French Quarter is toasted on its survival

YAY! It's a miracle! After a day of tragic news, this comes as a silver lining.

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Well there goes that silver lining. I hope the French Quarter survives this catastrophe.

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Looks like I'm gonna cancel that Southern Decadence trip.

Aren't we used to water killing people yet?

Oy! The governor just ordered the evacuation of ALL of New Orleans... waters continue to rise. Everyone in the Superdome and other shelters (apparently tens of thousands) would have to be evacuated... this is getting worse by the minute.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9130254/

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DD, I read about that on IMDb... something about Lucy Lawless and the movie she's shooting. It took her nine hours to drive 60 miles. Wow.

Just curious guys. Why does papa change subject lines to small case letters? and why does it bother pal so much? Both you guys are smart, well informed posters. What's up?

I still haven't heard from any of my friends there.

I'm so sad.

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6:03 P.M. - N.O. Councilman Oliver Thomas: "What you see on TV, you have no idea what the level of devastation and frustration is on the street."

6:04 P.M. - Thomas: Most sobering moment - being told to leave the dead bodies, because there are people to rescue.

6:05 P.M. - Thomas: Saw at least three dead bodies during his rescues. Whole families were among those rescued.




Updates as they come in on Katrina

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CNN is reporting that the National Guard is being deployed to the New Orleans French Quarter to combat growing violence. Journalists are being shot at and cars trying to get out of the city are being targeted for carjacking. Prisoners are rioting trying to escape and holding hostages.

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The night before Katrina hit there was a previously scheduled special on National Geographic Explorer about the apparent worsening of natural disasters that I happened to watch. It covered tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes. For each of the topics they focussed on one place on earth where not only were people extremely vulnerable to these disasters and not likely to survive them (like the foolish citizens who keep moving to Naples who will not make it through the inevitable eruption of Vesuvius) and for the hurricane section they said that New Orleans was destined to be destroyed by a hurricane.

They talked about how the series of levees that the army corps of engineers erected to "protect" the downtown area they call "the bowl" because it is below sea level, would probably not work if the city took a direct hit from a category 2 or 3 hurricane. It was at that point I said, "Uh oh." When CNN showed interviews yesterday with people who rode the storm out in the French Quarter and who said after the storm passed that they "knew the old house" would hold up, I thought, "I dunno... the problem is the water."

I wasn't anywhere near the media throughout the day today, but I have to say, after seeing that special I am not suprised by any of this. There were some experts who didn't think New Orleans would be able to recover for years if they took a smaller hit than this... that the compromised drinking water alone could actually make the place unihabitable.

It was a bleak scenario, and it seems to be coming to pass.

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They focused on LA and San Fran as the two big doomed earthquake cities.

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