball couldn’t say how many towers were down in the region. “Strangely enough, some cell sites are still operating on rooftops,” he said.

Wireless services were improving in Baton Rouge, Mobile, Ala., and Pensacola, Fla., where crews had easier access to damaged facilities, Kimball said. But damaged equipment in much of metropolitan New Orleans remained unreachable, he said.

“The situation could improve in certain cases and it could worsen in others. It’s such a fluid situation, it’s hard to tell,” he said.

Most of the electricity and phone companies had storm operations centers outside the metropolitan area.

Managers with Entergy, which supplies electricity to 1.2 million customers in Louisiana, are orchestrating the historic power grid restoration effort from command centers in Baton Rouge and Jackson, Miss.

Nearly all of the company’s employees who rode out the storm in the Hyatt Regency Hotel next to the Superdome in downtown New Orleans evacuated the city Tuesday when floodwaters continued rising in the Central Business District and other conditions in the city deteriorated. The hotel, which also served as the command center for city officials, suffered major damage during the storm.

Dan Packer, chief executive officer of Entergy’s utility in New Orleans, remained at the hotel with Mayor Ray Nagin and a handful of city officials. At 5 p.m., 693,156 Entergy customers in southeastern Louisiana, or more than half of its customer base in the state, were in the dark. Some 21,636 more were without power in central Mississippi.

With 1.1 million Entergy customers losing electricity at the peak of the storm, the outage more than quadrupled the severity of the previous high outage event for the company, which came in June with Tropical Storm Cindy, Lagarde said.

All 88,000 Cleco customers in the parishes of St. Tammany and
Washington remained without power, Cleco spokeswoman Fran Phoenix said.

He certainly has an agenda. it is for you to sit on a thick glass dildo and spin slowly around. Send pictures as proof. kthxbye

uhm, maybe we should de-google the thread.

TOO LATE!

pentagon says orders to send national guard troops still haven't reached a lot of, um, national guard troops. they are still waiting for the go ahead.

Terry Ebbert, the city’s homeland security director, said police
received numerous reports of armed groups of marauders robbing scores of people throughout the hard-hit parts of the city. Authorities were unable to patrol the most lawless areas of the city, and it appeared police had little chance of investigating much of the unchecked crime.

Refugees find Dome an intolerable refuge
By Gordon Russell
Staff writer

The Superdome resembled a scene from the Apocalypse on Wednesday morning, with thousands of refugees trapped in a hellish environment of short tempers, unbearable heat and the overwhelming stench of human waste.

Evacuees told horror stories of assaults and the apparent suicide of a man who leapt from a balcony. Although none of the accounts could be confirmed by authorities, many refugees offered remarkably similar accounts.

A sense of desperation overtook those stuck at the Dome as they waited in vain to hear where they might be taken next. Later in the day, authorities announced a plan to begin bringing ill evacuees to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, from which they would be taken by bus to shelters and hospitals elsewhere.
The Houston Astrodome was preparing to take in thousands more, who were expected to start arriving by busloads this morning.

Throughout the day, frustration boiled over into anger and fear. Occasional skirmishes broke out outside the building, where people sought shade from a brutally hot sun under the Dome’s narrow eave.

"They’re treating us like crap," said Tina Wilson of Mid-City as others chimed in with amens. "They have us living like not even pigs."

Cleo Fisher of the Bywater sat atop a concrete cylinder in waist-deep water on Poydras just outside the Dome. Fisher, 86, said he left because he didn’t have heart medications he wouldn’t survive without.

Medical technicians were unsympathetic, he said, leaving him no choice but to try to get out and get help. He wasn’t faring well outside either – in fact, he was rescued from drowning by two passers-by after falling off the pier he sat on, he said.

"It’s worse than being in prison in there," he said. "They don’t have nothing for me."

Others were leaving because of concerns about their safety. The Dome situation had deteriorated noticeably from earlier days, as new swarms of refugees and rescuees arrived. On Wednesday morning, running water to the building was lost – as it was throughout the city – making the already overwhelming bathrooms downright noxious.

As people stood in long lines to receive rations of water and pre-made military meals, they put their shirts over their noses to block out the odor. Once word got around that some areas of the city near the Mississippi River remained dry, some refugees decided to leave.

"It’s chaotic, and it smells," said barbershop owner Ted Mitchell, who after three nights in the Dome was leaving – and contemplating walking back to his flooded home near Canal and Broad streets. "It’s worse than the Depression. That place is not fit for people to be living in."

"They’re treating people like prisoners in there," said Shelton Alexander as he left the Dome for the thigh-high waters of Poydras Street. "It’s so hot in there, and people are s—ting on the floors."

Tensions ran high between the Louisiana National Guardsmen assigned to secure the building and those they were protecting, with some people upset over what they felt was an inability to keep order and others saying they felt soldiers were too brusque.

Those crowded outside the Dome along a security line jeered and yelled at a guardsman after he shoved a man to the pavement who had ignored his order not to go back in without clearing a checkpoint accessible only by the deep water on Poydras Street.

Evacuees also vented their anger at city officials, in particular Mayor Ray Nagin, who many said they felt should have put in an appearance at the Dome in a show of sympathy.

"Ray Nagin should come speak to these people," said Julie Joseph, who huddled in a bleacher seat with friends who nodded in agreement. "To be the mayor … he should have come in here. We got people who lost family members."

Even some of the police officers and military members assigned to the Dome – none of whom wanted to speak on the record – said they felt the situation was being poorly managed, if it was being managed at all.

"This plan was no plan," said one cop, shaking his head.

The hellish confines stood in stark contrast to those of people nearby in the restricted-access New Orleans Centre and Hyatt Hotel, where those who could get in lounged in relative comfort.

A few blocks farther away, guests were being fed "foie gras and rack of lamb" for dinner, according to a photographer who stayed there, while the masses, most of them poor, huddled in the Dome.

While many were angry at what they perceived as third-class treatment, others were simply glad to be alive – or perhaps too numbed by tragedy to feel anything like anger.

"I’m sorry for the ones not here today," said Byron Price of Bywater, who came to the Dome just before the storm hit. "But thank God for the soldiers and police protecting us. It’s going to be all right."

Delia Crumby, crouched by a wall outside the Dome, said was rescued by a Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries boat after her Lower 9th Ward home flooded. She and her brother, who had recently had a stroke, holed up in the attic after the levee breach.

Her brother didn’t make it.

"I don’t really know what he died from," she said. "He just died up in the attic with me."

She pleaded with an outsider to call her sister in New Jersey to tell her that she was all right. The news about her brother would have to wait.

Superdome Evacuation Halted Amid Gunfire

By MARY FOSTER
Associated Press Writer
Published September 1, 2005, 8:30 AM CDT

NEW ORLEANS -- The evacuation of the Superdome was suspended Thursday after shots were reported fired at a military helicopter and arson fires broke out outside the arena. No injuries were immediately reported.

The scene at the Superdome became increasingly chaotic, with thousands of people rushing from nearby hotels and other buildings, hoping to climb onto the buses taking evacuees from the arena, officials said. Paramedics became increasingly alarmed by the sight of people with guns.

Richard Zeuschlag, chief of the ambulance service that was handling the evacuation of sick and injured people from the Superdome, said it was suspending operations "until they gain control of the Superdome."

Shots were fired at a military helicopter over the Superdome before daybreak, he said.

He said the National Guard told him that it was sending 100 military police officers to restore order.

"That's not enough," said Zeuschlag, whose Acadian Ambulance is based in Lafayette. "We need a thousand."

Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard said the military -- which was handling the evacuation of the able-bodied from the Superdome -- had suspended operations, too, because fires set outside the arena were preventing buses from getting close enough to pick up people.

Tens of thousands of people started rushing out of other buildings when they saw buses pulling up and hoped to get on, he said. But the immediate focus was on evacuating people from the Superdome, and the other refugees were left to mill around.

Zeuschlag said paramedics were calling him and crying for help because they were so scared of people with guns at the Superdome. 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 100 people were on the landing pad, some with guns.

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

Earlier Thursday, the first busload of survivors had arrived at the Houston Astrodome, where air conditioning, cots, food and showers awaited them.

"We are going to do everything we can to make people comfortable," Red Cross spokeswoman Margaret O'Brien-Molina said. "Places have to be found for these people. Many of these people may never be able to rebuild."

Astrodome officials said they would accept only the 25,000 people stranded at the Superdome -- a rule that was tested when a school bus arrived from New Orleans filled with families with children seeking shelter.

At first, Astrodome officials said the refugees couldn't come in, but then allowed them to enter for food and water. Another school bus also was allowed in.

The Astrodome is far from a hotel, but it was a step above the dank, sweltering Superdome, where the floodwaters were rising, the air conditioning was out, the ceiling leaked, trash piled up and toilets were broken.

Harris County Judge Robert Eckels said the 40-year-old Astrodome is "not suited well" for such a large crowd long-term, but officials are prepared to house the displaced as long as possible. New Orleans officials said residents may not be able to return for months.

The Astrodome's schedule has been cleared through December. The dome is used on occasion for corporate parties and hospitality events, but hasn't been used for professional sports in years.

In New Orleans, the refugees had lined up for the first buses, some inching along in wheelchairs, some carrying babies. Almost everyone carried a plastic bag or bundled bedspread holding the few possessions they had left. Many had no idea where they were heading.

"We tried to find out. We're pretty much adrift right now," said Cyril Ellisworth, 46. "We're pretty much adrift in life. They tell us to line up and go, and we just line up and go."

The Astrodome's new residents will be issued passes that will allow them to leave and return as they please, something that wasn't permitted in New Orleans. Organizers also plan to find ways to help the refugees contact relatives. ___

Associated Press writers Wendy Benjaminson in Baton Rouge, La., and Pam Easton in Houston contributed to this report.

I'm betting 7-8%.

I'd guess 20%+, which seems to be about how many stayed there. Do keep in mind, Alan, that the metro area only had 48 hours to evacuate and they needed a full 72.

Christ, those Hattiesburg pictures. My friend evacuated there from NOLA and she left Hattiesburg to Arkansas because the city was pretty heavily damaged. I thought they would be!

BREAKING NEWS

President Bush to travel to region devastated by Hurricane Katrina, White House says. Details soon.

...I've got a bad feeling about this...

...Let me tell you what's going on in Baton Rouge: we are a refugee nightmare. The grocery stores and gas stations are closed or empty or running out as quickly as they can resupply. Most people I know are hosting refugees in their homes for the foreseeable future (my wife and I, with three kids, are hosting three refugees). Many of these refugees have nothing to go back to, and apart from the round-the-clock work I've got at the office, I'm trying to find friends in Nashville and Dallas and Philly who might help some of them start a new life in those cities. Baton Rouge simply can't sustain them all. We are a city of 500K that just doubled in size. The help we want to hear is "on the way" is precisely the kind of things Bush put in his "laundry list." B/c now the people in the Baton Rouge area themselves, many of whom are still without power, are beginning to understand that all the refugees they are hosting are making it impossible to buy milk for their own f---ing children. I'm not saying that our attitude is hey, this isn't our problem; like I say, Baton Rougeans have stepped up to the plate...

The problem is that many of the victims can't see the listings. Most don't have computers or Internet access in the hotels, motels and emergency shelters where they've holed up across the South.

In Valdosta, Ga., five volunteers have offered up their homes, but city officials said there is no way — beyond a local media campaign — for victims to know about it. In the meantime, the city's hotel rooms are packed with refugees, and Red Cross volunteers are readying long-term shelters in the area...

local radio said today that 450+ Oregon Guardsmen are ready to go right now, but they're haven't received an official request yet. Christ do i hope all this forces a complete overhaul of all urban and national disaster procedures.

Also, looking a little ahead, my one friend in New Orleans (now safe in Oklahoma; he was coming home from Buenos Aires when the storm hit, and instead landed in DC before heading to OK family), when asked what I can do to help, asked me to keep my ears open for jobs. I mean, consider this disaster a potentially 300,000 jump in unemployment levels, and certainly population redistribution.

I find the stories of families with small babies wrenching. Imagine having no food or diapers for days on end, and no A/C. I read that many babies in hospitals are running fevers because of the 100+ heat, with nothing that really be done for them.

Also, the stories I read about rising gang tensions in shelters made me ashamed to be human. I mean, they have no more turf to defend, dammit!

i'm glad yr family is okay...very sorry they lost all their belongings. it must be incredibly difficult....hope they remain safe and well.

Katrina: DUD

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/news/050901a.asp

Is there anyone on the planet more disconnected from reality than GWB?

Embarrassingly, I didn't realize the extent of the disaster until last night when my bandmate Megan told me what an awful day it had been around the world (incl. the stampede in Iraq). I said, "Huh. I thought New Orleans was left relatively unscathed," since the last I had heard the hurricane had veered east. I had no idea. Then I came home and read this thread.

If you have any training whatsoever that could be used to help out in New Orleans (having a CPR license may do), and probably even if you don't, try contacting local authorities to see if you can offer your personal assistance (you may have to ask for a leave from work I have no idea). There's also the obvious; give blood. It will be needed.

i'm sure i've probably seen you in there and just not known it then, blount, i stop in there alot if i'm low on fuel after dropping off the g/f at class.

gas panic yesterday was nuts though, i worked night shift, $2.70ish on the way home at 8am, up to $2.90s by lunch, then I took a nap from 3:30-6:30, woke up talked to a friend who's telling about crazy shortages and shit, ride out to pick up g/f and all of a sudden everybody on Hwy 29 is out of gas, one place on North Ave. charging $4.11/gal. for what they had left - i ended up paying $3.39 somewhere, getting 5.8 gal. for $20

http://216.22.26.45:8002/listen.pls

Will play through winamp.

9:45 A.M. - Dave Matthews Band is expected to announce a concert today benefitting the hurricane victims.

Bush the Elder and Bubba will be doing their fund-raising thing again

also, acknowledge & dismiss:

"The people on the ground who needed help yesterday, he certainly understands their frustration."

tho that article doesn't mention the "no one predicted the levies would break" line, which i'm still trying to find.

money's money at this point. dave, altho i don't enjoy his music, seems like a decent enough guy.

when people say to send cash, they don't mean not to send checks, they mean not to send in-kind donations of material goods. only a moron or a ghoul would tell people with bank accounts and/or credit cards to send cash through the mail.

A tipster informs us that down in New Orleans, they have a name for the flood waters that have invaded the city: Lake George.

A woman on a bike played it safe -- riding up to a drug store and asking others if any arrests were being made. When she was told no, she said she's diabetic and needed to find test strips.

Of course, being looters, these people should all be shot. Oh wait.

Several bodies lie scattered around. Edwards pointed to an elderly lady dead in a wheelchair and said, "I don't treat my dog like that." He says he buried his dog.

will we have another post-war-type population redistribution?

you got that right:

Reporter: Regarding the president's zero tolerance for insurance fraud, looting, price gouging. Does he make any allowance for people who have yet to receive aid who are taking things like water or food or shoes to walk among the debris?

Sick Fuckstick McClellan: I think you heard from the president earlier today about his zero tolerance. We understand the need for food and water and supplies of that nature. That's why we have a massive effort underway to continue getting food and water and ice to those who are in need. There are ways for them to get that help. Looting is not the way for them to do it.

there isn't enough food and water to accommodate everybody. they keep running out. and it doesn't matter if more is on the way -- people are dying NOW. people are dead already. help was needed days ago.

The lateness of theaid tragically mirrors sub-Saharan Africa, and our latest news cycle of guilt over it.

There's nowhere else to put people. You need big urban enviroments (because there's nowhere near enough portible toilets and tents right now), and its a lot closer than other options.

edit: Interdictor is losing internet connections fast and soon most of the crew may be evacuating. He plans on staying all the way through.

From CNN:
Thursday, September 1, 2005; Posted: 11:48 a.m. EDT (15:48 GMT)

WAVELAND, Mississippi (AP) -- Hurricane Katrina seemed to take a particular vengeance out on Waveland, Mississippi.

The storm virtually took Waveland out, prompting state officials to say it took a harder hit from the wind and water than any other town along the coast.

Rescue workers there Wednesday found shell-shocked survivors scavenging what they could from homes and businesses that were completely washed away. The air smelled of natural gas, lumber and rotting flesh.

On Wednesday, Jim Clack held the hand of his elderly mother, Mercedes Clack, and led her through the rubble of her Waveland home.

"You might fall, Mama," he said gently.

Mercedes Clack, blocking the glare with wraparound sunglasses, said of her splintered home: "Oh, that was a beautiful house. Remember it?"

She brightened when she found an antique radio and a few of her jazz records. "Do you think they can be salvaged?" she asked her son.

this said, i'm really fuckin' angry at the guys who are going around cop-killing and shooting at helicopters and holding up the rescue effort. er. YOU'RE NOT HELPING.

"But given the fact that everyone anticipated a possible [Category 5 hurricane] hitting shore," Diane Sawyer asked him, "are you satisfied with the pace at which this is arriving and which it was planned to arrive?"

"Well, I fully understand people wanting things to have happened yesterday. . . . I mean, I understand the anxiety of people on the ground. . . . I don't think anybody anticipated the breech of the levees," Bush said. "They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached and, as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will."

and and and!

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, under questioning, attributed the problems to "real physical constraints . . . impassable roads. . . . It's not a question of not having enough assistance.

"The critical thing was to get people out of there before the disaster," he said on NBC's "Today" program. "Some people chose not to obey that order. That was a mistake on their part."

i guess Alan C was right. why, even the head of the dept now controlling FEMA is saying it!

also I heard busho on NPR this morning and his shit about not anticipating the levee's breaching made my blood boil - i had heard it was a possibility at least 24 hrs before it occured, and I don't even pay attention to the news

LSU has been shut down for the day,as there was a carjacking this morning.

The police here are already stretched thin, as some of them are in New Orleans for relief efforts. Any more evacuees might overtax law and order, although the people left in New Orleans are more concerned with staying alive than Baton Rouge's civil disturbances. It's getting restless though. Just a handful of people can cause a lot of problems with law enforcement mostly working rescue & relief missions. The vast majority of evacuees are distraught, but peaceful.

Back from Tangipahoa Parish. There are not hundreds of trees down. It's probably tens of thousands. Electric poles are snapped off and splintered. Electric cables are strewn on the ground like spaghetti. No power. No gas. No food. Still, it's a hell of a lot nicer than New Orleans.

Those people aren't stupid. I've never bought batteries or water for any of the world ending blizzards that have come through, nor did I do anything to prepare for Hurricane Bob when it made landfall near my house. They just did as many of us would do.

you may have been proved right, but was that wise?

Probably not. But that's how a lot of people are conditioned. I'm so skeptical of forecasts during the winter, I usually don't even watch the news, as its so often wrong about predicting giant storms and the like. Besides, if I have to go to work, I have to go to work. No one's going to take my place.

is this real? how are they relaying the info if there are no phones or computers and electricity. that said if this is real, i can't believe how bad it is re: armed thugs.