| Topic: |
Science > Prophecies-Of-Nostradamus |
| User: |
"=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_da_HOOROO_Guru=99?=" |
| Date: |
27 Aug 2005 12:10:25 AM |
| Object: |
KATRINA PACKS A DEADLY PUNCH: LEAVING 7 DEAD (SO FAR) |
from the NY Times website: www.nytimes.com/
August 27, 2005
Hurricane Drenches Florida and Leaves Seven Dead
By JOSEPH B. TREASTER
MIAMI, Aug. 26 - Hurricane Katrina churned through the Gulf of Mexico
on Friday, increasing its strength and threatening the Florida
Panhandle and neighboring states, after cutting a drenching swath
through southern Florida and leaving seven dead.
But just scattered patches of serious property damage were reported.
The howling winds of the hurricane rose to more than 100 miles an hour
in the gulf in the afternoon, and officials at the National Hurricane
Center here said they could further intensify to as much as 150 miles
an hour, making the storm a major juggernaut.
"It could be an extremely dangerous system," said Christopher Sisko, a
meteorologist at the hurricane center, where other weather experts said
it would most likely become a stronger, Category 4, storm.
Hurricane Katrina crossed the beach near Hallandale in Broward County,
north of here, early Thursday night as a relatively mild, wet and
somewhat underestimated storm that just barely qualified for hurricane
status, Category 1, with winds about 80 miles an hour.
As anticipated, the storm did not deliver a knockout blow to Fort
Lauderdale, Miami and other southern Florida cities. But many
Floridians said that after a night of thrashing wind and driving rain,
even a mild hurricane could be terrifying, hugely disruptive and
surprisingly costly.
Television coverage shot from helicopters showed acres and acres of
virtually unscathed houses and businesses and mostly unharmed trees and
shrubs. But south of downtown Miami, there was heavy flooding in Key
Biscayne, Cutler Ridge, Goulds and Homestead, along with a few other
residential areas west of Miami.
About 1.2 million people in southern Florida lost electricity.
Water covered the streets in parts of Homestead and elsewhere, washed
around cars and flowed knee deep through houses. But the houses seemed
to be otherwise in good shape.
Gov. Jeb Bush flew low over Homestead and said later, "It didn't look
like as much damage to property other than flooding."
Throughout the region, trees were knocked down here and there. Power
lines dangled into streets. Some roofs lost tiles. A houseboat sank at
a dock in North Bay Village, a town on a cluster of islands in Biscayne
Bay between Miami and Miami Beach, and a few sloops broke loose from
moorings and were thrown up on the shore of the bay.
Government officials literally sighed with relief.
"We're very, very fortunate to have been spared as much as we were,"
George Burgess, the Miami-Dade County manager, said. "While there has
been flooding, it's isolated, and the damage is very minimal."
Nonetheless, the storm brought Miami and other cities along 70 miles of
the coast to a near standstill for much of Thursday and Friday.
Insurance experts estimated that the cost of the scattered damage could
run to $600 million. That does not count the millions of dollars lost
by hotels, restaurants, airlines and rental car agencies whose
customers were scared off. Many other businesses also suffered.
By Friday morning, operations resumed at Miami International and Fort
Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airports. A few cars made their way
along main streets, some with lanes partly blocked by fallen trees and
pools of water.
But downtown Miami was all but deserted. By late afternoon, the huge
cargo and cruise port remained closed.
For many people like Mayor Carlos Alvarez of Miami-Dade County and
ordinary residents, the story of Hurricane Katrina was a story of
exceeded expectations.
After an assessment by helicopter, Mr. Alvarez said although some
sections looked "like there wasn't a storm," the flooded areas to the
south and west "were hit harder than we expected."
In Fort Lauderdale, just north of where the center of the storm came
ashore, Amanda Sullivan, 21, said that the wind ripped her front door
off its hinges and that she spent the night of the hurricane wondering
whether she would survive.
"It was like something out of a movie," Ms. Sullivan said. "There were
metal pipes flying off the building, and a 20-foot trailer came flying
through here. It was rocking and rolling, definitely a lot worse than
we thought it would be."
For Lannettee Stout, 43, a court reporter who lives in Hollywood, not
far from where the hurricane made landfall, it was the unimagined
noise.
"It was loud, extremely loud," Ms. Stout said.
Three people who died in the hurricane were crushed by falling trees.
One man lost control of his car and rammed into a tree. Three others
drowned, including two who tried to ride out the storm in a houseboat.
Forecasters said the hurricane could hit the Panhandle and nearby
states late Sunday or early Monday.
In southern Florida, the hurricane confounded forecasters who had
expected it to move westerly in an almost straight line across the
state at a snail's pace, 6 miles an hour. Instead, it sped up to 10 to
12 miles an hour and swung sharply on a diagonal to the southwest,
reaching the gulf shortly after midnight.
Had Hurricane Katrina, with its heavy rain, moved more slowly, weather
officials said, the flooding could have been more severe.
As the storm moved into the gulf, it initially headed west. State and
federal weather officials said they expected a low pressure area over
the Midwest to influence the direction of the storm, turning it north
toward the Panhandle.
Hurricane Dennis, the first storm of the year for Florida, hammered the
Panhandle and sections of Alabama and Georgia in July, bringing less
wind damage than expected, but widespread flooding.
Forecasters said Hurricane Katrina might well hit the northern coast
with more force than Hurricane Dennis. The state meteorologist, Ben
Nelson, said Hurricane Katrina could push 20-foot walls of water over
the beaches in surges almost twice as big as those of Hurricane Dennis.
The Panhandle was hit hard last year by Hurricane Ivan. On Friday
afternoon in southern Florida, Mr. Bush said he was concerned about the
psychological effects from yet another hurricane.
"This wears you down," he said.
Reporting for this article was contributed by Terry Aguayo from
Miami;Kelli Kennedy from Boca Raton, Fla.; Neil Reisner from Hollywood,
Fla.; and Christine Jordan Sexton from Tallahassee, Fla.
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| User: "Jane" |
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| Title: Re: kATRINA MAY BE THE BIGGEST HURRICANE EVER SEEN IN GULF |
29 Aug 2005 08:07:37 AM |
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"Su Zanadu" <tugbertswife@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:19148-43128349-868@storefull-3213.bay.webtv.net...
Hey Jane and Woods,
They are already out of gas!
Many people are stranded.
This storm sure grew big quick and as usual, by the time you figure out
where it will hit there just isn't enough time or resources to evacuate
that many people.
Sad! We all really need to work on a better evacuation plan because
we've seen this all before.
I just heard that the Superdome roof is beginning to peel off! let's hope
it is not as serious as it sounds...
Jane
SuZanne
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
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| Title: BUSH: WE DIDN'T DO ENUFF..................... |
03 Sep 2005 02:35:54 AM |
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Bush: We didn't do enough
03/09/2005 08:34 - (SA)
New Orleans - Under fire, President George W Bush acknowledged on
Friday that the early government reaction to Hurricane Katrina was "not
acceptable" and vowed to do better as he toured areas devastated by the
killer storm.
Bush, on a day-long visit to the battered states of Alabama,
Mississippi and the flooded and lawless city of New Orleans, Louisiana,
said the region seemed to have been "obliterated by the worst kind of
weapon you can imagine."
And with much of the world aghast and Washington's response facing
fierce criticism at home, he qualified his days-long defence of relief
efforts, saying as he left the White House that "the results are not
acceptable."
"My attitude is, if it's not going exactly right, we're going to make
it go exactly right. If there's problems, then we'll address the
problems," Bush said at the airport in Mobile, Alabama, with idle
helicopters as his backdrop.
'National disgrace'
Bush warned that Americans should expect gasoline shortages this
holiday weekend and that the $10.5bn emergency package approved by the
United States Congress would be "a small down payment" on the total
cost of the disaster.
Still, he bluntly dismissed calls for the United States to cut back its
efforts in Iraq, calling back manpower and shifting funds from the war
there to cope with the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters
in US history.
Bush made a series of public appearances.
"I'm going to fly out of here in a minute, but I want you to know that
I'm not going to forget what I've seen. I understand the devastation
requires more than one day's attention," he said in his final remarks
here.
The president promised that direly needed food and water would come
soon and vowed to restore order in the once glittering southern jazz
capital, where looting and wrecked infrastructure have crippled relief
efforts.
"It's going to require the attention of this country for a long period
of time," he said, adding that, while "it seems dark right now," the
Big Easy will "rise again and be a greater city."
Bush, facing a mounting death toll and a growing chorus of critics,
took aerial tours of coastal Alabama as well as Mississippi, where he
took a walking tour through the rubble-strewn town of Biloxi that
brought him face-to-face with two sisters who lost everything to the
storm.
In Washington, Democratic National Committee spokesperson Karen Finney
asked, "Why is it that President Bush was able to send food and
supplies to Afghanistan the same day our invasion began, but it has
taken five days to even begin to send supplies to New Orleans?" she
said in a statement.
Louisiana officials have stepped up their criticism of Washington's
response, with some calling the failure to speed troops and food and
medicine a "national disgrace."
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: BUSH: WE DIDN'T DO ENUFF..................... |
03 Sep 2005 06:05:25 AM |
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On 3 Sep 2005 00:35:54 -0700, "Uncle Wally Da HOOROO Big Kahuna ;-)â„¢"
<stargatedecember2012@yahoo.ca> wrote:
Bush: We didn't do enough
03/09/2005 08:34 - (SA)
New Orleans - Under fire, President George W Bush acknowledged on
Friday that the early government reaction to Hurricane Katrina was "not
acceptable" and vowed to do better as he toured areas devastated by the
killer storm.
Bush, on a day-long visit to the battered states of Alabama,
Mississippi and the flooded and lawless city of New Orleans, Louisiana,
said the region seemed to have been "obliterated by the worst kind of
weapon you can imagine."
And with much of the world aghast and Washington's response facing
fierce criticism at home, he qualified his days-long defence of relief
efforts, saying as he left the White House that "the results are not
acceptable."
"My attitude is, if it's not going exactly right, we're going to make
it go exactly right. If there's problems, then we'll address the
problems," Bush said at the airport in Mobile, Alabama, with idle
helicopters as his backdrop.
'National disgrace'
Bush warned that Americans should expect gasoline shortages this
holiday weekend and that the $10.5bn emergency package approved by the
United States Congress would be "a small down payment" on the total
cost of the disaster.
Still, he bluntly dismissed calls for the United States to cut back its
efforts in Iraq, calling back manpower and shifting funds from the war
there to cope with the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters
in US history.
Bush made a series of public appearances.
"I'm going to fly out of here in a minute, but I want you to know that
I'm not going to forget what I've seen. I understand the devastation
requires more than one day's attention," he said in his final remarks
here.
The president promised that direly needed food and water would come
soon and vowed to restore order in the once glittering southern jazz
capital, where looting and wrecked infrastructure have crippled relief
efforts.
"It's going to require the attention of this country for a long period
of time," he said, adding that, while "it seems dark right now," the
Big Easy will "rise again and be a greater city."
Bush, facing a mounting death toll and a growing chorus of critics,
took aerial tours of coastal Alabama as well as Mississippi, where he
took a walking tour through the rubble-strewn town of Biloxi that
brought him face-to-face with two sisters who lost everything to the
storm.
In Washington, Democratic National Committee spokesperson Karen Finney
asked, "Why is it that President Bush was able to send food and
supplies to Afghanistan the same day our invasion began, but it has
taken five days to even begin to send supplies to New Orleans?" she
said in a statement.
Louisiana officials have stepped up their criticism of Washington's
response, with some calling the failure to speed troops and food and
medicine a "national disgrace."
Enough? They haven't done anything in the first four days. Probably
looking for some way to blame this on El-CIAda as well. In fact the
***** of Babylon, Condi, was shopping.
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
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| Title: New Orleans refugees bitter after Katrina ordeal |
02 Sep 2005 11:12:02 PM |
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New Orleans refugees bitter after Katrina ordeal
02 Sep 2005 10:48:55 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Peter Cooney
HOUSTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - They lived in or near New Orleans, the city
famed for jazz, Mardi Gras and letting "the good times roll." Now
having escaped the hell their home became after Hurricane Katrina, they
never want to go back.
Survivors evacuated from New Orleans' Superdome in a huge convoy of
buses arrived at Houston's Astrodome grateful for their lives but
bitter about their ordeal during the storm and what they described as
local officials' indifference to their fate.
"Call it biblical. Call it apocalyptic. Whatever you want to call it,
take your pick," said Robert Lewis, who became marooned by floodwaters
in his downtown New Orleans home where he and others had sought to ride
out Hurricane Katrina.
"There were bodies floating past my door," he told reporters on
Thursday night, describing how he and other men at his home put
children on their shoulders and walked 2 miles (3.2 km) through flooded
streets before being rescued by a helicopter.
"We were like on an island. We did the best we could. We were just like
zombies walking around at night."
Then came the Superdome, the covered New Orleans football stadium used
to shelter some 23,000 people from Katrina before authorities ordered
them evacuated as living conditions deteriorated amid fading lights, no
water and overflowing toilets. About 4,000 had arrived in Houston by
Thursday night.
The Superdome situation, said Lewis, was "extremely chaotic and
disorganized. It was a total breakdown.
"Basically there was nothing. They had to get people out."
Keith Brooks left the Superdome two days after he arrived.
"It wasn't fit for a dog in there," he said.
The food was "slop." Officials threw bottles of water for people to
catch, he said. He recalled sick, elderly people being ignored and said
he saw a 14-year-old girl being raped.
The 40-year-old trash collector said he planned to seek work in Houston
and was never going back to New Orleans where he had spent his entire
life.
"They didn't treat me right in there. They didn't treat nobody right,"
he said."
Lenwyn Hollins waited out the storm with his wife and three children in
their public housing project because going to the Superdome was "like
an insult to us."
"I've lost all trust in New Orleans," he said.
ONE WHO LOOTED
Henry Mackels from Chalmette, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans,
stayed with his wife and son and several hundred others at the local
high school as Katrina blasted the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday with
140-mph (225-kph) winds and a 30-foot (9-metre) storm surge that may
have killed thousands.
Officials at the shelter "totally let us down," he told reporters at
the Astrodome.
The floors were covered in dog and cat waste and there was nothing to
eat or drink, he said, adding, "We were left to starve."
Mackels said he and other men had to find boats on dry ground and loot
grocery and convenience stores to get food and drink to the hundreds in
the high school.
"There were people passing out left and right. We had to (loot). I had
no choice," he said.
His wife, Veronica, added that guards at the shelter "sat there and
waited for us to die."
Mackels said they were eventually put on a bus without knowing where
they were going and "none of our family actually knows we're OK.
"Right now, where we live at (in Chalmette) is totally devastated.
There's no going back."
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: New Orleans refugees bitter after Katrina ordeal |
03 Sep 2005 04:28:06 AM |
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On 2 Sep 2005 21:12:02 -0700, "Uncle Wally Da HOOROO Big Kahuna ;-)â„¢"
<stargatedecember2012@yahoo.ca> wrote:
New Orleans refugees bitter after Katrina ordeal
02 Sep 2005 10:48:55 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Peter Cooney
HOUSTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - They lived in or near New Orleans, the city
famed for jazz, Mardi Gras and letting "the good times roll." Now
having escaped the hell their home became after Hurricane Katrina, they
never want to go back.
Survivors evacuated from New Orleans' Superdome in a huge convoy of
buses arrived at Houston's Astrodome grateful for their lives but
bitter about their ordeal during the storm and what they described as
local officials' indifference to their fate.
"Call it biblical. Call it apocalyptic. Whatever you want to call it,
take your pick," said Robert Lewis, who became marooned by floodwaters
in his downtown New Orleans home where he and others had sought to ride
out Hurricane Katrina.
"There were bodies floating past my door," he told reporters on
Thursday night, describing how he and other men at his home put
children on their shoulders and walked 2 miles (3.2 km) through flooded
streets before being rescued by a helicopter.
"We were like on an island. We did the best we could. We were just like
zombies walking around at night."
Then came the Superdome, the covered New Orleans football stadium used
to shelter some 23,000 people from Katrina before authorities ordered
them evacuated as living conditions deteriorated amid fading lights, no
water and overflowing toilets. About 4,000 had arrived in Houston by
Thursday night.
The Superdome situation, said Lewis, was "extremely chaotic and
disorganized. It was a total breakdown.
"Basically there was nothing. They had to get people out."
Keith Brooks left the Superdome two days after he arrived.
"It wasn't fit for a dog in there," he said.
The food was "slop." Officials threw bottles of water for people to
catch, he said. He recalled sick, elderly people being ignored and said
he saw a 14-year-old girl being raped.
The 40-year-old trash collector said he planned to seek work in Houston
and was never going back to New Orleans where he had spent his entire
life.
"They didn't treat me right in there. They didn't treat nobody right,"
he said."
Lenwyn Hollins waited out the storm with his wife and three children in
their public housing project because going to the Superdome was "like
an insult to us."
"I've lost all trust in New Orleans," he said.
ONE WHO LOOTED
Henry Mackels from Chalmette, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans,
stayed with his wife and son and several hundred others at the local
high school as Katrina blasted the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday with
140-mph (225-kph) winds and a 30-foot (9-metre) storm surge that may
have killed thousands.
Officials at the shelter "totally let us down," he told reporters at
the Astrodome.
The floors were covered in dog and cat waste and there was nothing to
eat or drink, he said, adding, "We were left to starve."
Mackels said he and other men had to find boats on dry ground and loot
grocery and convenience stores to get food and drink to the hundreds in
the high school.
"There were people passing out left and right. We had to (loot). I had
no choice," he said.
His wife, Veronica, added that guards at the shelter "sat there and
waited for us to die."
Mackels said they were eventually put on a bus without knowing where
they were going and "none of our family actually knows we're OK.
"Right now, where we live at (in Chalmette) is totally devastated.
There's no going back."
Would you not be bitter if your government tried to abandon you? The
key word here being TRIED. The world will not let ***** like this
happen anymore. Bush must really be getting scared now. The jig is up
Chimp, you can run and spin but you can not hide the truth forever,
especially if I can do my part to get people mobile.
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_s_nice_n_comfy_cozy_HOOROO_corner_cabin__;-=99?=" |
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| Title: HURRICANE POISED TO STRIKE TEXAS............................... |
23 Sep 2005 11:21:02 PM |
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www.bbc.co.uk/
Hurricane poised to strike Texas
Texas is expected to feel the force of Hurricane Rita in the coming
hours as the storm makes landfall, although its winds may prove weaker
than feared.
About two million people have fled, their cars creeping north in
massive lines, leaving towns largely deserted.
A fire erupted in the centre of the largely evacuated town of
Galveston, whipped by the winds from the sea.
In Louisiana, storm surges have already broken some levees repaired in
New Orleans, after Katrina hit last month.
But US army engineers said the real damage had been done by the earlier
hurricane and there was little in the abandoned city left to lose.
Storm surges from Rita pose a greater threat to the Texan coast where
officials warn that the oil and chemical complexes around Port Arthur -
known as Energy City - could be flooded out.
"Large and dangerous battering" waves up to 4.5 metres (15 feet) above
normal height are being forecast along the coast by the US National
Hurricane Center, rising to 6m in places.
Rita weakened slightly as it neared the coast but the wind was still
blowing at nearly 120mph (195km/h) with landfall on the upper Texas and
south-west Louisiana coasts expected at daybreak.
In the worst case, 5.5m Texans could be affected, officials warn.
Metropolis empties
Fire crews have been battling the blaze in Galveston, which spread
across at least three buildings in the historic Strand District of
shops, restaurants and clubs.
It is unclear what sparked it but an electrical pole was lying on one
of the buildings.
Houston, America's fourth-largest city, was deserted on Friday evening,
the BBC's Daniela Relph reports.
Many of its residents heeded the warnings and headed out of town.
A major problem in Texas has been the number of people on the road at
the same time.
Evacuees have struggled to get out quickly, with many low on food and
water and running out of fuel.
On one gridlocked motorway near Dallas, 24 people died in a fire aboard
a bus carrying elderly evacuees from Houston.
It is thought that the deaths on the bus were caused when its brakes
caught fire, igniting oxygen canisters on board.
Back to the flood
By mid-afternoon on Friday, streets in eastern New Orleans that were
all but dry 24 hours earlier had flood levels of several feet.
At the moment it seems surreal but by tonight it will be a different
matter
Sarah Flavell, The Woodlands, Texas
Water was spilling in from Lake Pontchartrain over the weakened
floodwalls of the Industrial Canal.
Army engineers working in the city to repair floodwall breaches since
the earlier storm had been steeling themselves for such an event.
"We kind of realised that we were going to get into a point in time
that we couldn't have any affect on it and we're there, we're there,"
spokeswoman Susan Jackson said.
However, New Orleans is likely to escape the worst of Rita, with a
forecast of tropical storm conditions rather than hurricane winds for
the area.
Repaired floodwalls on the city's more central canals appeared to be
holding.
US President George W Bush cancelled a visit to Texas on Friday and
went to Colorado instead to see how military planners were handling the
crisis in the south.
"There will be no risk of me getting in the way, I promise you," he
said, explaining his change of visit.
------------------
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| User: "Woodswun" |
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| Title: Re: kATRINA MAY BE THE BIGGEST HURRICANE EVER SEEN IN GULF |
29 Aug 2005 04:34:21 PM |
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Su Zanadu wrote:
Hey Jane and Woods,
They are already out of gas!
Many people are stranded.
This storm sure grew big quick and as usual, by the time you figure out
where it will hit there just isn't enough time or resources to evacuate
that many people.
Sad! We all really need to work on a better evacuation plan because
we've seen this all before.
SuZanne
We were all noticing that the interstates had one direction clogged with
stop-and-go traffic for miles, while the other direction was essentially
car-free. They should have made all the lanes outward bound, not
allowing inbound traffic on anything but secondary roads. I don't think
they planned very well for evacuations, IMHO. I would have thought they
would at least have brought in some transport planes to get people out
of the area - plenty of military bases all over that are not full - and
it's not like there were any planes going in or out for nearly a full
day before Katrina struck.
Woods
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_da_HOOROO_Guru=99?=" |
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| Title: Re: kATRINA MAY BE THE BIGGEST HURRICANE EVER SEEN IN GULF |
28 Aug 2005 10:24:10 PM |
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Usually my sweet I spend my weekends chillin' watching female
watersport DVD's & dining on Chicken Kiev, Shtiake Mushrooms & Mashed
Potato !!!
But with the pending catastrophe in "N'Orleans" I have extended my
"Uncle Wally News Updates" well into the weekend !!!
HOOROO
UNCLE WALLY
===============================================================
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| User: "Su Zanadu" |
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| Title: Re:kATRINA - Now CATEGORY 5!!!! |
28 Aug 2005 10:34:37 AM |
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They are GOING UNDER!
Run for yer life Dr. John!!!!
I really feel for them but at the same time....I THANK GOD IT AIN'T
US!!!!
We'll send help when it's over. A check is in the mail.....
SuZanne
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| User: "Woodswun" |
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| Title: Re: kATRINA MAY BE THE BIGGEST HURRICANE EVER SEEN IN GULF |
28 Aug 2005 10:38:22 AM |
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Uncle Wally da HOOROO Guru™ wrote:
wOWEE !!!!!
She's a comin' back for more, my sweet !
She's da 'Real Deal" !!!!
HOOROO
August 28, 2005 latimes.com : National News Print E-mail story Most
e-mailed Change text size
Scores Evacuate as Katrina Plots Return
Gulf Coast and New Orleans residents heed warnings to head inland. This
hurricane 'is the real deal,' a mayor says.
By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer
HOUSTON - Tens of thousands of people in New Orleans and along the
coast of the Gulf of Mexico began racing inland Saturday as the region
braced for the second strike of Hurricane Katrina, which was turning
into a commanding storm as it moved over warm water following its pass
over Florida.
Officials said they expected the storm to strengthen before landfall,
possibly becoming a Category 4 storm or even a rare Category 5 -- the
highest category of hurricane, carrying winds of more than 155 mph and
a storm surge of 18 feet.
Katrina is now packing sustained winds of 175 mph, making it stronger
than any other hurricane with the possible exception of the 1935 Labor
Day hurricane that hit the Keys. I couldn't find any wind data to
compare it to Katrina, but all of the other Category 5 hurricanes to hit
the US have had slower winds. (Katrina would be bordering on Category
6, if there was such a category on the Saffir-Simpson scale).
Woods
ADVERTISEMENT
Landfall was expected Monday, according to the National Hurricane
Center.
As New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin urged an orderly evacuation of the
area Saturday, he told residents: "This is not a test. This is the real
deal."
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and Mississippi Gov. Haley
Barbour declared states of emergency, and Blanco asked President Bush
to do the same to free up federal resources. By late afternoon, the
president had - and issued a statement urging residents to follow the
evacuation advice of local officials.
The center issued a hurricane watch from the Alabama-Florida line to
southern Louisiana - including the metropolitan region of New
Orleans, which is home to about 1.6 million people and could suffer
catastrophically if struck directly by a major storm.
New Orleans is essentially a giant bowl hemmed in by water on all sides
- Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River and the
Gulf of Mexico to the south. Some of New Orleans is as much as 9 feet
below sea level, and weather experts have said that a direct strike
could overwhelm protective levees, leaving significant portions of the
city under water.
"This could be the worst-case scenario," said Ivor Van Heerden,
director of the Louisiana State University Public Health Research
Center, which has sought to warn residents for years of the potential
damage that a major storm could bring.
"Computer models that we are running show that the surge levels in Lake
Pontchartrain are going to be almost equivalent to the levee heights.
Throw on top of that very violent wave action, and there is a high
probability that we are going to flood a large part of the city."
Compounding the city's vulnerable geography, its buffer against storms
- marshlands along the coast - has been eaten away in recent years.
The equivalent of a football field's worth of marsh is lost to open
water every 38 minutes, according to state officials, due to a host of
factors, including a maze of navigation canals that have been cut and
dug to make way for industry and ranchers.
Meanwhile, surveys have suggested that as many as 300,000 people would
decline to evacuate even faced with a major storm. Officials said they
feared the state had grown complacent because several storms had
threatened the region in recent years, only to miss - including Ivan
last year and Dennis last month.
But state officials said they were encouraged by early reports of
residents leaving the area.
Traffic on Interstate 10 west of New Orleans was crawling, and enough
people had fled New Orleans and low-lying coastal communities that
traffic was picking up in Baton Rouge, 80 miles to the northwest. Storm
refugees from Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana had begun
arriving at inland hotels.
"Everything that has happened in the last 12 hours is indicating that
it's heading this way," said Mark Lambert, communications director for
the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.
"It is a credit to the citizens that they have put aside that
predisposition not to evacuate and that they realize that this is a
real threat."
Last week, the storm was not seen as a threat to the Gulf Coast because
it was headed toward the east coast of Florida.
But, although hurricanes typically feed off of water and lose steam
over land, this one emerged on the other side of Florida in formidable
condition - after killing seven people - and looked certain to
strike a second time.
To facilitate the evacuations away from the coast, the state was
preparing to take the unusual step of "contraflow," Lambert said -
reversing the flow of traffic on major highways.
At 8 a.m. today, the Louisiana Superdome - the 125-million-cubic-foot
stadium typically used for major sporting events and conventions -
was scheduled to be opened as a shelter. Tami Frazier, a spokeswoman
for the New Orleans mayor, said the Superdome should be seen as a
"refuge of last resort" and should be used only by people with special
needs, such as senior citizens or people with medical conditions.
New Orleans officials were roundly criticized last year, during Ivan's
near-miss, when they were slow to provide shelter for the city's many
homeless people and low-income families.
Several parishes to south and east of the city, as well as Grand Isle,
Louisiana's only inhabited barrier island, were also evacuating.
Several areas had issued mandatory evacuation orders.
The U.S. Coast Guard urged mariners to secure their vessels, remove
hazardous cargo, double mooring lines and head to safety.
The Coast Guard noted that many drawbridges along the coast could be
shut down in the wake of a storm, trapping boaters that had not
prepared in time.
"You can always replace a boat; you cannot replace a life," the Coast
Guard said in a public warning.
Energy companies were evacuating workers from some offshore platforms
and oil rigs.
Meanwhile, Florida continued to dig out from Katrina's initial strike.
Workers with shovels, brooms and bulldozers cleared the shorefront road
along Fort Lauderdale's beach, which had been covered with several
inches of sand deposited by Katrina's winds.
Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in South Florida remained
without power, and near the Miami Metrozoo in southern Miami-Dade
County, people waited in a two-mile-long line for free ice and bottled
water.
Staff writer John-Thor Dahlburg and staff researcher Lianne Hart
contributed to this report.
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_da_HOOROO_Guru=99?=" |
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| Title: KATRINA MAY BE OUR 'ASIAN TSUNAMI'.........29/8/5 |
28 Aug 2005 11:11:28 PM |
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Katrina may be 'our Asian tsunami'
(CNN) -- Flooding expected from Hurricane Katrina could wreak
catastrophe on New Orleans, overwhelming its water and sewage systems,
damaging its structures and leaving survivors in a bowl of toxic soup,
a top hurricane expert said Sunday.
Landfall is expected early Monday. (Latest report)
"We need to recognize we may be about to experience our equivalent of
the Asian tsunami, in terms of the damage and the numbers of people
that can be killed," said Ivor van Heerden, director of the Louisiana
State University Public Health Research Center in Baton Rouge.
Some 25 feet of standing water is expected in many parts of the city --
almost twice the height of the average home -- and computer models
suggest that more than 80 percent of buildings would be badly damaged
or destroyed, he said. (Watch a report on the worst-case scenario)
Floodwaters from the east will carry toxic waste from the "Industrial
Canal" area, nicknamed after the chemical plants there. From the west,
floodwaters would flow through the Norco Destrehan Industrial Complex,
which includes refineries and chemical plants, said van Heerden, who
has studied computer models about the impact of a strong hurricane for
four years.
"These chemical plants are going to start flying apart, just as the
other buildings do," he predicted. "So, we have the potential for
release of benzene, hydrochloric acid, chlorine and so on."
That could result in severe air and water pollution, he said.
In New Orleans, which lies below sea level, gas and diesel tanks are
all located above ground for the same reason that bodies are buried
above ground. In the event of a flood, "those tanks will start to
float, shear their couplings, and we'll have the release of these
rather volatile compounds," van Heerden added.
Because gasoline floats on water, "we could end up with some pretty
severe and large -- area-wise -- fires."
"So, we're looking at a bowl full of highly contaminated water with
contaminated air flowing around and, literally, very few places for
anybody to go where they'll be safe."
He went further.
"So, imagine you're the poor person who decides not to evacuate: Your
house will disintegrate around you. The best you'll be able to do is
hang on to a light pole, and while you're hanging on, the fire ants
from all the mounds -- of which there is two per yard on average --
will clamber up that same pole. And, eventually, the fire ants will
win."
The levees intended to protect the city vary in height, from as low as
10 feet above sea level to about 14 feet, he said. They too are
vulnerable, because they are made of earth, he said.
Disaster waiting to happen
Previous studies have suggested a catastrophic toll in lives and
property if a major hurricane were to hit the New Orleans area, where
about 1.3 million people live.
Walter Maestri, the emergency management chief in neighboring Jefferson
Parish, said Hurricane Georges in 1998 could have killed as many as
44,000 people had it struck the city directly.
"The way it's described, we describe it here, is Lake Pontchartrain has
now become Lake New Orleans," he told CNN in 2004.
Van Heerden said levees built to protect New Orleans from Lake
Pontchartrain could be buffeted by waves from the lake, which is about
23 miles by 35 miles in area.
"You're going to have enormous waves develop on that lake, especially
with as much as 14 hours of hurricane-force winds." Those waves will
erode the levees, raising the possibility of their collapse, he said.
"This is what we've been saying has been going to happen for years," he
said. "Unfortunately, it's coming true."
Rick Luettich, a professor at the University of North Carolina's
Institute of Marine Sciences, compared Katrina's expected impact on
areas far up the Mississippi to "grabbing the end of the bed cover and
giving it a hard snap."
That snap will push "probably in excess of 10 feet" of floodwater up
the river, he predicted. "It will propagate up the river like a wave,"
past Baton Rouge, more than 70 miles away, he said.
For 15 years, Luettich has been developing a hydrodynamic circulation
model -- called AdCirc -- that he said the Federal Emergency Management
Agency has endorsed to help emergency managers predict storm damage.
Apologizing for the possibility that his comment could be interpreted
as somewhat ghoulish, he said, "This is, in some ways, a little bit
exciting for us, because it's a real opportunity to test this
technology we've developed and see how well it works."
Find this article at:
www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/28/katrina.doomsday
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
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| Title: LOOTERS KILLED IN SHOOTOUT IN NEW ORLEANS........................ |
04 Sep 2005 10:37:01 PM |
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Looters killed in shoot-out
By Mark Egan in New Orleans
05sep05
NEW Orleans police killed four looters who had opened fire on them as
rescue teams scoured homes and toxic waters flooding streets to find
survivors and recover thousands of bloated corpses.
A fifth looter was in critical condition but no more details were
available about the incident in a city where authorities are slowly
regaining control after a wave of looting, murders and rapes in the
wake of Hurricane Katrina.
"Five men who were looting exchanged gunfire with police. The officers
engaged the looters when they were fired upon," the New Orleans
superintendent of police, Steven Nichols, said.
US Army Corps of Engineers contractors working on a levee breach were
fired on by gunmen but no one was hurt, the Corps' Mike Rogers said. It
was not clear if the two incidents were connected.
Six days after Katrina ripped up the Gulf Coast and sent flood waters
pouring into New Orleans, no one knows how many people were killed, but
government officials say the number is in the thousands.
"When we remove the water from New Orleans, we're going to uncover
people who died hiding in houses, who got caught by the flood, people
whose remains will be found in the street," Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff said. "It is going to be about as ugly a scene as you
can imagine."
Under fire for its slow response to the flooding, the Bush
administration tried to save face yesterday by sending top officials
down to the disaster zone and pledging to do whatever it took to clean
up New Orleans and help its refugees.
President George W. Bush was to visit relief efforts in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, and Poplarville, Mississippi, on Monday - his second trip
to the devastated region in less than a week.
Battered and sickened survivors made no attempt to disguise their
anger: "We have been abandoned by our own country," Aaron Broussard,
president of Jefferson Parish just south of New Orleans, told NBC's
Meet the Press.
"For God sakes, shut up and send somebody," a tearful and anguished Mr
Broussard said of promises not kept by Washington, adding that
"bureaucracy has committed murder" in New Orleans.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: LOOTERS KILLED IN SHOOTOUT IN NEW ORLEANS........................ |
05 Sep 2005 05:32:22 AM |
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On 4 Sep 2005 20:37:01 -0700, "Uncle Wally Da HOOROO Big Kahuna ;-)â„¢"
<stargatedecember2012@yahoo.ca> wrote:
Looters killed in shoot-out
By Mark Egan in New Orleans
05sep05
NEW Orleans police killed four looters who had opened fire on them as
rescue teams scoured homes and toxic waters flooding streets to find
survivors and recover thousands of bloated corpses.
A fifth looter was in critical condition but no more details were
available about the incident in a city where authorities are slowly
regaining control after a wave of looting, murders and rapes in the
wake of Hurricane Katrina.
"Five men who were looting exchanged gunfire with police. The officers
engaged the looters when they were fired upon," the New Orleans
superintendent of police, Steven Nichols, said.
US Army Corps of Engineers contractors working on a levee breach were
fired on by gunmen but no one was hurt, the Corps' Mike Rogers said. It
was not clear if the two incidents were connected.
Six days after Katrina ripped up the Gulf Coast and sent flood waters
pouring into New Orleans, no one knows how many people were killed, but
government officials say the number is in the thousands.
"When we remove the water from New Orleans, we're going to uncover
people who died hiding in houses, who got caught by the flood, people
whose remains will be found in the street," Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff said. "It is going to be about as ugly a scene as you
can imagine."
Under fire for its slow response to the flooding, the Bush
administration tried to save face yesterday by sending top officials
down to the disaster zone and pledging to do whatever it took to clean
up New Orleans and help its refugees.
President George W. Bush was to visit relief efforts in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, and Poplarville, Mississippi, on Monday - his second trip
to the devastated region in less than a week.
Battered and sickened survivors made no attempt to disguise their
anger: "We have been abandoned by our own country," Aaron Broussard,
president of Jefferson Parish just south of New Orleans, told NBC's
Meet the Press.
"For God sakes, shut up and send somebody," a tearful and anguished Mr
Broussard said of promises not kept by Washington, adding that
"bureaucracy has committed murder" in New Orleans.
Link please
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
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| Title: Re: LOOTERS KILLED IN SHOOTOUT IN NEW ORLEANS........................ |
05 Sep 2005 04:06:40 AM |
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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16495461%255E1702,00.html
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: LOOTERS KILLED IN SHOOTOUT IN NEW ORLEANS........................ |
05 Sep 2005 07:39:55 AM |
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On 5 Sep 2005 02:06:40 -0700, "Uncle Wally Da HOOROO Big Kahuna ;-)â„¢"
<stargatedecember2012@yahoo.ca> wrote:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16495461%255E1702,00.html
Thanks
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
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| Title: MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS IN KATRINA 'S AFTERMATH....... |
03 Sep 2005 11:07:03 PM |
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Major Developments in Katrina's Aftermath
Saturday September 3, 2005 10:31 PM
By The Associated Press
Major developments in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:
- Planes, trains and buses continued to evacuate people from the
Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center. More than 25,000 residents
had been evacuated since the National Guard arrived Friday.
- President Bush ordered 7,200 more soldiers and Marines to the Gulf
Coast to carry out federal relief efforts. An extra 10,000 National
Guard troops were being sent as well, raising the number of Guard
personnel in the stricken states to about 40,000.
- The Labor Department announced an emergency grant of up to $62
million will provide jobs to dislocated workers in the parts of
Louisiana devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The grant is expected to
provide as many as 10,000 temporary jobs.
- Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said the Coast Guard has rescued
9,500 people in Gulf Coast states ravaged by the hurricane and 100,000
people have received humanitarian aid.
- Thousands of people were at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International
Airport. Fewer than 200 remained in a medical triage unit where
officials said 3,000 to 5,000 people had been treated since the storm
began.
- National Guard Lt. Col. Jerry Crooks said troops had served more than
70,000 meals outside the convention center and had 130,000 more on
hand.
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_da_HOOROO_Guru=99?=" |
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| Title: MONSTER KATRINA NEARS NORLEANS......29/8/5 |
28 Aug 2005 10:54:11 PM |
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Monster Katrina nears Norleans
Catastrophy feared; 1 million could be left homeless
By MarketWatch
Last Update: 11:44 PM ET Aug. 28, 2005
E-mail it | Print | Alert | Reprint |
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - New Orleans residents were fleeing Sunday
night as the mayor ordered evacuation ahead of the landfall of
Hurricane Katrina, a huge Category 5 storm that experts predicted would
cause catastrophic damage and an environmental disaster, leave up to 1
million people homeless and threaten the nation's oil supply.
MARKETWATCH TOP NEWS
Monster hurricane nears New Orleans
Downbeat mood at Jackson Hole Fed conference
Iraq assembly approves constitution draft
U.S. stocks to continue tracking oil, rates next week
The monster storm, which could become only the fourth Category 5
hurricane to make landfall in U.S. history, was threatening a huge area
from southern Louisiana east to the Florida panhandle with sustained
160-mph winds, 190-mph gusts, torrential rains and tornadoes.
As it bore down on the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts, Katrina
already was the fourth-strongest storm on record, according to weather
officials.
Gulf and onshore oil and natural gas facilities were closing ahead of
the storm, and the fears of lost production - perhaps for months - sent
crude-oil futures soaring above a record $70 per barrel in after-hours
trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, according to media
reports.
Freeways out of New Orleans were reported deadlocked for miles and tens
of thousands of city residents, with no way out of town, flocked to
shelters, including the Superdome, where they faced hours and perhaps
days without food and water.
"The city of New Orleans has never seen a hurricane of this magnitude
hit it directly," Mayor Ray Nagin said of the storm, according to the
Associated Press.
Katrina threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions,
one that could leave more than 1 million people homeless, as it moved
toward New Orleans.
"All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor
van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University
Hurricane Center, told the Associated Press.
The center's latest computer simulations indicate that by Tuesday, vast
swaths of New Orleans could be under water up to 30 feet deep. In the
French Quarter, the water could reach 20 feet, easily submerging the
district's iconic cast-iron balconies and bars, the Ap reported.
Estimates predict that 60 percent to 80 percent of the city's houses
will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage, most of the people
who live in and around New Orleans could be homeless, the AP said..
"We're talking about in essence having - in the continental United
States - having a refugee camp of a million people," van Heerden said
Across the nation, businesses already were pledging supplies and money
for the post-storm relief effort. Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. (BUD:
news, chart, profile) said it was shipping 300,000 cans of drinking
water to relief agencies in Louisiana and Mississippi. Office Depot
Inc. (ODP: news, chart, profile) pledged $1 million to the American Red
Cross for the relief effort.
Earlier Sunday, Nagin declared a state of emergency and ordered the
city's 485,000 residents to evacuate as Hurricane Katrina approached
the Gulf Coast with ferocious winds and an expected storm surge of up
to 22 feet.
The Category 5 storm was expected to make landfall by morning,
according to the latest warning posted on the Web site of the National
Hurricane Center. Katrina would be only the fourth Category 5 storm -
the largest in the five-category rating system - to make landfall in
the U.S., in the past 154 years, joining Camille in 1969 and Andrew,
which battered Florida, in 1992, and an unnamed storm that devastated
the Florida Keys in 1935.
If Katrina continues on its current course, it's expected to hit near
the Louisiana-Mississippi border, putting New Orleans at high risk of
widespread flooding. Most of the city is at least 6 feet below sea
level. New Orleans is protected by 120 miles of levees.
"Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to
completion," read the warning, which described the hurricane as
"potentially catastrophic" due to "coastal storm surge flooding of 18
to 22 feet above normal tide levels."
Katrina was bearing down on a region that produces about a quarter of
U.S. domestic-oil production.
Royal Dutch Shell (RD: news, chart, profile) and other energy producers
have already shut production facilities that produce close to half a
million barrels of oil per day. Energy companies were evacuating oil
rigs and platforms in the Gulf as well as onshore production
facilities. See full story.
About one-sixth of the U.S. oil supply comes through facilities at Port
Fourchon, La., near New Orleans, and any damage could send prices of
oil and natural gas to record levels.
"Our priority right now is the safety of our employees and in securing
our facilities," Shell spokeswoman Darci Sinclair said. Shell employs
4,000 workers in Louisiana, she added.
President Bush has declared the Gulf Coast states to be disaster areas
to aid and speed relief supplies in those states..
Isolated tornadoes were also called possible beginning in the evening
in the southern parts of the Gulf states. The National Weather Service
warned that hurricane-force winds could reach up to 150 miles inland
and heavy rains could soak the New Orleans vicinity for up to 12 hours.
Katrina was blamed for at least six deaths in Florida earlier this
week.
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_da_HOOROO_Guru=99?=" |
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| Title: NORLEANS NEWS UPDATE: Fears that Katrina could wipe out city 29/8/5: |
29 Aug 2005 03:42:17 AM |
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NORLEANS NEWS UPDATE:
Hurricane hell in New Orleans
Fears that Katrina could wipe out city
BY ADAM LISBERG
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
New Orleans residents jam highway before Hurricane Katrina hits.
A worker in Biloxi, Mississippi, braces for yet another powerful storm.
New Orleans is the Big Uneasy this morning as killer hurricane Katrina
threatens to obliterate the fragile city and kill thousands in its
path.
Unless a last-minute miracle saps Katrina's strength or pushes her
aside, the centuries-old city and its famed French Quarter could be
devastated by a storm of biblical proportions.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said
yesterday. "This is a threat that we've never faced before."
He ordered the entire 485,000-person city evacuated yesterday morning,
trying to save lives before 28-foot-high seas inundate a city that
already lies up to 10 feet below sea level.
The order to get out came barely 24 hours before the 165-mph Category 5
hell-raiser was predicted to slam the city, and experts say hundreds of
thousands in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama could be in harm's way.
"Tens of thousands of deaths can occur here," veteran hurricane scholar
Joseph Suhayda told the Daily News, based on a doomsday computer model
that experts developed years ago.
The chilling scenario was based on a Category 5 hurricane making a
direct hit on New Orleans - just as Katrina was poised to do.
Scientists said Katrina could leave most of New Orleans under water and
essential services knocked out for months.
"We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast
communities," said President Bush, who took the unusual step of
declaring a state of emergency in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi in
advance. "I urge all citizens to put their own safety and the safety of
their families first by moving to safe ground."
Rain began falling from darkening skies and waves started battering the
coast yesterday afternoon. Highways, transformed into one-way routes
out of town, were gridlocked with fleeing residents.
The famously wide-open bars of the French Quarter were boarded up
yesterday, while stranded tourists looked for safety on higher floors
of hotels.
Emergency shelters, including the 72,000-seat Superdome, filled with
residents who had no cars and no other way to escape.
"We just took the necessities," said Michael Skipper, who pulled a
wagon loaded with bags of clothes and a radio. "The good stuff - the
television and the furniture - you just have to hope something's there
when you get back. If it's not, you just start over."
Hurricane experts have known for years that a strong storm could ravage
New Orleans, a low-lying stretch of land between Lake Pontchartrain and
the Mississippi River.
In normal times, the swampy city survives thanks to tall levees and
strong water pumps - the most extensive system ofits kind in the world
- but Katrina threatens to easily overpower them.
"The storm surge will most likely topple our levee system," the mayor
predicted grimly.
That would turn New Orleans into a bowl filled with up to 35 feet of
fetid water, laced with sewage, oils and toxic chemicals, that may not
drain for months.
"New Orleans may never be the same," said National Hurricane Center
Director Max Mayfield.
Federal emergency management teams prepared to swarm New Orleans and
other affected Gulf Coast areas once the storm passed, and insurers
braced for up to $30 billion in damage, making it the costliest storm
ever.
"We have to get everybody out of New Orleans," hurricane expert Ivor
van Heerden told Fox News Channel yesterday. "We may need to set up a
refugee camp - an internally displaced persons camp - for as many as a
million people, somewhere north of New Orleans, for months."
Authorities said that anyone who ignores the mandatory warning will be
on their own when Katrina hits and that they will not risk the lives of
rescuers during the storm.
Yet even with all the doomsday predictions, some die-hard residents of
the French Quarter, the city's party capital, refused to abandon their
delicate old homes.
"My son's having a fit," said 56-year-old Mary Lind, who lives in a
174-year-old pink brick house. "We're kind of a different breed of
people down here, people in the Quarter. Heck, if we can put up with
Mardi Gras, we can put up with a hurricane."
With News Wire Services
Originally published on August 29, 2005
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
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| Title: NEW ORLEANS ' THIN BLUE LINE HAS RUPTURED................... |
04 Sep 2005 11:38:38 PM |
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New Orleans' thin blue line has ruptured
9/4/2005, 6:35 p.m. CT
By JIM LITKE
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - There may be no better way to explain the
desperation on the city's ravaged streets than this: In the past few
days, two police officers took their lives with their own weapons and
dozens have turned in their badges.
New Orleans' thin blue line has ruptured.
Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley on Sunday identified two officers who
committed suicide as Sgt. Paul Accardo, the department's spokesman, and
Patrolman Lawrence Celestine. He called both "outstanding cops" and
friends.
Asked how they died, Riley put a finger to his temple, then paused.
"Both of them," he said, shaking his head slowly. "Used their own
guns."
Several dozen of the city's 1,600 police officers have failed to report
for duty, and some have turned in their badges.
Published reports put the number as high as 200, but Riley declined to
comment on those figures, saying more than 100 officers may have been
trapped in their own homes or unable to reach command centers.
"We just don't know," he said, standing outside a downtown command
center set up in the driveway of Harrah's casino.
But a moment later, Riley motioned back in the direction where several
dozen heavily armed officers milled around, eating and smoking. He said
he didn't care - not at the moment.
"We still have at least a thousand policemen out here trying to rescue
people and take back the city. I don't know what's in their minds. I
don't know what gives the others out here their adrenaline, what gives
them their push."
On top of the burdens of law enforcement, officers have had to forage
for food and water and even for places to relieve themselves.
"Our officers have been urinating and defecating in the basement of
Harrah's Casino," Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said last week.
"They have been going in stores to feed themselves."
They also have had to deal with personal losses.
"What's affected most of our officers is they don't know where their
wives or kids are. They don't have homes ... they don't have anything,"
Riley said.
That sentiment was echoed by Capt. Kevin Anderson, commander of the
Eighth District, which includes the fabled French Quarter.
"It hurts to the heart, but I don't have the luxury of dwelling on
who's not here. "We'll welcome them back with open arms maybe someday.
But that day ain't today."
Exhaustion was evident in the officers' faces and even their dress.
Many were wearing T-shirts and blue jeans brought in by fellow
officers.
"We're having to find clothes for some," Riley said. "The only reason
I'm dressed in a uniform is that I didn't lose my house."
Some police who remained on the job expressed outrage that some of
their fellow officers abandoned the city when it most needed law and
order.
"This is our area," said one officer, who spoke on the condition that
he not be identified because he feared retribution from commanders. "I
was raised in this town. I'm not giving this city up. Police are
turning in their badges and running away."
Officers also have struggled with the emotional impact of the
devastation.
"The most stressing part is seeing the citizens we serve every day
being treated like refugees," Riley said. "There were cops walking
through the crowd at the convention center and people were coming up to
beg for food. Not being able to help is a difficult thing. People were
calling our names because we know them and to not be able to help, man,
that's stressful."
Riley told of one officer who tried to rescue an elderly woman from an
attic but could not reach the window from his boat. Another rescued a
man who had punched a hole in the roof of his house to escape but the
man lost his daughter in the swirling floodwaters.
"Imagine what that does to somebody," he said. "And I'm sure when the
911 tapes come out, there'll be stories more horrific than that."
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: NEW ORLEANS ' THIN BLUE LINE HAS RUPTURED................... |
20 Sep 2005 05:47:01 PM |
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God, I hope that it does'nt leave a path of destruction like Katrina
did. Rita is already a category 3, yesterday morning it wasn't even
concidered a hurricane yet...
http://www.CrisisSearch.com has some helpful links, please add some
links that may help with future catastrophes.
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
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| Title: PRESIDENT HAS YET TO FIND VOICE ON KATRINA........................ |
06 Sep 2005 12:18:50 AM |
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-050904assess,1,1607360.story?coll=chi-opinionfront-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
President has yet to find voice on Katrina
By Michael Tackett
Tribune's Washington Bureau chief
Published September 4, 2005, 9:00 PM CDT
WASHINGTON -- A president who thrives on order-short meetings, quick
decisions, clear agendas-now finds himself facing chaos.
A historic natural disaster in Louisiana and Mississippi has been
joined by an extraordinary political challenge in Washington with the
death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist and the coming battle over not
one, but two, Supreme Court vacancies.
A capital that is fueled on partisanship faces a country that is
unlikely to tolerate the standard fare when they are watching the
horrifying sight of people dying on American streets and a government
slow-footed at best in its response.
Congressional Republicans and Democrats have been critical of the
relief effort in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But the
game of blame quickly shifts to one of responsibility and
accountability, with Republicans possibly having more at stake simply
because they hold far more power. It will be a delicate dance,
especially because many of them ran for election by expressly
criticizing the size and scope of government itself.
So widely praised after his commanding remarks at ground zero in New
York just four years ago, President Bush has yet to find his voice on
dealing with Katrina. After Sept. 11, 2001, there was an obvious enemy
and clear way to respond. But Bush cannot declare war on the ferocious
forces of nature, and in many ways, the enemy has become the lumbering
federal bureaucracy that he leads.
"It's true that he likes to impose order on chaos, but he likes to take
pride as someone who is a disciplined and effective crisis manager,"
said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of
Texas and longtime observer of Bush. "He doesn't enjoy falling off his
pedestal as a good leader."
With respect to the Supreme Court, the president has vowed to act
quickly to name Rehnquist's replacement and his footing seems far more
certain. There is precedent for dealing with two vacancies. In 1971,
President Richard Nixon responded to the resignations of Justices Hugo
Black and John Marshall Harlan-announced just a week apart-by
asking the Senate to consider the nominations of their replacements
jointly. Rehnquist was one of them. Nixon also tapped Lewis Powell, a
Democrat from Virginia.
The White House long has planned for a vacancy left by Rehnquist,
though it could not control the timing. Even before the hurricane, the
president's job approval ratings were at a record low for his
presidency. Support for the war in Iraq has been eroding, and some
critics have attributed the slow response to the hurricane to the drain
on resources for the war.
"The recent events have affected both their [Bush administration]
strengths and their weaknesses," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.).
"Their strength was that they were a group of competent people who knew
how to manage things. That's not the message of last week."
"On the weakness side, even while quote unquote 'economic times are
good,' by two to one in this country people say that they are not,"
Emanuel said. "This is going to underscore all their weaknesses. The
country doesn't think they have the right priorities."
Indeed, despite the erosion of support for the war in Iraq, the
domestic crisis in the Gulf Coast region and soaring gas prices-many
Americans were paying well north of $3 a gallon on Labor Day
weekend-are likely to affect the president's standing more
profoundly.
But this president has also confounded his critics. The president was
shaky immediately after Sept. 11, then rallied and was seen as strong
and decisive. When he nominated federal Judge John Roberts Jr. to the
Supreme Court, many were saying he must name a candidate who would
bring gender or ethnic diversity to the court. He responded instead
with a middle-aged white male, a nominee who has been widely praised.
Those challenges came one at a time. And he had the unified backing of
his party. He could force the agenda.
Now, the balance is much more precarious. Among his critics are fellow
Republicans. The political capital of which the president spoke when he
was re-elected has been badly depleted. The playbook of winning all
votes on the backs of Republicans now seems sorely in need of revision.
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
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| Title: ** KATRINA NEWS UPDATE ** -- Obsolete Stadium Is Now Serving a Tragic Purpose |
31 Aug 2005 11:48:06 PM |
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Obsolete Stadium Is Now Serving a Tragic Purpose
By Thomas Heath
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 1, 2005; Page A18
The announcement yesterday that as many as 23,000 Hurricane Katrina
refugees will be bused from the New Orleans Superdome to the Astrodome
in Houston focused the spotlight on a pair of buildings once viewed as
engineering marvels that have been turned into relics by the
fast-changing economics of the sports world they helped to
revolutionize.
The Astrodome, which opened in 1965, and Superdome, which opened in
1975, are national and local icons, identified with Houston and New
Orleans as much as the Golden Gate Bridge is with San Francisco and the
Empire State Building with New York. They ushered in a period of domed
multi-sport facilities, introducing fans to AstroTurf, luxury suites
and climate-controlled sporting events.
Louisiana resident Nureka Jacobs and her children are turned away from
shelter at the Astrodome in Houston after being told that the stadium
is for bused-in refugees only. (By Carlos Antonio Rios -- Houston
Chronicle Via Associated Press)
Mark Maske's NFL Insider
Favre Learns Family Safe After Hurricane
Lewis Has Bengals Making Strides
Broncos' Gamble on Clarett Doesn't Pay Off
Owens Soap Opera Is Back on Center Stage
No End in Sight to Benson's Standoff
More NFL Insider
Latest From the Wires
Homeless Saints Could Face Vagabond Season
Preseason NFL Standings
Packers' Team Plane Also Carried Supplies
Former Bengals Receiver Joins Seahawks
Colts' Pope Draws One-Year Suspension
More News
"They are the super-daddies of their times," said Janet Marie Smith,
who helped design Oriole Park at Camden Yards and now works for the
Boston Red Sox. "Most of their sister facilities of that era, the era
of multipurpose stadiums, are gone. Clearly there is structural
stability to them. The question is whether or not there is an economic
life for them. What a curious way for us to be forced to explore their
future than through this natural disaster."
Because of their size, strength and spaciousness, stadiums are a
logical haven in disasters. The Ford Center and the Cox Business
Services Convention Center (formerly the Myriad) in Oklahoma City are
designated as tornado shelters. Giants Stadium in New Jersey and Shea
Stadium in Queens, N.Y., were used as staging areas in the aftermath of
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City. The Superdome
provided refuge from Hurricane Georges in 1998 and Hurricane Ivan last
year. Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego was used as an evacuation site
during the Southern California wildfires of 2003.
But the structures have outlived their everyday sports usefulness. Over
the last decade, most teams have moved away from the impersonal,
multipurpose facilities of the 1960s and 1970s, preferring
single-purpose stadiums such as Oriole Park and FedEx Field that can be
tailored to the demands of one sport and adorned with fancy suites and
club seats that generate more revenue.
"The economics of sports has passed" the Astrodome and Superdome by,
said Matthys Levy, chairman of Weidlinger Associates, a New York-based
engineering firm, and designer of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
The Astrodome cost $35 million to build and opened in 1965 as the first
major roofed sports stadium. It was billed as the "Eighth Wonder of the
World" by Judge Roy Hofheinz, then the owner of baseball's Houston
Astros, and included about 45,000 seats, 53 skyboxes and a $2 million
scoreboard. It was home to the Astros and football's Houston Oilers.
The roof was initially made of clear panels to allow sunlight to reach
a grass field, but baseball players couldn't spot fly balls against the
ceiling and the panels were painted, forcing the introduction of
plastic grass -- AstroTurf. In 2000, the Astros moved to Minute Maid
Park, a $250 million stadium with a retractable roof. The Oilers left
for Tennessee after the 1996 season, and the city's current NFL team,
the Texans, plays in Reliant Stadium, which sits next to the Astrodome.
Though the building hosted the 1992 Republican Convention and Billie
Jean King's "Battle of the Sexes" tennis victory over Bobby Riggs in
1973, it is now an afterthought -- hosting the occasional rodeo,
corporate softball game, even a bar mitzvah -- that costs about $1.5
million annually for upkeep.
The Superdome, built at a cost of $134 million, opened in 1975 and
seats 72,968 for its only major tenant, the NFL's Saints (the NBA's
Jazz left for Utah after the 1979 season). It has 137 luxury suites and
more than 14,000 club seats. The Superdome has hosted seven Super Bowls
and four NCAA Final Four men's basketball tournaments, helping turn New
Orleans into a premier destination for major sports events.
That may not last, however. The Saints would like the state to
modernize the Superdome or build a new, $600 million riverfront
stadium.
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_s_nice_n_comfy_cozy_HOOROO_corner_cabin__;-=99?=" |
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| Title: STRENGTHENING RITA CREATES STATE OF ANXIETY..................... |
19 Sep 2005 10:50:08 PM |
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Posted on Mon, Sep. 19, 2005
www.miamiherald.com/
Strengthening Rita creates state of anxiety
BY MARTIN MERZER, DAVID OVALLE AND LESLEY CLARK
mmerzer@herald.com
Potential disaster lurked just over the horizon this morning as Rita
intensified to the brink of hurricane strength, ballooned in size and
pulsed relentlessly closer.
The core threatened to pass perilously close to Key West -- or directly
strike it -- as a 100-mph hurricane, though its precise path and
intensity remained uncertain. No doubt existed, however, that the storm
was wide and wet and windy -- and the entire region stood on alert.
''Here we are again -- struggling,'' Jochebed Garcia of Kendall said as
she arrived at a shelter in South Miami-Dade County. The ground around
her home was still saturated from Hurricane Katrina, which raged
through South Florida fewer than four weeks ago.
Forecasters warned that Rita was capable of inflicting sweeping damage
in the Florida Keys and another burst of tropical misery in Miami-Dade
and, to a lesser extent, Broward. Winds will build and rain will
accumulate through the day. Tourists and all 80,000 residents were told
to get out of the Keys on Monday, while they could.
Schools are closed today in Broward, Miami-Dade and the Keys. Utility
officials prepared for widespread outages. The Port of Miami and Port
Everglades are closed, but all major airports hoped to remain open.
National Guard units mustered at a staging area in Homestead, and the
Federal Emergency Management Agency planned to pre-position blankets,
tarpaulins and other relief supplies there.
Water managers lowered canals and took other precautions, but
storm-surge flooding was feared in Miami Beach, Key Biscayne and other
coastal areas of Miami-Dade. Less serious coastal flooding could dampen
Hallandale Beach and Dania Beach in Broward.
With many interior areas still dealing with water from Katrina,
flooding from Rita's three to five inches of rain could affect some
parts of suburban Miami-Dade and Broward.
It seemed beyond belief, but Rita will be the seventh hurricane to hit
or brush Florida in 14 months. And the hurricane season doesn't end
until Nov. 30.
''I'm concerned because of everything that happened with Katrina,''
said Lori Donaldson, a former Maryland resident who just bought a home
in Marathon, in the Middle Keys. ``I'm scared, very scared.''
She was not alone.
Late Monday, Key West City Manager Julio Avael compared Rita's
potential impact on his city to ``the Katrina that hit New Orleans.''
In fact, the anxiety generated by Rita extended all the way to New
Orleans, where Mayor Ray Nagin reversed course and asked residents not
to return to the city so thoroughly devastated by Katrina.
The reason: Each long-range forecast curved Rita closer and closer to
Louisiana, with landfall expected somewhere on the Gulf Coast by
Saturday.
With the storm also affecting Cuba, authorities evacuated residents
from low-lying areas along that island's northern coast and opened 11
shelters in Villa Clara. In Havana, sewers were being cleared and
supplies readied.
But today, the Keys were most directly targeted.
Forecasters said Rita's fury could be equal to or worse than that of
Hurricane Georges in 1998, which struck the Keys with 104-mph winds and
destroyed or damaged 1,536 homes.
The storm surge alone, possibly striking from both directions -- the
Atlantic and then the Gulf of Mexico -- could leave portions of the
Overseas Highway impassable, forecasters said.
It is the only route in or out of the Keys and portions of it,
particularly north of Key Largo, already had standing water along the
swales.
''Once the winds get up to tropical storm force, U.S. 1 is going to be
cut off at some point,'' said Max Mayfield, director of the National
Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade. ``And that's it -- you're not
going to be able to get anyone else out.''
Then, there's the wind.
''Residents of the Florida Keys can expect roof and moderate structural
damage,'' the National Weather Service said in a special advisory.
``Mobile homes are not safe. Some will be destroyed. Large trees will
be toppled.''
Emergency managers warned that power could be out for a week or more in
some parts of the Keys.
''I urge people to take this storm seriously,'' said Gov. Jeb Bush.
Most did.
Many notoriously laid-back residents of the Keys, remembering Georges
and appalled by the catastrophe inflicted by Katrina along the Gulf
Coast, hurriedly retreated from the islands.
Moving in a funeral-like procession with headlights beaming, motorists
made their way out of the Keys in slow-moving but orderly fashion
Monday evening.
In South Miami-Dade stood this reminder of impending danger: a sign
that blinked -- ``Hurricane Warning. Evacuation in Progress.''
About 100 Keys residents found refuge at a shelter established by the
American Red Cross on Florida International University's campus in west
Miami-Dade.
''When they say evacuate, I am taking off. I am responsible for that
little life,'' said Seana Skees, 38, pointing to her 16-month-old son,
Michael.
The place was prepared to serve 1,200 people; most other shelters also
reported few evacuees, suggesting that most found refuge with friends
and relatives.
From Key West through Broward County, long lines formed for gasoline,
groceries and other necessities. Some people waited more than an hour
in supermarket checkout lines in Miami-Dade and Broward.
''I think people are definitely freaking, there's not even any water,''
Shane Mohalley, 22, said as he loaded groceries from a Publix in South
Beach onto his Vespa scooter.
Miami-Dade officials ordered mandatory evacuations of mobile homes and
voluntary evacuations along the coast. Broward officials advised
residents of mobile homes to seek shelter with friends or family.
The Miami-Dade Expressway Authority said it would close westbound lanes
of State Road 836 (Dolphin Expressway) from 87th to 107th avenues if
winds exceed 40 mph. During Katrina's assault, portions of a bridge
under construction at 97th Avenue collapsed.
''It's kind of like we're going to be sideswiped by a truck and not hit
head on,'' said Jim Lushine, a severe weather expert at the National
Weather Service. ``That won't be the case in the Keys.''
There, in the region likely to be closest to Rita's core, all residents
and tourists were under mandatory evacuation orders.
''I'm concerned about flooding from storm surge and the velocity of the
wind,'' said Key West Mayor Jimmy Weekley. ``If we get
100-mile-per-hour sustained winds, it could do an awful lot of damage
to this community.''
And anyone who tries to ride out the storm aboard a small boat will be
in peril, officials warned.
''One of the most dangerous places to be right now is going to be on
boats, even if the storm doesn't make a direct hit,'' said Craig
Fugate, the state's emergency manager.
The Coast Guard closed the Port of Key West to all boats and ships,
including cruise liners.
Medi-vac helicopters airlifted patients from the Keys to hospitals in
Miami-Dade.
In Key West, cars lined up at gas stations preparing for the long trip
up U.S. 1, while holdouts stocked up. Heavy traffic was reported early
in the day, but tapered off as nightfall -- and Rita -- came.
Several tourists opted to get out of town as early as possible,
including the bleary-eyed Hettinger family of Pennsylvania. They
planned a longer visit in Key West, but -- fearing the storm's fury --
left just after daybreak.
''It's our first trip down here and I'm scared,'' said Eileen
Hettinger, 52. ``I don't like wind.''
She probably wouldn't have liked the water, either.
Up to 15 inches of rain are expected in the Keys, tides already are at
seasonal highs because of the full moon, and a storm tide more than
nine feet -- topped by battering waves -- could inundate the islands
from both sides.
At the same time, forecasters reminded everyone that a hurricane
encompasses much more weather than just the core -- and that Rita had
grown in size as well as strength. Among other risks, they warned of
the possibility of tornadoes throughout the region.
''It is important to emphasize that Rita could affect a large area and
one should not focus on the exact track,'' said hurricane forecaster
Rick Knabb.
Tropical storm-force winds -- between 39 and 73 mph -- were expected in
Miami-Dade and Broward.
Forecasters said those winds are capable of downing trees and causing
power outages similar to those experienced in the wake of Katrina.
With the storm also affecting Cuba, authorities evacuated residents
from low-lying areas along that island's northern coast and opened 11
shelters in Villa Clara. In Havana, sewers were being cleared and
supplies readied.
In July, 16 people died when Hurricane Dennis struck Cuba.
Herald staff writers Susan Anasgosti, Jennifer Babson, Noah Bierman,
Theresa Bradley, Jacqueline Charles, Dan Christensen, Wanda J. DeMarzo,
Elaine de Valle, Gail Epstein Gary Fineout, Tim Henderson, Mary Ellen
Klas, Matthew I. Pinzur, Charles Rabin, Bob Radziewicz, Frances Robles,
Hannah Sampson, Roberto Santiago, Noaki Schwartz, Carli Teproff, Ben
Torter, John Voskuhl and Nicole White and researcher Monika Z. Leal
contributed to this report.
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Ze_Truly_Wondrous_HOOROO_Wizard_Of_Oz=99?=" |
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| Title: Re: KATRINA PACKS A DEADLY PUNCH: LEAVING 7 DEAD (SO FAR) |
29 Aug 2005 09:47:16 PM |
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Posted: August 29, 2005 10:50 AM
Information is beginning to trickle in about today's deaths from
Hurricane Katrina.
Officials in Mississippi say three people there were killed by falling
trees. That news came after word from Alabama that two people died in a
highway accident related to the storm.
Meanwhile, Katrina, now downgraded to a tropical storm, is moving north
and still bringing dangerous winds and rains with it. The Tennessee and
Ohio valleys could get eight or more inches of rain.
Tornadoes from Katrina could strike throughout the nation's midsection
and have already damaged at least 30 homes in Georgia.
Hurricane Katrina plowed into the Gulf Coast at daybreak Monday with
shrieking, 145-mph winds and blinding rain, submerging entire
neighborhoods up to the rooflines in New Orleans, hurling boats onto
land and sending water pouring into Mississippi's strip of beachfront
casinos.
In addition to known deaths, and an untold number of others were feared
dead in flooded neighborhoods.
"Some of them, it was their last night on earth," Terry Ebbert, chief
of homeland security for New Orleans, said of people who ignored
evacuation orders. "That's a hard way to learn a lesson."
Katrina weakened overnight to a Category 4 storm and made a slight turn
to the right before coming ashore at 6:10 a.m. CDT near the Louisiana
bayou town of Buras. The storm passed just to the east of New Orleans
as it moved inland, sparing this vulnerable below-sea-level city its
full fury and the apocalyptic damage that forecasters had feared.
But there was plenty of destruction in New Orleans, and a clearer
picture of the damage emerged after the storm had passed: Mangled
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