Please share any stories you see or hear. I woke up to TV headlines saying that there are “complete structural failures” in New Orleans. Does that extend to major new buildings downtown? What about the hotels housing so many tourists who couldn’t leave?
CNN just reported that a woman in a hotel room tried to open the door, and the force of the wind was so strong that it slammed the door shut — and sliced off half of her finger (!). (They didn’t explain how the wind was blowing that hard INSIDE the hotel.)
Superdome’s Roof Is Peeled Off in 2 Places
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS / NYT:
Published: August 29, 2005
Filed at 9:50 a.m. ET
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Howling wind from Hurricane Katrina peeled holes in the roof of the Superdome on Monday morning as thousands of people huddled inside seeking shelter.
Pieces of metal sheared off, leaving two holes that were visible from the floor. Water dripped in and people were moved away from about five sections of those seats.
The development, around 8 a.m. as the storm neared its peak outside, did not create any visible fear among the estimated 8,000 to 9,000 people who spent the night in the huge arena. Some watched as sheets of metal, flapping visibly, rumbled loudly. From the floor, looking up more than 19 stories, it appeared to be openings of about 6 feet long.
General Manager Glenn Menard said he did not know how serious the problem was. ”We have no way of getting anyone up there to look,” he said. ..
Boy Howdie! Anderson Cooper is blowin’ in the wind. Again!
Try to fill your gas tank early today Barrel price will exceed $70, at least for a while, says the NYT.
P.S. Ask Amazon to put up a Red Cross donation link (as Amazon did for the tsunami). This is the largest disaster in the HISTORY of the Red Cross. What other organizations need help?
Update [2005-8-29 11:3:30 by pastordan]:With apologies to Susan: nika7K has some excellent live-blogging links.
Susan it’s first off great to see you back here. I was worried after hearing of your hospitalization. Welcome home.
Second, this is only the beginning. The storms over the next few decades will only get worse. What will the Conservative say when they realize their misguided policies have created this monster? Probably lie themselves to sleep at night.
This is being liveblogged here.
One poster is reporting a levee breach at Tennessee St.
PS: Welcome back!
This is from WWL’s front page as I post:
The feed to their live stream is no longer working for me. I can’t connect to their “low bandwidth audio feed” either.
Here’s a link to the audio:
mms://beloint.wm.llnwd.net/beloint_wfaa
It’s very spotty though, and when I got it to play it sounded rather tinny. (Not that I expected quadrophonic hi-fi, of course; they’re doing the best they can under difficult circumstances, he said, with just a hint of understatement).
ohdamnohdamnohdamn, please let those people stay safe….I haven’t even been able to turn the TV on this morning, I am afriad to look.
If you want to donate to the Red Cross, go here. Also, if you are eligible to donate blood, you might want to make an appointment to donate ASAP, as hospitals in LA/MS/AL may need more blood than they have on hand at the moment.
Susan, I need more coffee. Didn’t notice your link to the Red Cross to donate as well.
But what I say above about donating blood still holds true. Our nations blood supply is always tenuous at best and disasters like this put a huge strain on the supply.
Susan…so happy to see you here and hope you are feeling better.
How can we best help these poor people? Can we make this a diary to give links if we have them to places that we can help?
Per MSNBC, an oil rig has broken loose from it’s moorings south of AL.
of these puppies, the contamination from the oil rigs, refineries, and chemical plants is going to be more than nasty….
By the way, did you know that our strategic oil reserve is right there in the gulf right under where Katrina came in? Doesn’t sound so strategic now, does it?
WTF?! The oil reserve is THERE?! Oh Jeuss … not that i want it near me, but wouldn’t it be better to put it in states that have fewer annual disasters?
did you see Real History Lisa’s diary last night .. we only have 700 million barrels in reserve. And we use 20 million per day in this country.
swell, huh??
Some people are in for a pretty nasty surprise, I fear.
I hope the folks in NO/MS/AL are okay.
check this out.
We have a bunch of genuises in charge don’t we?
I spoke this morning with another mom in front of the school. She has lived here and Pensacola most of her life. These Hurricanes lately are very different she claims. She said that the hurricanes of old would wash out the shoreline roads and take out the Condos on the beach, and she said that the locals would never build a condo on the beach so they all laughed at the silly vacation people who build another one there in five or six years. According to her these past two years of Hurricanes has been really really different and her family has had serious structural damage to houses and buildings that withstood things just fine before. She says that it has something to do with how low the pressure is with these hurricanes.
That’s important … that people who’ve lived there a long time are noticing such increased destruction.
Then there’s what MAN has done to the natural environment — besides global warming. I mentioned this book last night / I heard its author, Mark Tidwell, on CSPAN2 in 2003 and he was an incredible writer and speaker. He gave me a whole new picture of that region and what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has done to the Mississippi River …
Just wrote to Keith O and told him to get this guy on the air.
Having been through a category 2 last year, the sewage that mixes in with everything from the flooding is pretty nasty too. With oil and chemicals foating on top…ugh. They’re teeling people to go up in the attic and take something with them to chop their way out if they need to because the flooding might go that high.
It does seem like you’d find a safer place to store your reserves than in the path of hurricanes, doesn’t it?
Erm, maybe it was just a tanker? I’m hearing varying reports…
It was both — they’ve got ’em lashed down now though, no word on oil leaks or whatever else, yet. Those people out there in the Gulf are some brave souls — I hope they stay safe too!
It wasn’t a functional rig – it was in a shipyard for repairs.
an oil rig has broken loose from it’s moorings south of AL.
Did they say anything else about this?
I haven’t seen or heard anything more about it; I’m having a hard time picturing how you would handle such a problem.
Our dear leader is playing golf in Arizona!! “Now watch this drive”…asshole. This Bush Crime Family is famous for golfing during disasters and death, Mom, Barbra went golfing the day after she buried her daughter.
If we can’t compare Bush to Hitler, can we at least compare him to Nero?
I’ve actually been saying that is the more appropriate comparison for a while. Something about GW fiddling with Social Security while the world burns around him.
THANK YOU, EVERYONE! Your comments mean so much to me. it’s wonderful to be home, and with YOU again!
Oh and my cats are so thrilled … Bear wouldn’t leave my side last night, licked my hand and arms, and laid down on the pillow next to my head while I watched TV — he reached out and put both paws on my head and forehead. when I’d move, he’d reach out again and put his paws back on me to hold me.
And Althea — the newer cat, from the Wal-Mart parking lot — was very depressed so gave her lots of love too.
Susan I’m definitely glad to see/hear you’re back and doing well.
As for this hurricane, I best not comment.
Pax
Please DO comment, Soj. I’d love to hear your always fascinating perspective on things.
And thanks for the warm welcome back:)
Even though it may not be exactly what we want to hear at any particular point in time, views from abroad are always welcome (yes, I know you are American, but I know how my perspective on my country changed during my years overseas).
When cats groove on being with you, they are very selfish – they want the moment to last for as long as possible. They purr, they touch, they hold you in place – they have the knack of being in the moment.
If only we could understand that zen joy – or at least show it sometines.
Sadly I can’t have cats – not for me, but for someone else. But this story Susan made me yearn for their philosophical company…
windows have blown out and rooves are blowing off. Even windows in SUV’s are blowing. out. Hotel residents do not come under the evacuation order. Is it because hotels are considered safe? I have many questions, but we have time enough for that later.
No, it was because the evacuation was mandatory and the tourists couldn’t leave the city, so they made it a legal exception. The big hotels probably are pretty safe, too — I think extra space was given to locals who couldn’t leave.
Suction can create that type of power, too.
As to hotels, many flock to them as they usually are better than a small house to stay in. On Guam, many would go to them for shelter even though they were right on the beach.
Hotels are safer if you treat them right. If she was in her room and opening the door, they didn’t treat it right.
looting in New Orleans.
Unbelievable.
No, on second thought, not unbelievable.
You know, it’s amazing she was in her room with the door closed. The hotel is supposed to get everyone to safer areas, like interior hallways. The wind could easily get in a hotel; if an exterior door blew out or blew open (or even a window in an enclosed hallway), those hallways are just wide enough to act as a funnel for wind, creating massive pressure differences between the hallway and the rooms.
I’m out here in the real world with no internet connection, except a few library minutes. This is the first place I checked for solid news updates. Adding a couple of comments for whatever use they might be.
Watched CNN and Weather until late last night. Nowhere did I hear the slightest mention of the connection between human activities and the increasing strength and scale of natural disasters. Lots of pictures of people driving SUVs away from NO, though.
Well away from hurricanes, here in western New England, people are beginning to freak at the price of gasoline. It’s $2.70 in places, already.
I liked the weather guy on whichever channel who reassured folks that even though the SuperDome roof was going, people would be safe in the surrounding seats because of the concrete–“and that’s where the bathrooms are.” 10,000 people without lights, AC, or bathrooms. Oh my.
Great reporting, BooTribbers.
We were talking in the office today – here in ultra-safe Finland. Many people expresseed a sense of foreboding – New Orleans being some kind of next notch up on the string of disaster syndrome….