The Storm

[Brad Dunne]

To all in the path of Katrina in the gulf states. Hope and pray everyone comes thru safe and sound. Take care of yourselves. :asian:

 

[Tgace]

Time to lash yourself to the mainmast.....

 

[arnisador]

Yes, good luck!

 

[Jonathan Randall]

To all in the path of Katrina in the gulf states. Hope and pray everyone comes thru safe and sound. Take care of yourselves. :asian:

Ditto.

There's some good hurricane info on this site:
http://flhurricane.com/

 

[chinto01]

Good luck to all of you and your families. Stay safe and smart.

In the spirit of bushido!

Rob

 

[kenpochad]

good luck! and stay safe

 

[kenpo0324]

I hope and pray everyone is safe and everyone comes out of this alright.
Take Care of Yourself and your Familys...:asian:

 

[searcher]

Our hopes and prayers are with you guys.

 

[Cthulhu]

Being in FL and having gone through the trio of hurricanes last year, I hope everyone affected by Katrina gets through safely.

Cthulhu

 

[MJS]

Mod Note:

Thread moved to the Study.

MJS

MT MOD

 

[Aikikitty]

I'm one of the many people who evacuated with their families from New Orleans. It took us 15 hours to get to where we are staying now. Our dogs are with us, but we were very worried about our cats, bunnies, and other animals we had to leave behind. We found out yesterday evening from a co-worker of my dads, who was able to get back into the city and check our house out, that our house is okay!!!!!!!! artyon: Fence is gone, backyard tree fell on back patio overhang (right next to my room, thankfully not on it!), some shingles from roof missing, but it looks still watertight, and looks like we didn't flood at all!!! We are VERY thankful!!!!

LOTS of other people and their pets in this hotel with us from the same city, area or from Mississippi. Spirits are mostly high--some found out that their houses are destroyed or under water. I wouldn't be surprised if our dojo flooded (hope the mats aren't ruined). Churches and businesses keep bringing free meals to the hotel lobby for all of us, and that's really cool how supportive and comforting they've been.

We don't know when we'll be able to get back home to retrieve the rest of our pets. Electricity might take a month to return in a lot of parts of the city. Even though our house didn't take hardly any damage, most of the city and homes (and in other parts of LA and Mississippi) got a LOT of damage, totally destroyed, many of jobs are lost, and it will take a LONG time before life over there starts looking "normal" ("normal" for New Orleans, I mean) again.

Robyn :asian:

 

[arnisador]

The amount of damage is staggering. I'm glad to hear you're OK; it sounds like another country when I hear the news reports.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

CNN has several reports on the conditions in the area.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/31/scene.blog/index.html

The estimates are several months to fix the levees and get the water out. The amount of damage is simply incredible. Thousands are feared dead, the loss of history is unmeasurable, and the chaos insane.

My heart goes out to everyone effected by this disaster.

 

[MA-Caver]

This is embarrassing... Looting and rapes and total anarchy in the wake of this storm. The story here has reports of fires and people fighting to get aboard an evacuation bus, bodies laying in the streets and so forth.
With similar devastation from the Tsunami reports of this type were few but I'm sure they went on. But we're Americans right? We shouldn't have to descend into barbarism after a natural disaster should we? It's terrible that one of America's largest "play-cities" got hammered but the actions of the people that lived/survived is horrendous.
The mayor is sending out an SOS asking for help. Seems to me that the city may be placed under martial law until such a time that order can be restored.
Really bad down there. God bless those trying to piece their lives back together.

:asian:

 

[arnisador]

Other people are the biggest problem for many now. Sad, but not unexpected. It's always this way.

What a tragedy. In this country, in this century...it's hard to believe.

 

[michaeledward]

Were we aware of 'Hurricane Pam'. The wise people at the Federal Emergency Management Agency have known for decades that New Orleans had the potential for incredible disaster from a Hurricane. Just over a year ago, a 'table-top exercise' looking at a ficticious Hurricane was run to review disaster recovery efforts in the Orleans Parrish.

Hurricane Pam Exercise Concludes
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Hurricane Pam brought sustained winds of 120 mph, up to 20 inches of rain in parts of southeast Louisiana and storm surge that topped levees in the New Orleans area. More than one million residents evacuated and Hurricane Pam destroyed 500,000-600,000 buildings. Emergency officials from 50 parish, state, federal and volunteer organizations faced this scenario during a five-day exercise held this week at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge.
The exercise used realistic weather and damage information developed by the National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the LSU Hurricane Center and other state and federal agencies to help officials develop joint response plans for a catastrophic hurricane in Louisiana.

"We made great progress this week in our preparedness efforts," said Ron Castleman, FEMA Regional Director. "Disaster response teams developed action plans in critical areas such as search and rescue, medical care, sheltering, temporary housing, school restoration and debris management. These plans are essential for quick response to a hurricane but will also help in other emergencies."

"Hurricane planning in Louisiana will continue," said Colonel Michael L. Brown, Deputy Director for Emergency Preparedness, Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. "Over the next 60 days, we will polish the action plans developed during the Hurricane Pam exercise. We have also determined where to focus our efforts in the future."

More here: http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/newsrelated/hurripamends.htm