Posted on 09/03/2005 10:48:22 PM PDT by HAL9000
BELLE CHASSE -- The only building left standing in Empire is St. Ann Catholic Church.Looking north on La. 23, the houses are shattered, covering the area with debris and shredded wood.
The civic center is destroyed, the post office is reduced to cinder block rubble, and all that's left of the houses are partial floors, roofs or frames. Half of a mobile home trailer landed in the middle of a nearby bridge, and a burst line down the street continues to forcibly emit natural gas.
South and north of this little high ground at the Doullut Canal Bridge, a few hundred yards of dry land are surrounded by water left when Hurricane Katrina pushed water over the Mississippi River levee from the east. Flood waters were trapped between this levee and a western protection levee, leaving much of the parish below water.
By Friday, Plaquemines Parish crews were busy cutting breaks in the western levee to try to drain some of the water while they also tried to get pump stations running to move out more water. At the Sunrise pump station, located south of Empire, an 80-foot section of the retaining wall and levee were blown out by the force of the water during the storm. Until that can be repaired, tides continue to move water into and out of the area.
Farther south in Buras, flood waters have stayed, and the only access is by boat or airboat. Although the water went down some since the storm, some houses were pushed blocks away from where they started, and debris in the water destroyed many others.
Parish President Benny Rousselle said he flew over the area Tuesday and has been back out in boats during the week. He said he knew the damage would be bad, but the reality is worse.
"I didn't think total devastation," Rousselle said. "The devastation is unbelievable."
Let's see if we can educate you a bit...
1. Most of the folks from Plaquemines to Mobile survived and are not raping, killing or stealing. They are pulling together, cleaning up and helping others less fortunate than themselves.
2. Most crude oil in the southern U.S. is very fluid. Some wells produce crude that can actually be used directly in diesel engines until the paraffin clogs the filters in a week or so.
Hope this helps!
Yes, it helps!
I have no idea. I don't even know where Plaquemines is relative to downtown NO, or to the Convention Center, or Jefferson Parish. Just random names on a keyboard-- I have relied on Free Republic rather than broadcast media for the most part.
I just love it how you make your little dig about race and then extend your prayers for all.
I don't recall that ANY of these were given a location, other than "New Orleans": Plaquemines was not mentioned, so I don't know how chaotic and violent it is there. The reason I mentioned people "native" to Plaquemines is that it was mentioned in a number of places that the criminals had commandeered boats (allowing transport from place to place where the flood hadn' subsided) and they could have been the ones doing the shooting, rather than the residents. I.e. the easy pickings for robbery and rape where they started had run dry, and they were moving elsewhere for more victims; so naturally they wouldn't want anyone getting rescued just yet. Any shooting at rescuers, by people in your vicinity, is likely to get everyone in that vicinity ignored.
And rapes of pre-teen girls are probably indicative of an unstable environment, which rescuers are probably going to avoid for the time being.
In the meantime, prayers for all are not indicative of racism, rather the opposite.
Please re-consider your post. Is there someone else whose posts you are annoyed at?
Full Disclosure: About the violence, I have read:
1. Quotes from foreign sites about tourists speaking of the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl (at either the SD or the convention center, I forget which) after she had wandered away from her parents.
2. Quotes from refugees stating that men had been hiding in the bathroom at the SD, then raping women and slitting their throats.
3. I believe a Fox News account near the convention center that a man had been shot for trying to rape a 13 year old girl.
4. Accounts that a man had been beaten to death by a mob for raping a girl in the Superdome.
5. Accounts of a flotilla of able-bodied men attempting to begin ad hoc rescue work, but turning back under sniper fire.
6. Accounts of looting of Sporting Goods Stores and Wal-Marts in which the firearms were stolen.
7. Accounts of police trapped in a police station by sniper fire.
8. Accounts of a sheriff's deputy and his family taken hostage by thugs at a prison.
9. Accounts of firefighters trapped on the roof of (I think) a building owned by SBC, by snipers.
10. Accounts of a policeman shot in the head by one looter while trying to arrest another. (Shortly after, it was said the policeman would live.)
11. Accounts of conversations by a man outside the city, with an FBI agent, who suggested that the real reason the US 82nd division and/or 101st Airborne division were sent to NO was to deal with the criminal element.
12. Foreign news accounts of tourists trapped in the SD who were explicitly threatened with being murdered.
13. Accounts of a National Guardsman shot to death in the SD.
14. Accounts of another National Guardsman shot in the leg in the SD.
15. Accounts of a group of over 80 policemen attempting to enter the dome to restore order, but being repelled by force.
16. Firsthand accounts of a man attempting to retrieve important papers from his house, having to arm himself and a friend with shotguns and handguns before being able to drive to his neighborhood--he said the scene there looked like Blackhawk Down where the whole neighborhood was armed with some kind of weapon.
17. Accounts of policemen killing themselves from the stress.
18. Accounts of major news organizations having to hire private security for their reporters, as their safety could not otherwise be guaranteed.
19. In Account 16 above, statements that the National Guard were without weapons or ammunition due to (IIRC) their supply column running out of fuel, or washed out roads, or something, in MS.
20. Accounts of young men with machetes threatening to steal a generator until a .357 magnum was fired over their head.
21. Accounts of houses looted with the owners' bodies left floating in the muck in the entryway.
22. Accounts that even the NOPD would not venture out except in groups of 6-7 armed men.
23. Accounts that contractors from the US Army Corps of Engineers were under fire from thugs.
24...these were all off of the top of my head, without even searching any of the threads. There is probably much, much, more.
Are you really suggesting prayer is INAPPROPRIATE at this point?
If anyone can tell us, anything, we would appreciate it. We are concerned about a trailer and the Lion's club next to it, in Buras. Also, does anyone know how ,or if, the Riverbend Convalescent Center, on Hwy. 23, in Belle Chasse, made out? Does one still need to be in a boat, to come check on their land,etc? After reading of a tornado, down hwy, 23, was the middle-school,( the one there in Belle Chasse) the school that was hit?. Any info would be appreciated.A posting, such as the one soon after the storm, by Hal 9000,( a bird's-eye description, of the little towns,) (revised) would sorely, be appreciated. Bless everyone.
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