[rwfromkansas]

this is MUCH worse than was reported earlier today.

My word.

This is basically mid cat-4 devastation.....the size of the storm must have made things much worse.

Wow.

[STARWISE]

There's no doubt in my mind, as I've been saying for awhile now, that this is a cataclysmic event with horrific loss of life, communities and vital infrastructure. This IS the big one, barring any other monsters in this rotten hurricane cycle we've entered, God forbid. These coastal communities will never be the same ..rebuilt in time, yes .. but never the same. This is totally life-altering in the most basic and raw definition of that term.

So many vital issues: many dead, no power, residential & commercial structural collapse, bridge collapses, levee break, levee pump failure, oil rig damage and/or loss, contamination of the water supply, disease setting in, at least one vessel or barge leaking oil, total basic needs for perhaps hundreds of thousands of people for months and months, housing need in the tens of thousands (according to FEMA Director), water still continuing to feed into the area .. the list goes on and on and on.

IMO, it will be a couple of years or more before you'll start to see any semblance of normalcy return to this area. God bless them all ... the bulk of the population are now totally dependent on the Federal government and the goodness of the relief and charitable agencies for EVERYTHING and for a very long time.