[Steve_Seattle]

"All morning I've been hearing about breached levees and that P lake spilling over. And yet I keep reading that NO dodged the bullet."

It depends on what you mean by "dodged the bullet." Even though there is some major flooding, some collapsed buildings, etc, the damage seems to be falling short of the doomsday predictions - 50,000 dead, city swamped with toxic wastes - that the city would be virtually destroyed. But it remains to be seen what the extent of the damage is; the reports so far are fragmentary and laced with rumor. Chances are that the emphasis on NO has distracted attention from worse damage elsewhere.

[bwteim]

John Z of CNN reporting some looters, now.

[ken5050]

As we do the post-mortem on the media coverage, I think it's fair to say now that the 3 24/7 cable news nets contributed more to the confusion than they helped.

[Howlin]

But it remains to be seen what the extent of the damage is; the reports so far are fragmentary and laced with rumor.

I remeinded myself this morning that, without fail, the news the second day is ALWAYS worse.

Just look at Katrina in Florida last week.

[IFly4Him]

I don't like the hype either. I think much of the media coverage is dictated by memeories of storm disasters before the 1970s.

What is different today? 1) Better communication and media coverage; 2) lessons learned; 3) improved building construction; 4) better envronment controls (levees, coastal improvements etc)

The likelihood of the doomsday scenarios is frankly very remote as long as residents continue to respect these storms and take reasonable precautions.

Now if NO had no levees or flood gates and people were continuing to congregate up and down Bourbon Street during the event; well then, who knows? But in the past people just didn't get adequate warning and that's why hundreds of people died.