anyone that lives in the path of this hurricane, I wish you well and hope you remain safe... GL and god bless...

amen, it thankfully went south of me then built to a cat 5 and gonna hit alabama

Yep we are waiting. I'm in South Central LA so we are not going to get the brunt of it. We are supposed to get TS winds and rain but we may be taking shelter within hours. New Orleans, however, may not be around by wednesday. The experts say that 1 large hurricane could dump it into the Mississippi.

On a brighter note...I DONT HAVE TO GO TO WORK TOMORROW!!!!

Lmao factor... hope everything is oK down there.

what they need to do is GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY and get inland. Good luck to all those people

A reporter on the news today said he received an email from a weather reporter that covered a hurricane that hit the same area years ago. He said he will never forget the dead bodies lying around and that they died not from wind, rain or flood but from SNAKE BITE! Apparently people running to higher ground were sharing the same high ground with other animals and snakes escaping the salt water.

wow, i would much rather run into the hurricane then where all the snakes are hiding out

good luck to everyone in its path. jesus christ, factor did you say that new orleans may be under the delta by tommorow?! holy shit!!

<----feels sorry for everyone who encounters the destruction

Well it looks like New Orleans is still around.

All you drunkards and whores can relax and stop praying now

.....and go back to your sinful ways.

Hey Factor, how did you come out?

We are fine here. Just some downed branches. We were lucky. Got very little rain and wind gusts only reached about 35 MPH or so. Just down the road in Baton Rouge was hit pretty hard only 60 miles away.

I've got a buddy in New Orleans that I just found out went to the superdome. I don't know why he didn't leave. He probably just went for the excitement. I'm sure he will have some interesting footage when he gets back.

Yes pretty much. New Orleans is entirely below sea level with the Mississippi/Gulf below it and Lake Pontchatrain above it. Basically, it is as if it were sitting in the bottom of a large bowl with water flowing over the edges into it. As of 1:00 today (30th), 80% of New Orleans is under water...and the water is still rising. The only way to drain the city is for its pumps to pump the water out. However, there is no place for the water to be pumped out to. I really don't know how bad it has to get before they consider it unsalvagable but there has been no talk about that around here.

If you are watching any footage, keep in mind that they are not even showing the worst of it. They have not shown the Chalmette area. I work in accordance with EMT personnel that have been deployed to New Orleans. They have informed us that they are not showing ANY footage of the Chalmette area becasue there are bodies floating everywhere and are in the process of excaviting them. Word has it that they are paddling everywhere because they are afraid of turning on their motors due to the fact that they don't know what or who is underwater beneath them.

Pretty Grim

That's terrible.

Got a text message from a buddy of mine in the superdome last night at 1:30.

He states "Things getting real crazy here mp shot rapes suicides"

I can only imagine.

you should all come to canada just bring ur bitches and beer! woot

-phats

MP? whats that? sounds like a crazy Idea but if they can pump water cant they pump it into oil or other storage vessels/tankers? from devestation comes rebith and beauty. I was watching fox and the shepard smith was reporting that the Gov. and security forces havent been helping people. we can send aid in a matter of days accross the glode for the tusanmi (?) victims but cant do this in less time for our own... whats up with that?

get a move on it!

-phats

MP = military police. And they've shot at rescue helicopters evacuating hospitals! WTF?!?! I would't wish this on anyone, but shooting police and national guardsmen and coast guard helicopters doesn't help the friggan situation. And as for getting help there, they are. This is a huge disaster. It's not like everyone can just roll into NO. 80% of the city is under water. The airport has only recently been opened for emergency aid. Roads and highways are clogged with debris, making it difficult to navigate boats around the city. Maybe things could have been done better, we'll only know that when all is said and done. But over 100 miles of coastline has been destroyed. 3 states have been devestated. Instead of talking about how quickly we can help other countries, how about where the hell are the other countries when we need help. As usual the US can help others, but nobody is there for us.

that 2, but i thought that it would be faster then this... I thoguht we were better prepared for a disaster....

they finally have thousands of buses there to get people but they can only get like 15,000 people out a day when there is about 300,000................

Foxnews

Amen, brother

there there

I say we let all the pieces of shit kill each other off. That town is full of scum bags anyways....and thats clearly showing through. Bring the army in...and shoot all the people stealing items that arent needed for survival...like the rolex's and the tvs. Shoot all the snipers, rapists, and trouble makers...this isnt the time to piss around and play nice guy.

Is that serious?...kinda find that hard to believe

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168311,00.html

at the bottom...

ok...I'm still surprised though

damn amber! dude you speak the truth! your my hero! And, btw I agree with you.

It seems to me that it does not make much sense to rebuild in an area where another hurricane of such magnitude will obviously re-strike again. I guess this is very easy to say from the security of being 1K inland, however, given the level of destruction and the fact that New Orleans is below sea level, would it not be easier to re-build the city on a more secure site, perhaps further inland.


Would this be practial, or would the industry of the city (oil refining) be too badly affected by this move? Additionally, I read today that the Black Caucus in Congress is accusing the administration of prejudice against the poor and the blacks in New Orleans.. I thought that we as a society were past racial prejudices.. people are people!!!! DAMM IT HELP THESE PEOPLE ASAP!!

Us Canadians have offered our water purification units of the Canadain Armed Forces. They can deploy and set up in less than 24 hours.. Please take advantage of them.. They saved many lives in the Tsunami disaster and can purify sewage water at a rate of 20,000 litres per day.

I would suggest that the authorities in the US hire some consultants from the Netherlands, as their dyke and levy system is considered the finest in the world and supposedly could withstand such a force.

My heart certainly goes out to the people affected by Katrina..I have no doubt that they will overcome this tradgey and the city will be finer than ever.

I have a question since I have been working etc and havent seen a Map of the flooding, but if they can get buses in and people are waiting on buses, why cant they walk out of the city using the same path? I watched them march on the convention center, why not march out of the city where they can get some help rather than waiting for the help to come to them? This in no way is meant to belittle the situation. I realize we are talking about the poorest of the poor here, but if the help isnt coming, go to the help.

KT, they can start walking but there is NOTHING around for them to go to. We are talking about 50-100 miles before they can get to "civilization". And for the poorer people, when they get there, there is nothing that they can do.

You may have come across these sites already but Ill post the links anyway. I found them very interesting.

Weblog of a company that is staying insided the city to keep their clients' servers online---this company will expand exponentially when this thing is over

Satelite shots of before and after

I believe that NO should be rebuilt further up the mississippi and not in the same spot. Let's face it, New Orleans will never be the same again. Part of its mystique was its age and history, but if those historic buildings and landmarks have been destroyed or needing to be rebuilt it will not be the same history. Its mystique will be gone forever. "The Big Easy" as it has been known, no longer exists. It will now be known as the the town the Katrina destroyed.

Question...does any of this oil in NO and the gulf go to any of these contributing countries??? If so...theres your answer on why they're helping...they would need our oil back up too.

well.... if we lose oil it takes it our of the BIG pot that everyone uses... my thought is this. we have afganistan and Iraq... they have oil.... we are already there.... ummm.... lets take some oil as a reward for their freedom, to the victor goes the spoils!

walking 3-5 MPH for 24 hours = 72-120 mile...
poor, rich... all the same now... no one can get money and if they have it what does it matter?
during a time of chaos other things matter... Booze, smokes and dope. all are a high value tradable commidity. you can trade them for just about anything. my question is this if you are stuck the first thing I would look for is a tractor the can be started... probably in the out lying areas and a trailer. they can go through 3-4 feet of water (going slow) seeing as the stacks are so high. hook a trailer and load it full of people and drive out. not easy as i said it is but might happen if you are lucky and able to find such things long as they are not destroyed. and water hasnt got into the fuel system (more then likely it has and wont run...). I cant believe that there is 25000 people in the astro dome and people are getting raped... wtf is wrong with thyat picture... 25000 people and they havent influenced mob justice and ripped them apart... dont get it...

Just got word from friend...in Dallas...waiting to here whats going on and if he needs me to go pick him up. Still no phone to him...text messaging...slow going.

This is just an amazing situation.

I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras a few years ago and I can honestly say that I have never met nicer people in my life.

Just to comment on the Racial aspect of this, FEMA was on the ground within a few hours of Hurricane Andrew, a hurricane that struck a largely white population with a high percentage of voters, namely blue-haired republicans. There are reports that in some areas of the Gulf Coast FEMA hasn't even been seen as of today.

Looking at it from the other side, would you want to try and help people that are firing at rescue helicopters, that are raping and killing fellow survivors? I sure as hell wouldn't. A lot of these animals' problems are caused by themselves and they need to realize that.

On a sidenote, I found it funny that Kwame stated on live TV that 'Bush hates black people.'. What, a racist Republican? The hell you say!

Cypher

I hate to say this, but a police officer told me last nite that they had already arrested 3 men for carjacking at Reunion Arena and 2 women for prostetution. And just a small percentage of refugees were there. Working in the closest food and entertainment area, I'm a little worried about tonite. I saw a whole bunch of the charter busses heading that way this morning.

I just double-checked. It seems that Andrew struck during the tenure of one of the most brilliant Presidents in this nations history. I knew there was a reason it was handled so much better than this fiasco.

I wonder if there are any Republicans left in New Orleans now?

Cypher

God I wish people would stop making this about polictics and racism.

Just for the record, Homestead Florida is predominently black and was completely leveled by Andrew. Miami is also predomently a Cuban/Black/Immigrant area so the whole rasist or republican view here is absurd. Of course FEMA and the Red Cross (The Mayor of NO asked the Red Cross not to go in the city because they couldnt protect them) are having problems here, Its flooded and there is rampant groups of punks with guns. So It isnt racism, it is the select group of victims who have decided to act out because they seem to think that they wont get in trouble for the acts they are commiting. Remember, somewhere, some dildo is catching all of this shit on a camcorder and a vast majority of these fuckers will be caught or herded into the lake.

I don't know that you can take either out of the equation, they are intertwined in our nations fabric. This is a disaster, plain and simple. Unavoidable and inevitable.

Bush acknowledged that he screwed this up from the start, was there an underlying racism involved there? Does he value the lives of blacks less than the lives of whites?

Kt, nice to see you in the forums, I'm sorry I can't see more of you on the battlefield. When I talked of Florida, of course I was referring to the large population of sunbirds and New Yorkers that own property there. I think everybody knows that FL is mostly one giant suburb of Cuba.

Cypher

I dont think its about racism or politics. the country is unprepared for a disaster of this level. we need something else besides fema and the NG to step in. we needed Vol. ready to leave in moments notice with trucks and supplies alredy on the trucks (army surplus) and water tankers heading out on trains to the affected areas. they could have been there in a day. from all across the country, diverse and unpaid...

heres something that no one hit on....\

were are all these Militias that are in this country that "are there to protect the people..."

they have guns and say they will help when in dire striats? wtf bunch of all talk boneheads!

I'm sure your police friend was probably accurate in his information but be careful of rumors from the public. We have several thousand here in Lafayette and there have been a few incidents that the police have verified but there have been LOTS of rumors started by the public. One was that a local gun and western store was robbed and many guns and ammunition was stolen. It was false but you should have seen the amount of people I saw buying guns at Academy Sports and Outdoors. They sold 60 weapons in a 3-hour period.

Take heed to the information by the police but be careful of the rumors.

This situation is differant than the one when Andrew hit Florida. FEMA was able to come in to ground zero and set up tent cities and all things needed to support the homeless. You can't very well go into NO and set up anything. The people have to be brought out. The nature of this devistation makes it impossible to compare with Andrew and Florida.

I was comparing the preparation of the two disasters. If I were in charge of the situation, I would have staged C130 transports to take off every 30 minutes, getting people out of the area. I would also have moved a few wings of helicopter pilots to the next closest base, within 75 miles of the projected disaster area, able to move in at a moments notice. There really is no excuse for not being prepared for this, all of the world saw it coming.

The fact is that no matter what happens in this country we are burdened with a tremendous handicap because our commander in chief is incapable of pragmatic thought. It's just sad that people have to die because of that.

Cypher

Gimme a break Cy huh.

sorry man, don't kill the messenger.

Cy

Well, the airport was flooded until Thursday afternoon and bringing helicoptors within 75 mile would have put the choppers in danger of being destroyed since 90 thousand square miles were devestated by this hurricane. I now feel things moved too slow, but I think it was only because nobody could really believe that it would be this bad and when it was this bad it was nearly impossible to get people where they needed to be as quickly as they needed to be. Don't forget, the day of the flooding people were being rescued from flooded areas by helicopter. They were clearly prepared for that. They weren't prepared for less than half the population leaving the city when they were told it was a mandatory evacuation. I understand that not everyone could leave, but I think they were prepared to rescue those that couldn't leave. They weren't prepared for over 300,000 people staying behind in a city of just over 500,000. Hell, Fats Domino stayed behind. Don't tell me he couldn't leave. Harry Connick Jr. left, but he didn't take his family, and they needed to be rescued too.

There's an old parable about a religious man who finds himself in a flood. First he hears that the flood is coming. He tells himself that God will save him. Then the rains come. He tells himself that God will save him. Then the water rises to his front door and he tells himself that God will save him. Eventually he ends up on his roof with water all around him, but he tells himself that God will save him.
He spends the nite on his roof and is awakened the next morning by a man in a boat. The man offers to take him to safety. He tells the man "no, God will save me". Eventually the waters rise over the roof and the man drowns. When he gets to heaven he asks God why he wasn't saved. God tells the man, "I sent you news that the flood was coming. I thought you would get the hint when the water reached your front door. Heck, I even sent a man in a boat to get you. What the heck were you waiting for?"