At least that lady evacuated. I feel so sorry for those people who have been wiped out but cannot understand those who had the means and did not leave. I heard that 30 might be dead in one apartment building. Shades of Camille.
I was 15 when we drove though Biloxi a year after Camille. The area had been cleaned up, of course, but I was still haunted by block after block of steps leading to nothing and by the remaining wall of the Episcopal(??) church.
Morning folks. Been out of the loop for almost 12 hours now, so I don't have any new information, but here's what I expect to see happening today.
The choppers are up now, many for the first time since before the storm. Once they all get done with a first pass, give it an hour for the people to meet and talk things over, another hour to polish things up, an hour to call a press conference, and we should start getting some overview reports aroud noon today.
In the meantime, guys with chainsaws are cutting their way into the heavily damaged areas, where a few people may be inside trying to cut their way out, but most of the people in the bad areas are probably concentrating on survival rather than escape.
In any event, the SAR people will be too busy for the most part to be holding press conferences that provide detailed reporting. Most of that won't start leaking out till late tonight at the earliest.
The worst areas will be sealed off till they can get basic services up and running, but reporters and residents always find a way in and out, so by tomorrow we'll be able to start putting things together on a detailed scale.
In the bigger picture, no matter which anecdotal reports you choose to believe and which you choose to discard, it's clear that we have suffered a significant surge event from just east of downtown New Orleans over to the Fla/Alabama line, and the coastal and beach areas within that span have been hit very very hard. I'm coming into today and tomorrow fully expecting some pretty unpleasant news reports at times, and I'd suggest that others prepare themselves similarly.
Finally, I feel for the folks who are still wondering about loved ones, and would hope that everyone here will try as best they can to keep them in mind during whatever unfolds over the next few days. My very nature is to find patterns in anecdotal reports, but I will keep my speculation to a minimum, and also work very hard to avoid and doom and gloom end of the world stuff, no matter wat kinds of reports we get from the press. Fingers crossed, hoping for lots of survivor stories, lets see what we've been dealt.