Katrina Live Thread, Part XIV

Various ^ | 2 September 2005 | Various

[NautiNurse]

President Bush continues to assess the catastrophic damage by air and on the ground in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Bush spent the day meeting with search and rescue personnel, relief commanders, and displaced residents in Mobile, Biloxi, and the New Orleans area. U.S. Congress passed a $10.5 billion relief package for the hurricane ravaged areas. First Lady Laura Bush issued a press statement from an evacuation shelter in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Patient and staff evacuations continue from numerous New Orleans Hospitals. Thousands of patients are being airlifted to a field hospital at Louis Armstrong New Orleans Airport for triage, staging, and transport to hospitals throughout the United States.

The U.S. Coast Guard and civilian volunteers continue to evacuate thousands of survivors from their flooded homes in New Orleans. The Army Corps of Engineers continues work to repair the damaged levees.

The nation's airlines today began an operation intended to fly up to 25,000 refugees out of New Orleans. The airlines are volunteering their aircraft and crews for the program. Long convoys loaded with relief supplies arrived throughout the day into New Orleans, while convoys of buses are moving survivors out of the city.

Several large fires are burning in the city and greater New Orleans area. Reports indicate snipers are holding down firefighters. Reports of shots fired with LEO down in the St. Bernard Parish area. Rescue operations are underway. A bus carrying NOLA evauees rolled over in Opelousa, LA.

Links to various news, local and state government websites:

WLOX TV Biloxi, Gulfport, Pascagula has link to locate family and friends
2theAdvocate - Baton Rouge Includes Slidell, St. John Parish, St. Bernard Parish updates, and other locations.
NOLA.com
Inside Houma Today includes shelter and volunteer updates
WLBT.com Jackson MS
WALA Channel 4 Mobile, AL Includes links to distribution centers, Emergency Ops, etc.
Sun-Herald Gulfport MS Includes link to town by town reports
Gulfport News via Topix.net
WAFB Baton Rouge
Mobile Register via al.com
Mississippi updates via Jackson Ledger
Lafayette LA Daily Advertiser
Pensacola News Journal
St Bernard Local Government
Alabama Homeland Security Volunteers can sign up online
Alabama DOT
Alabama.gov
Louisiana Homeland Security
Louisiana State Police road closure info
State of Mississippi Website has traffic alerts, emergency contact numbers

Streaming Video:

New Orleans Emergency Operations Center - is now open:
504-463-1000
504-463-1001
504-463-1002

WWL-TV New Orleans (via WFAA Dallas) - WWL-TV is operating from studios at Louisiana Public Broadcasting. CBS has a relay during the morning and afternoon. When available, use the CBS relay first as they have greater streaming capacity. Yahoo has also provided a relay.

WDSU-TV New Orleans - The news staff has started to return to temporary news studios near New Orleans. However, expect evening coverage from Hearst-Argyle sister stations WAPT Jackson and WESH Orlando when the New Orleans staff needs to take a break.

WGNO-TV New Orleans - New Orleans' ABC affiliate has returned to the air with WBRZ-TV and launched video streaming with continuous Katrina coverage.

WPMI-TV Mobile, AL - WPMI is webcasting from 5:30am - 10:30pm CDT. When off air, you can view pre-recorded reports on demand. This feed is often unreliable.

WKRG-TV Mobile, AL - This station is providing good coverage of the situation to the east in Mississippi and Alabama. However, the station is now signing off at around 10:30pm CDT like WWL and WPMI.

WJTV-TV Jackson, MS - The CBS affiliate in Jackson is providing live coverage for both the Jackson area and south Mississippi (knowing a lot of media in that area is off the air).

United Radio From New Orleans: WWL-AM, WNOE-FM, "KISS-FM," WRNO-FM, WYLD-FM, and WJBO-AM who have joined forces as United Radio From New Orleans, and they are streaming.

Related FR Threads:

FYI: Hurricane Katrina Freeper SIGN IN Thread FReeper Check In thread
Discussion Thread - Hurricane Katrina - What Went Wrong?!?
Post Hurricane Katrina IMAGES Here
Looting Begins In New Orleans
Hurricane Katrina HOUSING Thread
Martial Law Declared in New Orleans

Due to the number of requests to assist, the following list of some charities is provided.
This is not intended as an endorsement for any of the charities.

www.redcross.org or 1-800 HELP NOW - note: website is slow, and lines are busy
Salvation Army - 1-800-SAL-ARMY or Salvation Army currently looking for in-state volunteers - (888)363-2769
Operation Blessing: (800) 436-6348.
America's Second Harvest: (800) 344-8070.
Catholic Charities USA: (800) 919-9338, or www.catholiccharitiesusa.org.
Christian Reformed World Relief Committee: (800) 848-5818.
Church World Service: (800) 297-1516 or online at www.churchworldservice. org.
Lutheran Disaster Response: (800) 638-3522.
Nazarene Disaster Response: (888) 256-5886.
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance: (800) 872-3283.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is accepting donations at its 3,800 stores and Web site, www.walmart.com.
National Black Home Educators Resource Association http://www.nbhera.org/ Southern Baptist: NAMB - http://www.namb.net/
Samaritan's Purse - http://www.samaritanspurse.org/

Previous Threads:
Katrina Live Thread, Part XIII
Katrina Live Thread, Party XII
Katrina Live Thread, Part XI
Katrina Live Thread, Part X
Katrina Live Thread, Part IX
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part VIII
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part VII
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part VI
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part V
Hurricane Katrina, Live Thread, Part IV
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part III
Katrina Live Thread, Part II
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part I
Tropical Storm 12

[Siobhan]

I have no intention of ever arguing with you. I believe that hope in buildings is wrong.

And I believe that you are dead wrong about what the living need as signs for hope.

[Interesting Times]

You don't have to be so smart/sarcastic...

Forgive me for trying think of a way to help.

Not real big on that "practice what you preach" thing, are we?

[bonfire]

If Shep and Geraldo are so outraged why don't THEY take a couple with them every night and drop them off??

[Arizona Carolyn]

I wonder how many people were going to donate until they heard Conte West's statement and put their checkbooks away.

[Born in a Rage]

Exactly Noticed they had weapons and also money for buying drugs since some of the people trying to break into hospitals were drug addicts looking for a fix.

Everyone who is reading this thread is noticing how your 'conversation' is going and how you are both trying to instigate some kind of bigoted hysteria on the FR. You may have noticed it isn't working and you aren't fooling anyone as to what your agenda is about.

That said, flame away...if you want to - that is what you want. But, I will not respond. Good day.

[Shortstop7]

Don't forget there are alot of private citizens shooting warning shots.

Private citizens? No. Druggies and thugs, yes.

[md2576]

No doubt.

[PhiKapMom]

Deport said it was on the local Houston news. They found the weapons in the bushes and have called in all off duty police/security guards. Kind of scarey except in TX the bad guys won't be coddled like they were in NO.

[Cboldt]

I don't get it.. how can a united states citizen be denied the right to move about freely?

As a practical matter, by a credible threat of use of deadly force against them. As a legal matter, crowd control is not uncommon, albeit this scale is unprecedented.

"Freedom of movement" always has limits, and in this situation, with limited exodus routes and people already congregated, control is easier.

[kingu]

But they had 5 days before the storm to plan for the worst and obviously they should have.

Two days and there was sincere doubt about the weather models that were indicating an incredible intensification for the storm. The initial track was into the Florida panhandle, it shifted. The same models predicted that the storm was going to dip down into the Keys and intensify to a cat 3 in less than eight hours.

If you've got a perfect crystal ball for predicting these things, cough it up.

[LikeLight]

The links I had to scanners all seem to have dropped off tonight. The link you posted takes me to a Lousiana scanning page. What would the next step be to get it running?

[dfwgator]

People should donate regardless of what that no-talent ass clown said.

[McGavin999]

Alright, obviously I have to type slower so you'll be able to grasp this concept. Before the hurricane, supplies were prestationed at various spots around the country in ways to get to the cities involved once the hurricane passed. They didn't know in advance what was going to happen to the road conditions. Why don't you pull up a map and see just how you get from Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee and South Carolina (places that would survive the hurricane path) and make all those people and all those supplies come through the one entrace where the bridges weren't out. OK? Let's see now, the bridge across I-10 is down, completely and irretrevably, the causeway across Lake Poncetrain is completely out. There is one highway into town. Map that out for me and tell me how long it'll take you to get through. Oh yeah, and BTW, be sure to work into your equation the fact that there is no communication so you don't really know which one way is open to you. Get back to me after you've done that.

[Siobhan]

That is indeed good news!

[gpapa]

The federal government is mighty, especially when they wish to take our money via taxes, but they can not perform miracles. Just imagine for a moment. The City of New Orleans has about 4.5 million people, not even counting the suburbs. Lets say half the people got out, i. e., 2.25 million people. To sustain those folks left with a minimum, sustainable amount of potable water each day, disregarding food, would require about 1.2 million gallons of water to be brought in each day. In four day period that's 4.8 mil. gallons. When the hurricane hit on day one nothing would get in. On day two it was too dangerous to try helicopter rescues. On day three you might get a dribble in. On day four you might get a few tanker trucks in with NG escorts. The best solution to the problem on the ground is to get everybody out as soon as possible, and get them safely to to shelter areas, away from the cesspool that is now NO and environs. Pretty soon you are going to see people getting sick and dying from all sorts of things like hazardous materials, waterborne killer bacteria, floating rats, snakes, insects, fires, etc., etc. This would make the current carnage look like a drop in the bucket in comparison. Once you have cleaned up that mess you now have to get the city's water supply systems back in operation. This is going to be a huge job. Just cleaning up the water storage facilities will be huge. Firefighters will have an easier time with their pumper trucks getting water, they can simply pump it out of the flooded streets, but even then they are going to face some dangerous gas fires. They also may face thugs with bullets that would love to commandeer a fire truck and go for a joy ride for the hell of it. I can not even imagine how much damage has been done to the drainage, piping and electrical systems that power the utility operations in NO. Once NO gets their pumps back on line it is estimated by the COE that it will take at least 80 days to pump all the water out over or thru the levees, assuming they do not have any major rain storms between now and then. It will take months, and even years in some cases, to clean this mess up. And that is just a taste of the magnitude of this tragedy.

[Texas_Conservative2]

I heard earlier that the NO police department just set all the prisoners in jail free.. and they are the ones causing all the mess...

I even heard they let over hundred prisoners go inside the superdome and they were the ones raping and murdering people because they weren't kept seperate from the innocent people...

did anyone else hear all that?

Am I the only one seeing all this on TV ?

[zot]

Thanks. I guess at times I get a bit over-anxious. I realize there's a tremendous effort underway. As much as is being done, it's perhaps a natural reaction to just want to do something - anything - whether it works or not.

No problem. I know exactly where you're coming from, and I agree. We all would like to suggest something to help.

[Spktyr]

Remember the last few years, the immigrant smuggling cases? Riding in a semi-trailer in Southern heat is a real quick way to end up dead.

Most of the people in the back would be dead before Baton Rouge or the Texas border. And then you can't use the trailer for anything else.

[Will_Zurmacht]

i'm sure Bob and Helen in flyoverland really appreciated being called rascist by a rapper....no doubt they doubled their contribution..

[Cboldt]

I agree there is a direct conflict in stories. I think the Police Cheif was lying.