Diabetics will start dying today, imo. No refrigeration or medication available. The elderly, if they are dehydrated in this heat, are in serious trouble.
It's not more than 48 hours before disease sets in with that water.
Meanwhile, the Governor attended a prayer service. She should be coordinating with doctors and buses and getting those folks off the bridges and getting them hydrated and fed.
How are people getting dialysis? I have a s-i-l who goes 3X a week and would be very sick after 1 or 2 missed treatments.
If the airport is open, that opens the gates for aid to begin to come in, finally. Remember, up until now there's basically been ONE way into the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, including New Orleans, and that was I-10 from the west. I-10 from the east is trashed (the bridge from Slidell) and the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway probably isn't safe to handle heavy vehicles.
Right now the aid workers and public safety folks are hamstrung by a near-total lack of communications. Their radio networks are destroyed, radio batteries are dying, cellphones are dead, landlines are dead...they're out of contact with almost everything and everybody. Information's almost as important as water right now, and they aren't able to get any.
}:-)4
That one hits home. My son is diabetic, and this disaster has made me think hard about the need to maintain adequate insulin supplies -- and for the importance of him living in places where disruption of the supplies is unlikely.
Most controlled diabetics have sufficient insulin for days, provided it doesn't get too hot and spoil. I don't have a good feel for temperature vs. time to spoil, but they've probably reached or passed that point in NO by now.