You're in my prayers... I just heard back from a friend whose mom and stepdad live in Metairie. Don't know much except that they're safe and obviously not in the vicinity at the moment.

man, red cross's site is super slow with everyone trying to get on it.

Mercy Corps is a great organization:

http://www.mercycorps.org/index.php?sec ... ems_id=830

it took forever to load for me as well.

direct link to the Red Cross donation page below...

http://arc.convio.net/site/PageServer?p ... 7e2.app25b

maybe - although some organizations are really stupid about stuff like that. the large corp I work for pretty much puts the smack down to get good prices but i am not sure most non profits work that way. for things like this my work usually sets up a 1 for 1 matching program for employees so I will wait until that gets set up.

Goddammit. Fucking CNN (and the other "Entertainment Tonight"-styled cable news outlets) is covering this shit all day and all night and can't be bothered to do even the slightest background research.

Just now, they shot to Shreveport, which has taken on a substantial amount of evacuees. They kept running a caption that said, in all caps of course, "Population of Shreveport swells from 2,000 to 20,000". That is pretty fucking incredible, and would most certainly buckle any small town with a population of 2000. Thing is, I'm sure Shreveport has it's hands full making services available to the displaced, but it's a city of 200,000 people, not counting the 55,000 in Bossier City across the Red River.

One of my co-workers is from the NO area. Her family moved here years ago. But many of her family and friends are still out there and outlying cities/towns in Lousiana.

They've been able to locate most of their family members but they're still unable to get in touch with many others. She's on the phone with her mom right now and I overheard some of her conversation, it's sad.

Ugh. This really does hit a lot closer for more people then we all realize.

Here in Houston, we are seeing a LOT of "evacuees". I heard this morning on the way in that they are bussing all of those in the Superdome and going to put them up here in the Astrodome. Local "celeb" Mattress Mac who owns Gallery Furniture (same one that puts on the Gallery Furniture.com Bowl) is opening up his warehouses and setting up beds allowing people to stay as long as they have to. Local restaurants, museums, etc. are all offering discounts to our "guests". Every radio and television is doing what it can to raise money to help out.

Amazing how it takes a disaster to bring out the best in people. I just hope it lasts, because they're saying that people are going to be stuck here for months before they can head back. My prayers are out to anyone and everyone affected by this, and if I can do anything for you let me know. I will do my best.

situation update. evacuees and refugees arrived in Houma today. I'm kinda trapped because of the city's swelling, and my lack of car. We have one car now with limited gas as there is no more here.

We were able to drop off clothes and canned goods to the civic center to help though. They are arriving in trucks from NO. It's very sad.

Here's part of an email from LSU's sports information about their situation.

After unloading supplies, I started putting together baby cribs and then IV poles. Several of our fball players and Big Baby and Tasmin Mitchell helped us. At the same time, families and people strolled in. Mothers were giving berth in the locker rooms. The auxiliary gym "Dungeon" was being used as a morgue. I couldn't take myself down there to see it.

I worked from 8 pm until 2:45 am. Before I left three more buses rolled in and they were almost out of room. People were standing outside, the lowest of the low from NO. The smells, the sights were hard to take.

A man lying down on a cot asked me to come see him. He said,"I just need someone to talk to, to tell my story because I have nobody and nothing left. He turned out to be a retired military veteran. His story was what everybody was saying. He thought he survived the worst, woke up this morning and the levees broke. Within minutes water rushed into his house. He climbed to the attic, smashed his way through the roof and sat there for hours. He was completely sunburned and exhausted. Nearly 12 hours later a chopper rescued him and here he was.

We finished the night hauling boxes of body bags and more were on the way. As we left, a man was strolled in on a stretcher and scarily enough he suffered gunshots. The paramedic said he was shot several times because a looter or a convict needed his boat and he wouldn't give it to him. Another man with him said it was "an uncivilized society no better than Iraq down there right now." A few minutes later he was unconcious and later pronounced dead. I then left as they were strolling a 3 year old kid in on a stretcher. I couldn't take it anymore.

That was the scene at the PMAC and it gives me a new perspective on things. For those of you who I haven't been able to get in touch with because of phone service, I pray you are safe. Send me an email to let me know. God bless.

Bill Martin
LSU Sports Information

Un-fucking-believable.

For god's sake where is the Army, National Guard? I thought they declared martial law yesterday. Seems like they should be bringing in fucking large ships to the coast and dispatching smaller boats with military personnel to the city.

That's supposedly happening, with ships even coming from Norfolk. Thing is, as the guy from the Army Corps of Engineers was stating, there's no good way to get in yet.

Yeah, I can't figure out if the government is completely dropping the ball on this or if the logistics of the situation are just causing it to be slow.....Probably the latter is the more likely.

This shit is just a fucking nightmare.

This probably isn't profound, but I read where looting and general anarchy during disasters/war is usually a result of years of social oppression- Iraq after the fall of Saddam being a great example. So I can see why it's happening, but I'm not sympathetic to anyone using violence to loot .

Or it could be because New Orleans is a shady town with the highest crime rate in the country.

With social oppression being the cause.

More like opportunism.

very existential.

Power is going in and out here. Were running on Houma's own supply of natural gas, but we have been disconnected from the national power grid. So when it's out it's out. So they're rolling power right now. The city itself is out of power. Only the government has power, but thankfully I live on the same grid. So we'll see how much longer I'll have doing this. Houma on the whole is out of everything as we embrace to be cut off.

Jesus Christ, Tanner, you must feel totally powerless (no pun intended);


Chin up mate.

Edit: I'd be loading up some firearms and barricading the crib if I were you.

I was just watching some clips of the aftermath. Jesus, I can't believe that the city is effectively gone.

hope things look up soon for you, oldbulee.

Honestly the first thing I thought of when this broke was "oh shit, I hope OB is squared away." Thank you sooo much for the info. It really helps to know how good and how bad things are.

You need a place to stay? You like cheese? How bout High Life? I can't chopper you up here, but the bike gets 60mpg.

Maybe if our National Guard was around they'd be a little more effective. But Bush decided the Guard was REALLY intended to fight foreign wars with.

bullshit.

but it sounds nice.

Actually, more than 60% of the Guard troops in LA, Miss, and ALA are available but thanks for the uninformed, Bush-bashing post of the day.