Astonishing Exclusive From Mississippi [hundreds if not thousands dead]

Paramedic Rescue Operation | 8-31-05 | My Favorite Headache

[My Favorite Headache]

It is with heavy heart I write this...

I have finally reconnected with my best friend who is a paramedic who was sent from Georgia 2 days ago to Gulf Port, Mississippi before the hurricane hit.

He just reached me within the last 10 mins via emergency cell phone to tell me he was alive.

Thousands of bodies have been discovered throughout Mississippi in Gulf Port, Waveland,Hancock County,Bay of St.Louis.

They are hanging in trees and they are pulling them out 30 at a time. Entire families found drowned in their homes and washing up on shore.

The stories he could tell me were brief. National Guard is on the scene and arresting anyone seen on the streets.

The numbers are staggering and what I have been told tonight will shake people to their foundation as the numbers will be coming out in the next 24-hours of just how many people have actually perished in these and 3 other beach communities.

More to follow....

[gpapa]

The Salvation Army has activated their emergency response radio network. Fill out the form and they will send to disaster area to locate persons for you.

[Tom Thumbs]

Multiply that by, oh, 1.5 million. Consider the devastation and loss of personal ID, bank records, etc.

This is going to put the hurt on for a LONG time.

---

The whole country will be reeling from this -- for months, if not years.

I think that is something that has not registered with most people yet due to us all still being in shock.

Besides the obvious -- the loss of close to a quarter of our oil refinery capacity, and the loss of the crucial pipelines taking refined petroleum products and natural gas to the eastern seaboard and the midwest -- there is the less obvious impact that will hit due to the losses of businesses, offices, records, and so forth.

Look at all those highrise office buildings, then consider that it will be months before anyone can go back to work in them. If ever.

In a way, the economic impact on the country might be WORSE than the loss of the WTC.

This is going to be a really rough winter for the entire nation. I'm buying all the gasoline I can afford right now (fortunately I have a safe storage location), and I hope to have several cords of firewood at the ready. We filled our heating oil tanks a few months ago, back before oil started its present race to reach escape velocity, so we saved a considerable amount there, but unless we burn a fair amount of wood too, it won't be enough to carry us throught the winter.

I will not be surprised to see $7.50 a gallon gasoline by winter, if not sooner. I also won't be surprised if it goes higher than that.

I hope I'm wrong, but I cannot rationally come up with any scenario that would provide for an alternative to that nightmare.

The proposed release of Strategic Reserve oil is a meaningless feelgood gesture IMO intended only to "ensure domestic tranquility". The oil is stored in salt domes. When it is pumped out of storage, it is "salty". This means that the refiners cannot simply put it into the "input" pipe and crack it as if it were sweet crude. They have to retool their equipment to be able to deal with the salt-laden oil. This is an expensive, labor-intensive operation. And, they have to do the same thing to go BACK to regular oil when they're done refining the reserve oil.

The salt is also corrosive, and not good for the equipment.

Refiners as a rule do NOT want to work with that stuff. From what I've heard, there are two companies that have requested it. One is Chavez's Venezuelan company. Think about that. (I don't know who the other is.)

Besides all this, the problem isn't a lack of OIL, it's a lack of REFINERY capacity. We haven't built any new refineries in decades, and the existing ones are running on scotch tape and baling wire.

They can get all the oil they can handle WITHOUT dipping into the saltmines. So why all the talk of releasing the Strategic Reserve oil? Domestic propaganda, not to put too fine a point on it. (IMO pretty much the only valid use for that oil is in a TRULY desperate situation, at which time it would be going to our military, so that our armed forces don't run out of fuel while keeping the enemy away from the gates.)

Stuff that keeps me up at night worrying...

Sorry for the digression. This is stuff I've been worrying about for some time now, but the situation on the south coast has really pegged the nightmare meter with regard to how the country as a whole is going to get by in the near term future.

[WHBates]

"Meanwhile, the towns of southern Mississippi and Alabama, where conspicuous religiosity is the norm, lie in complete wrack and ruin comparable to last winter's tsunami."

The breadth of your ignorance about the area is breath taking.

Do you think this was a message from God? Are all weather related events messages from God? I had to replace a water pump on my car last week, was that a message from God or maybe Mr. Good Wrench? Did God want to punish the entire lower half of Mississippi and Alabama as well as NOLA?

Sometimes bad things happen to good people and sometimes good things happen to bad people. I try to worry about myself, what I'm doing and how I will be judged in accordance with my actions. If God had a plan in all of this he didn't chose to let me in on it.

[Major_Risktaker]

The Governor of Louisiana seemed overwhelmed with the situation the same day GW called her to evacuate the area.

Poor girl was totally lost and her eyes were glazed over on the tube last weekend.

Anyway, Americans are going to or must open their homes to the evacuees with wide open arms because New Orleans is closed if the water can't be stopped from the breached levees. Of course I'm stating the obvious.

_______________

Memories of the War

During the Second World War I was an evacuee from Dundee. I was evacuated to Arbroath and I went to the old St Thomas School.

I remember that three of my sisters were evacuated with me. They were Helen, Mary and Jessie. The family I was living with were very nice. They had a teenage son and daughter called David and Dorothy. David and Dorothy's mum and dad were called Nelly and David Barnett.

I was upset of course to leave my mum behind but the Barnetts were good to us. I remember arriving that day and being introduced to the family and being given a drink of juice and a biscuit.

_______________

[Gum Shoe]

"I had to replace a water pump on my car last week, was that a message from God..."

I was approached by some Buddhists at a SoCal Mall the other day. They told me meditation and chanting could fix any problems I was having in my life. I was having trouble with a leaking gas tank on my car. I asked if chanting would fix my gas tank. They seemed unsure of a response and walked away without answering.

[Rebelbase]

If I didn't know better I'd have thought that was a tsunami photo from last year.

[DrGunsforHands]

Is there any possibility that the same thing happened here and that the dead bodies are not casualities from the storm but bodies that were ripped from graveyards?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Oh my God.

[Coldwater Creek]

God always has a plan. Sometimes it for the individual and sometimes it is collective. I am not saying that God's hand in all of this destruction was punishment, just that He is in control.

[ajolympian2004]

The breadth of your ignorance about the area is breath taking.

Do you think this was a message from God? Are all weather related events messages from God? I had to replace a water pump on my car last week, was that a message from God or maybe Mr. Good Wrench? Did God want to punish the entire lower half of Mississippi and Alabama as well as NOLA?

Sometimes bad things happen to good people and sometimes good things happen to bad people. I try to worry about myself, what I'm doing and how I will be judged in accordance with my actions. If God had a plan in all of this he didn't chose to let me in on it.

I agree.

I'll believe that this hurricane (or a similar natural disaster) was the 'hand of God' the minute it is observed that a hurricane about to make landfall vanishes from the radar screens by this same 'hand of God'.

When natural disasters like this strike anywhere in the world and thousands of innocent folks die as a result I sometimes think, "Where's God, missing in action again".

[Don W]

Talk about SPIN!

We who believe in G_d do so of our own free will. MOST, if not all of us are able to witness DIRECT actions in our own lives, of the Creator of the universe, His divine mercy, and all its mysteries.

Often, these actions seem to be quite destructive and cruel. There are many reasons why G_d allows people to die from natural disasters.

Foremost (to me, anyways) is that the innocent, and the G_dly MUST suffer along with the sinful, in order that the sinful can know that G_d is JUST!

If a G_d loving man is stubborn enough to think that he is protected from a deadly storm simply because he believes, he has earned G_ds wrath. He will be treated as an unbeliever, simply for his arrogance in G_d's mercy.

There will also be unrepentants who are spared, because they are (in G_d's eyes) worthy of being spared, for purposes only the Almighty knows.

You CHOOSE to deny that what you experience and enjoy daily, is only through His grace. I'm certain that G_d has something interesting awaiting your triggering it. I know that *I* (a major-league atheist/existentialist at one time) did.

Be grateful that YOU and those you hold dear were not within the path of this storm, and pray/wish/hope that such a calamity doesn't occur to the aforementioned.

After all, G_od only knows His purpose, and His plan.

[expatguy]

"One thing is for certain, this will probably alter how future hurricanes are handled, with evacuations not being up to the individual."

Are you suggesting that people will be "forced" to evacuate?

[Sidebar Moderator]

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[singfreedom]

Sorry, when I typed this message I neglected to put the ten before the thousand!! Oh, good grief.

[DB]

There were a number of people around here who were claiming this was all just media overkill as it was coming on shore...

I'd like to know if all this death and destruction met their requirements for being a genuine disaster...

[saradippity]

Has anyone even considered how many hospital staff remained on duty to care for the patients at Tulane University hospital,Children's hospital and Charity hospital?

And what about the parents of the 300 children at the Children's hospital,do you think they may have chosen to stay and hope and pray the hurricane would spare the city?

And the list goes on.

[DrGunsforHands]

That "puff of dry air" that blew Katrina slightly to the east and weakened her by 30-40 mph sure seems like something quite exceptional. It kept the storm surge from going into NO and drowning the entire city right away.

[Tall_Texan]

I heard many times the locals say "X made it through Camille" as if it meant there was nothing that could possibly damage it.

I have family on the Alabama Gulf Coast and lived along the Texas Gulf Coast with a brother who has lived on Grand Cayman and South Florida, so I follow hurricanes pretty closely. I must admit I'm shocked at the storm surge this hurricane caused. I knew it would be bad but I didn't think it would be this bad as far away as Mobile Bay from where the eye came ashore.

This is like the Baby Huey of hurricanes. It was so massive as to wipe out communities hundreds of miles from where the eye travelled. That's extraordinary, even by Category 5 standards.

[Jackknife]

My sister and her family live in Simpson Co., just south of Jackson. They have an incredible amount of damage, even that far inland. This is very sad, indeed.

On another note........I wonder how much assistance we will recieve from the countries that said the U.S. didn't give enough to help for the Tsunami last year.....

I'm not holding my breath.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

My God.

Yesterday there was mention of a county nearby that no one had heard from. Not one word from one soul. The story sent chills down my spine. Did anyone else hear this (on FOX, I think) and has that changed?

It is times such as this I realize how foolish we are to think we are smarter and more powerful than nature; and how stupid we are to think we have control over its forces.