crayz.org

Great article over at CNN

The video linked from this article is just heartbreaking – it’s indescribable. This is our country, and there are people and infants – Americans for god’s sake – dying in the streets from dehydration. What the fuck does it take? Get a fucking plane and drop some fucking food and gatorade down. We did that for Berlin 50 years ago. How can we let this happen in the United States?

Watch this too:

Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can’t sandwiches be dropped to those people in the Superdome. What is going on? This is Thursday! This storm happened 5 days ago. It’s a disgrace.

This just makes me sick to think about

See here

If you want a good running commentary on the situation in New Orleans, I strongly recommend the WWL-TV blog. Start at the bottom and go up

There’s a lot of the incredible details that just aren’t trickling up to the major media outlets, like the nursing home whose bus was stolen at gunpoint. Says the executive director: “We had excellent plans. We had enough food for 10 days…Now we’ll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot.”

Just remember, as bad as this is, it’s nowhere near what could have happened. One of the media’s worse failures during this incident is the lack of context. By Friday night, some weather-watchers were already concerned that Katrina was tracking dangerously close to New Orleans. Saturday the media began to report New Orleans as a possible target, but gave little warning of the unique dangers

By Saturday night, the NHC was giving dire warnings to New Orleans and begging them to evacuate. Residents of the city had finally started to leave. By Sunday, Katrina had become one of the largest and most powerful storms in history. A mandatory evacuation of the entire city was ordered, although they had only 12 hours left to get out. By Sunday night, the media had its eyes firmly fixed on New Orleans, and was telling the public of the massive destruction about to arrive

Then, sometime Sunday night, Katrina was hit with a large mass of dry midwestern air. This drastically weakened the storm and pushed it to the east. Those of us watching the satellite coverage actually saw this happen, although it was unclear what it was at the time – on the satellite it appeared as a total collapse of the western side of the hurricane for a brief time. This one event saved New Orleans(and probably doomed Biloxi and Gulfport)

Then the hurricane hit on Monday morning. New Orleans suffered serious damage, but for a period of about 12 hours it looked like it had actually averted disaster. Only long after Katrina had moved north did the storm surge on Lake Pontchartrain cause breaches of the levee system, resulting in the massive flooding and destruction we now see. If this hadn’t happened, all the people currently being rescued from the roofs of their home probably could have just stayed in them and waited for the power to turn back on

The flip side to this is, if that gust of dry air hadn’t hit Katrina, New Orleans would have been hit by the north-east quadrant of a Category 5 storm. There would be no homes. There would be no people to rescue. The Superdome, along with everything else in the city, would have been destroyed by the 30 foot storm surge and the 50 foot waves on top of that surge, all being pushed at the city by winds approaching 200MPH, twice what was actually experienced. You would be looking at a death toll of 50,000->100,000

The thin lines between salvation, catastrophe, and annihilation are the result of the storm’s strength as well as the city’s weakness. In hindsight it seems almost criminally negligent to leave one of our most valued cities so defenseless against such an inevitable disaster. We should remember how we were spared a far worse outcome; and if New Orleans is rebuilt, we must not count on luck to save the city again

If you’re interested, there are good reads on a New Orleans forum. There’s not a ton of time left for things to turn around, and if anything the latest reports are looking worse – possible direct hit on N.O. and Category 4 approaching 5 strength. The possible shutdown/damage to huge amounts of gulf oil production is also a huge concern to the rest of the country

Update, 8/28, 7:30AM: According to the latest bulletins, Katrina is now a Category 5 hurricane. It is still headed directly for N.O.. The mainstream media still seems to be ignoring the magnitude of the problem, but the National Hurricane Center is freaking out and a mandatory evacuation has been ordered(too late)

Word is 20 foot storm surge and another 10-15 of waves. How do you think the barriers will hold out against that? According to this, 19 feet would cause catastrophic flooding and 24 feet would put the entire city under water. It’s right at that point

For people who think they’ll “ride out” a Category 5 storm:

Update, 8/28, 9:30AM: What’s astonishing is people on the N.O. forum who are still talking about staying. There’s one person in a mobile home who doesn’t want to leave her animals…It’s frightening – these are people with internet connections and a forum full of people telling them they’ll be killed, and they’re still not budging. It makes me wonder what all the people who are less well-off and well-informed will be doing. The outer edge of the hurricane is about to make landfall, and the amount of time left to evacuate is dwindling

Update, 8/28, 9:30AM: If Katrina made landfall now, it would be the second-strongest Hurricane to ever hit the United States – the only one worse being in 1935. Here’s a webcam from N.O., and here’s an index of a few more – I would bet they’ll go out before the hurricane gets too bad though

If you hadn’t heard, Greenspan came out yesterday and all but confirmed that there’s a housing bubble, that it’s going to pop soon, and that the economic aftereffects will be harsh

So I figure after the bubble bursts, interest rates skyrocket and the economy collapses, it will be just about time to run out of oil and all die of avian flu…by the end of the decade we should be back to banging rocks together to make fire

:)

Update: I almost forgot to mention, we also have Hurricane Katrina, which is starting to track towards New Orleans. I already blogged about the destruction that would ensue from any direct hit. I hope the city has improved its defenses a bit since then