Just made a trip to Winn Dixie for some various sundries and a bottle of wine. We pretty much ignored Rita even though she is whispering loudly through the neighborhood at the moment. Dang if there wasn't fallen tree limbs on the way to the store.

You would have thought that Katrina pulled down the loose fodder already. Guess there is always a limb or two to spare for the occasional passing hurricane.

Recently I have been confused as to what went on between the President and Governor Blanco the Friday and Saturday before the storm hit.

This is an excerpt from an e-mail that Dr Sanity received from a Journalist friend of hers which supports the Washington Post's article about Bush trying to get Blanco to pass him the ball late Friday evening.

President Bush spent Friday afternoon and evening in meetings with his advisors and administrators drafting all of the paperwork required for a state to request federal assistance (and not be in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act or having to enact the Insurgency Act). Just before midnight Friday evening the President called Governor Blanco and pleaded with her to sign the request papers so the federal government and the military could legally begin mobilization and call up. He was told that they didn't think it necessary for the federal government to be involved yet. After the President's final call to the governor she held meetings with her staff to discuss the political ramifications of bringing federal forces. It was decided that if they allowed federal assistance it would make it look as if they had failed so it was agreed upon that the feds would not be invited in.

Saturday before the storm hit the President again called Blanco and Nagin requesting they please sign the papers requesting federal assistance, that they declare the state an emergency area, and begin mandatory evacuation. After a personal plea from the President Nagin agreed to order an evacuation, but it would not be a full mandatory evacuation, and the governor still refused to sign the papers requesting and authorizing federal action. In frustration the President declared the area a national disaster area before the state of Louisiana did so he could legally begin some advanced preparations. Rumor has it that the President's legal advisers were looking into the ramifications of using the insurgency act to bypass the Constitutional requirement that a state request federal aid before the federal government can move into state with troops but that had not been done since 1906 and the Constitutionality of it was called into question to use before the disaster.

Throw in that over half the federal aid of the past decade to NO for levee construction, maintenance, and repair was diverted to fund a marina and support the gambling ships. Toss in the investigation that will look into why the emergency preparedness plan submitted to the federal government for funding and published on the city's website was never implemented and in fact may have been bogus for the purpose of gaining additional federal funding as we now learn that the organizations identified in the plan were never contacted or coordinating into any planning though the document implies that they were.

Yesterday I was confused after reading this over at NOLA.COM:

One flashpoint came over the weekend, when Blanco said she rebuffed an attempt by the White House to seize control of the mounting military presence in Louisiana, including thousands of state National Guard forces under her authority.

Over in the comments section at Protein Wisdom we thought that the Washington Post might have had their events out of sequence, but now I am beginning to think that the NOLA article simply refers to an ongoing attempt by the Bush administration to get personal control over this thing.

An interesting article by Robert Tracinski over at The Intellectual Activist.

...Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists-myself included-did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over four days last week. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

Read the entire article. I'm sure that some people will consider it to be insensitive, but he might be making a valid point about one of the many facets of this catasrophe.

People living in piles of their own trash, while petulantly complaining that other people aren't doing enough to take care of them and then shooting at those who come to rescue them-this is not just a description of the chaos at the Superdome. It is a perfect summary of the 40-year history of the welfare state and its public housing projects.

The welfare state-and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages-is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.

Noel Sheppard over at NEWSBUSTERS.ORG posts a partial transcript between Mayor Nagin and CNN's Soledad O'Brien where the Mayor appreciates Bush's reactions and expresses frustration with Governor Blanco's reticence.

Nagin: I got promises too. I can't stand any more promises. I don't want to hear any more promises. I want to see stuff done. That's why I'm so happy the president came down here because I think they were feeding him a line of bull also. They were telling him things weren't as bad as it was, he came down and saw it and he put a general on the field. His name is general Honore. When he hit the field, we started to see action. What the state was doing, I don't friggin' know but I tell you, I am pissed. It wasn't adequate. The president and the governor sat down. Air force one, I said, Mr. President, Madam governor, you two have to get in sync. If you don't get in sync, more people are going to die.

O'Brien: What date was this?

Nagin: I don't know.

O'Brien: When did you say that?

Nagin: Whenever air force one was here.

O'Brien: Okay.

Nagin: And this is after I called him on the telephone two days earlier. And I said, Mr. President, madam governor, you two need to get together on the same page because the lack of coordination people are dying in my city.

That's two days ago? Easement I don't know the exact date. They both shook their head, said yeah. I said great. I said everybody in this room is getting ready to leave. There was senators and his cabinet people, you name it, they were there. Generals. I said everybody right now, we're leaving. These two people need to sit in a room together and make a doggone decision right now.

O'Brien: Was that done?

Nagin: The president looked at me. I think he was a little surprised. He said, no, you guys stay here. We're going to another section of the plane and we're going to make a decision. He called me in that office after that and he said, Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor. I said -- I don't remember exactly what -- two options. I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision.

O'Brien: You told me the president told you the governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision?

Nagin: Yes.

O'Brien: Regarding what? Bringing troops?

Nagin: Whatever they had discussed. As far as what the -- I was advocating a clear chain of command. So that we could get resources flowing in the right places.

O'Brien: The governor said no?

Nagin: She said she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could of left air force one, walked outside, and told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn't happen. And more people died.

As much as it pains me to have to agree with Hilary Clinton, I wouldn't mind seeing a Katrina Commission put together to assess how this disaster was handled. Frankly, I don't care if everyone is given immunity from the git go. I seriously want to find out what went wrong (minus the hyperbole and media bias) and I want decisions to be made to prevent it from happening last time.

If the Mayor and the Governor did not act quickly or efficiently enough to prepare for this storm, then I want measures in place to prevent that from happening again. I'll leave it to the more experienced to decide exactly what those measures are.

If FEMA acted improperly or even if they simply failed to step up to the plate when the local government failed, then I want that addressed as well.

If we need to change minds about how the Levee system should be constructed or Senator Landrieu needs more support in rebuilding the coastlines and wetlands, then that needs to be done as well.

And I am sorry, but at the moment it honestly looks to me that the President certainly tried to push people to stay on the ball or to pass the ball to him at every opportunity.

From the Associated Press

At a stop in Baton Rouge, Bush said all levels of the government were doing their best, and he pledged again: "So long as any life is in danger, we've got work to do. Where it's not going right, we're going to make it right."

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has refused to sign over National Guard control to the federal government and has turned to a Clinton administration official, former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief James Lee Witt, to help run relief efforts.

Blanco, a Democrat, was not informed of the timing of Bush's visit, nor was she immediately invited to meet him or travel with him. In fact, Blanco's office didn't know when Bush was coming until told by reporters.

Late Monday, Blanco denied there tension with Bush.

No tension? That's not how it comes across in *this* article. I wonder what the truth of the matter is.

I would have expected the Governor to have begun working with the Administration by this point. It was Friday Night that President Bush first asked her to request a Federal takeover of the Evacuation that she and Mayor Nagin did not order until noon on Sunday.

You would think that they would be working together by now.

Greg Richey, a free-thread commenter over at Free Republic, wrote a very lengthy and detailed summary of events concerning Katrina over at Free Republic.

If you have some time, it's worth it.

I'll admit it. The top of my closet is filled with vampire novels from stem to stern, from the trashy to the truly profound. I simply love the genre, and though there seems to be no shortage of writers, there also never seems to be enough.

Some of my favorites, of course: Anne Rice, Laurel K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison, Barb and JC Hendee, Vickie Taylor and MaryJanice Davidson. If you know of any others I should pick up, please fee free to send me a note!

You can imagine my surprise and pleasure when I saw that Anne Rice had written a piece either for or picked up by the New York Times concerning the destruction of her home town, New Orleans.

As always, it's an absolute must read with great insights and palpable detail.

I was a little disappointed in her concluding point, however. Not in its veracity, certainly, but in the sharp and to the point finger that she points towards Congress, the Federal government and even America as a whole while at the same time defending Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin.

And where was everyone else during all this? Oh, help is coming, New Orleans was told. We are a rich country. Congress is acting. Someone will come to stop the looting and care for the refugees.

And it's true: eventually, help did come. But how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid? Why did America ask a city cherished by millions and excoriated by some, but ignored by no one, to fight for its own life for so long? That's my question.

To take this a step further, Anne Rice believes that America as a whole had turned their backs to what they perceived as "Sin City".

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

I'm sorry, but I can't agree with you on this one, Ms. Rice. I can't think of anyone that could or did "turn their backs" on the people of New Orleans. I perceive that there was mistake after mistake made in responding to this horrible disaster, but I don't think that any of it was motivated by a disdain for the people of New Orleans in any form, on any level.

A horrible thing happened, and it is good and right to examine the root causes of what went wrong. Should, heaven forbid, anything even similar to this happen again, we want to be able to respond quickly and efficiently, sans erreurs.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

1. Wikipedia has a great summation of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, though the glaring omission of the catastrophic flooding as a second successive tragedy is lamentable.
2. The Bush Administration drastically reduced funding for the "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Hurricane Protection Project".
1. This project was designed to "protect residents between Lake Pontchartrain and the Missisippi River levee from surges in Lake Pontchartrain", and were designed for Category 3 level storms.
2. The decision to build levees for a Category 3 hurricane was made decades ago based on a cost-benefit analysis.
3. This project was scheduled to be completed by 2015
4. The levee breach occured on the 17th Street Canal levee. This was one of the levees that had been already been completed and upgraded by to the Hurricane Protection Project. The Army Corps of engineers stated that they had not imagined the levee ever actually breaching in the manner that it had; they had only envisioned the waters topping the levees.
5. A study was currently in progress looking for ways to further upgrade the levees to protect residents from Category 4 or 5 storms. Implementation of the study's recommendations would not be complete for another 20-25 years.
6. I would like to point out that this year President Bush and the dominantly Republican Congress passed one of the largest pork-filled transportation bills in the history of spending money. If the Republican congress had actually spent much of their time being frugal, I might be able to forgive them for the reduction of spending on the Hurricane Protection Project, since despite it simply offending sensibility it does not seem to have played a role in this specific disaster. But since we have a spending-spree congress in session, they do not have my forgiveness at all.
3. The shrinking of Louisiana's Wetlands/Coastlines has reduced one of the natural buffers that New Orleans had against storm surge.
1. One of the largest contributors to the loss of wetland and coastline is the push to have a "straighter" Mississippi River to make it easier for ships to traverse. A straight river does not, however, deposit silt along the shores of Lousiana, however, and the coastline suffers. Pressure to reroute the Mississippi has been applied as far back as the 1920's and acting on that pressure has now eroded hundreds of square miles of potetnially protective land.
2. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has championed the restoration of the coastline and wetlands. Working with Reblicans since 2003 on the Energy bill which recently passed in July of 2005, she helped keep the $5 million for a Terrebonne hurricane-protection project and $20 million for the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Study still intact. In fact, the Energy Bill provides $1 billion for Louisiana and other states to shore up their coastlines. Just over half the money will go to Louisiana, with smaller portions going to Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Alaska and California.
4. The City of New Orleans had an evacuation plan, but they didn't follow it. They had the resources and buses and authority to clear the city. They didn't use them. They assumed the levees would hold. They didn't. FEMA also assumed the levees had survived, and set up shop in NOLA Monday before the rain stopped--and were drowned out of their base in hours, costing nearly a day's delay in response. By the time the logistics routes into the area began to open up, New Orleans was flooded and the interior of the city unreachable. (verbiage by Tully, a commenter on the CenterField blog)
1. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (D) and Terry Ebbert, head of the New Orleans' Emergency Operations were two of the most vocal critics of Federal aid. It is interesting that less than a mile away from the neglected superdome, under control of Mayor Nagin and Mr Ebbert, were almost 150 buses that were left to be rendered useless by the storm. Not far away, at the Ray Nagin Memorial Motorpool were another 250+ buses. Even more details here
5. Local Government resisted Federal assistance:
1. On Friday (8/26) Governor Blanco (D) declared a state of emergency for the State of Lousiana, increasing her power to prepare and respond to the disaster.
2. See Update Shortly before midnight Friday (8/26), the Bush administration sent Governor Blanco (D) a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.
3. On Saturday (8/27) President Bush declared a State of Emergency in Louisiana. This authorizes the FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts and to provide appropriate assistance in a number of Louisiana parishes, or counties. "Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency continue to coordinate with state authorities in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, and have prepositioned supplies in areas expected to be affected.", the President said.
4. On Saturday President Bush (R) called Governor Blanco (D) and made a personal appeal to evacuate New Orleans.
5. See Update On Saturday Governor Blanco (D) hired James Lee Witt, FEMA director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort
6. Sunday Morning Governor Blanco (D) and Mayor Ray Nagin (D) announced the official mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.
7. On Sunday (8/28) Terry Ebbert, identified as the New Orleans director of homeland security, said more than 4,000 National Guardsmen were mobilizing in Memphis and will help police New Orleans streets.
8. On Sunday (8/28) it was reported that people reporting to the Superdome "lined up for blocks as National Guardsmen searched them for guns, knives and drugs". If the National Guard were already present, doesn't this sort of imply that someone was actually in charge there?
9. On Sunday (8/28) State Police said that at the peak of the evacuation, 18,000 people an hour were streaming out of southeastern Louisiana.
10. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said one reason federal assets were not used more quickly was "because our constitutional system really places the primary authority in each state with the governor."

Anyway, it is hours after I started this article and my wife is giving me evil glares; I promised her that I would help her with a few things before my parents come over for dinner. Over at Protein Wisdom, a great blog if there ever was one, Jeff Goldstein puts together a great summary of what happened from this point forward. Please, continue reading it over there.

Once you have read everything (here and there) then you sort of understand what happened every step of the way. I have to admit, now that I have pieced together much of what happened and why, I don't feel any better. It was a huge process filled with human beings that made mistakes along the way.

We need a more streamlined system that can still be run by people and not leave the potential for so many mistakes and power struggles to take place.

...is such a system the death-knell of State's power? In today's day an age, where even Standard Overnight with FedEx is not fast enough, where Instant Messaging has arisen to satiate a need to move even faster than e-mail... is such cooperation even possible?

I'll end this echoing one of the comments that a reader made over at InstaPundit:

Buried at the end of the WaPo's critical article on FEMA's decline is this crucial paragraph:

Other federal and state officials pointed to Louisiana's failure to measure up to national disaster response standards, noting that the federal plan advises state and local emergency managers not to expect federal aid for 72 to 96 hours, and base their own preparedness efforts on the need to be self-sufficient for at least that period. "Fundamentally the first breakdown occurred at the local level," said one state official who works with FEMA. 'Did the city have the situational awareness of what was going on within its borders? The answer was no."

Measuring from the passage of the storm from the target area -- say 1500 hours on Monday, THE PLAN would therefore expect federal aid at the earliest at midday Thursday.

...which was exactly when they arrived in force.

UPDATE 050904 2000hrs: One of the commenters over at Wizbang reveals that the order to use schoolbuses to assist in the evacuation came from the Governors office on Thursday, September 1st, the same day that National Guard troops began to arrive in force.

UPDATE 050905 1019hrs: Gen Ralph Lupin of the National Guard was in charge of the Superdome shelter, and they seemed to have medical staff and some food on hand. The General was expecting 25k-35k refugees, was expecting the power to go out, had some sort of triage process in place to send the mo0re vulnerable to "other cities". So why did it look so different on the news? Why did it turn out to be so desperate and horrible if the Lousiana Guard was already there?

Curtis Cockran, 54, a diabetic who recently had hip surgery, sat in his wheelchair on a loading dock at the dome while nurses, emergency technicians and doctors attended to refugees' needs.

"I just want a place I can be quiet and left alone," he said. "I don't know if I'll have a place to go back to, but there's no reason to worry about that now. For the time being I just want to be safe."

More serious cases had to be taken to other cities in Louisiana for medical care.

The 77,000-seat stadium, home to the NFL's New Orleans Saints, provided few comforts but at least had bathrooms for the refugees and food donated by several charities.

"They may be here for a while," said Gen Ralph Lupin, the National Guardsman in charge of the shelter. "The electricity will be out after the storm; streets will be almost impassable. So once they get here, they'll have to stay for the duration."

Here is more from the same AP article that that was drawn from, stating that the National Guard was being thorough in their search for weapons and contraband as people entered the Superdome:

Guardsmen made able-bodied people clasp their hands behind their backs while they patted them down, feeling the seams and hems of clothing, then ran metal detectors over them. The backpacks, suitcases and plastic grocery bags that held their belongings were searched.

Alice George, 76, a homeless woman wearing shorts and a T-shirt with the word Love on the front, was searched for almost 10 minutes.

"They took my cigarettes and lighter," she said. "I guess I'll do without."

Joey Branson wasn't worried. The 42-year-old breezed through the search with just a fresh apple pie and a paperback mystery.

"That's all I need," he said, smiling. "I'm set for the duration."

Here is another article that has quotes from General Lupin citing an 11:00pm curfew, people that were forwarded to local hospitals, people that were forwarded to other local cities.

UPDATE 050906 1921hrs: Reading the comments over at Protein Wisdom which point out an article over at NOLA.COM, it appears that the Friday that President Bush send Governor Blanco the memorandum asking her to cede authority of for the evacuation was in fact September 2nd. Governor Blanco hired James Witt on Saturday, September 3rd. According to the article at NOLA, the Federal Government had troops on the ground under their control during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 while the governor retained control of the National Guard, so this is not without precedent.

Great comments by a reader named Tully over at Centerfield:

NOLA had an evacuation plan. They didn't follow it. They had the resources and buses and authority to clear the city. They didn't use them. They assumed the levees would hold. They didn't. FEMA also assumed the levees had survived, and set up shop in NOLA Monday before the rain stopped--and were drowned out of their base in hours, costing nearly a day's delay in response. By the time the logistics routes into the area began to open up, New Orleans was flooded and the interior of the city unreachable.

The disaster area is 90 thousand square miles, an area the size of Great Britain with Delaware and Rhode Island and Los Angeles and New York City all thrown together, and all the news you're hearing is about 180 square miles (two-tenths of one percent) of it. In the rest of that area, things are going pretty well (for an unavoidable mass disaster) considering the scale and scope of the hit. But all you see in the media seems to be NOLA.

Apparently the only reason Nagin ordered the mandatory evacuation on Sunday was that Bush called both Nagin and Blanco on Saturday and begged for it. Chew on that one for a bit while you're blamestorming.

Damn near every city in the nation is having food and clothing and money drives this weekend. Do something useful. Go help 'em out.

According to my father, who lived through it, it took 10 days for the National Guard to set up shop in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew.

Funny.

I don't remember the vitriolic finger pointing and need to lay blame.

I remember the community coming together: banks letting employees sleep in the lobby until they found a home, ice companies handing out free product and newspapers reporting it all, awed by the power of community.

Yes, there was looting. I'm sure there was rape, murder and vile robbery as well ...but what did we remember the most about those times? I can't speak for everyone, but I remember reading and hearing about how my community encountered adversity and then rose above it: how we came together and beat the thing.

I wish we could do the same now. Maybe we will and I am just frustrated because in today's environment we have the internet to amplify every tragic nuance to a deafening volume. Quite frankly, it's one of the biggest reasons why I have not written in a couple of days. Sitting in front of the TV, the computer, I am just overwhelmed at the devastation and disgusted by the new operating rules of the Blame-O-Sphere.

Shut up, people.

Roll up your sleeves, let's do the work, and from our newfound experience let's change the rules and make sure that we can respond to this better in the future. There isn't a single group that has not contributed to the failures and successes that we have and will experience here. All this blame is nothing but emotional distraction and deflection, and it isn't doing anything good for anyone.

More letters forwarded by Aunt Diana

Thanks for all that news. Who are the students? Sounds like Jim & Alice have their hands full.

(BJ I sent this to a friend in Washington since he ended up on the family list so even tho you know a lot of it will send it on.)

"Sorry, I guess you are on my family info list. Jim is my older brother who lives in Bastrop LA which is as far north as you can go just about. His wife is Alice and she had a sister and brother-in-law in Belle Chasse is just across the Mississippi river from the French Quarter. The family is large--3 sons who are married and have children and inlaws. Many of those folks came to Bastrop and Monroe (just south of Bastrop) to wait out the storm. Robert (Alice's brother-in-law) has been volunteering with the Red Cross for several years so he stayed down there. One of the son's has a wife from Austria who works with the foreign student's at LSUNO. When it came time to evacuate they brought several students with them and some are at Jim's house and some are in the campground nearby. They had lost contact with another group that was leaving with them but were not sure where they would find a place to stay. Those are in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Jim said that there is only 4 million people in Lousiana and now a third of them are without homes or livelyhood.")

I was surprised to hear on the news that a group of international students were marooned by the storm, awaiting rescue. This was in a piece about ham radio operators, I think.

We're helping settle a group of about 35 from a NO church. They've been at the Ramada, but only had funds for three days. Our church has a vacant house, just remodeled, and the rest will be housed at the Salvation Army.

They wanted to stay together, so this is the best we could manage. Bob and I have been hauling beds, etc this afternoon. Love, BJ

More letters forwarded from Aunt Diana:

Michael this is from a friend in Washington D.C.

Aug. 31, 2005

This is a dispatch from New Orleans from Dr. Greg Henderson, a pathologist who recently moved from Wilmington:

Thanks to all of you who have sent your notes of concern and your prayers. I am writing this note on Tuesday at 2 p.m.. I wanted to update all of you as to the situation here. I don't know how much information you are getting but I am certain it is more than we are getting. Be advised that almost everything I am telling you is from direct observation or rumor from reasonable sources. They are allowing limited internet access, so I hope to send this dispatch today.

Personally, my family and I are fine. My family is safe in Jackson, Miss., and I am now a temporary resident of the Ritz Carleton Hotel in New Orleans. I figured if it was my time to go, I wanted to go in a place with a good wine list. In addition, this hotel is in a very old building on Canal Street that could and did sustain little damage. Many of the other hotels sustained significant loss of windows, and we expect that many of the guests may be evacuated here.

Things were obviously bad yesterday, but they are much worse today. Overnight the water arrived. Now Canal Street (true to its origins) is indeed a canal. The first floor of all downtown buildings is underwater. I have heard that Charity Hospital and Tulane are limited in their ability to care for patients because of water. Ochsner is the only hospital that remains fully functional. However, I spoke with them today and they too are on generator and losing food and water fast.

The city now has no clean water, no sewerage system, no electricity, and no real communications. Bodies are still being recovered floating in the floods. We are worried about a cholera epidemic. Even the police are without effective communications. We have a group of armed police here with us at the hotel that is admirably trying to exert some local law enforcement. This is tough because looting is now rampant. Most of it is not malicious looting. These are poor and desperate people with no housing and no medical care and no food or water trying to take care of themselves and their families. Unfortunately, the people are armed and dangerous. We hear gunshots frequently. Most of Canal street is occupied by armed looters who have a low threshold for discharging their weapons. We hear gunshots frequently. The looters are using makeshift boats made of pieces of styrofoam to access. We are still waiting for a significant national guard presence.

The health care situation here has dramatically worsened overnight. Many people in the hotel are elderly and small children. Many other guests have unusual diseases. ... There are (Infectious Disease) physicians in at this hotel attending an HIV confection. We have commandered the world famous French Quarter Bar to turn into an makeshift clinic. There is a team of about seven doctors and PAs and pharmacists. We anticipate that this will be the major medical facility in the central business district and French Quarter. Our biggest adventure today was raiding the Walgreens on Canal under police escort. The pharmacy was dark and full of water. We basically scooped the entire drug sets into garbage bags and removed them. All under police excort. The looters had to be held back at gunpoint. After a dose of prophylactic Cipro I hope to be fine.

In all we are faring well. We have set up a hospital in the the French Qarter bar in the hotel, and will start admitting patients today. Many will be from the hotel, but many will not. We are anticipating dealing with multiple medical problems, medications and and acute injuries. Infection and perhaps even cholera are anticipated major problems. Food and water shortages are imminent.

The biggest question to all of us is where is the National Guard. We hear jet fignters and helicopters, but no real armed presence, and hence the rampant looting. There is no Red Cross and no Salvation Army.

In a sort of cliche-way, this is an edifying experience. One is rapidly focused away from the transient and material to the bare necessities of life. It has been challenging to me to learn how to be a primary care phyisican. We are under martial law so return to our homes is impossible. I don't know how long it will be and this is my greatest fear. Despite it all, this is a soul-edifying experience. The greatest pain is to think about the loss. And how long the rebuild will take. And the horror of so many dead people

PLEASE SEND THIS DISPATCH TO ALL YOU THING MAY BE INTERSTED IN A DISPATCH from the front. I will send more according to your interest. Hopefully their collective prayers will be answered. By the way, suture packs, sterile gloves and stethoscopes will be needed as the Ritz turns into a MASH

Greg Henderson

More letters forwarded from Aunt Diana:

"Betty J. Boyd" wrote:

Sorry for the group letter. All is well with us, but most of the state is really suffering. We have power, water, sunshine, all we need. Katherine Hnes and some of her family are here from McComb, staying in the lake house.

Their water is off, but we expect the power to be restored soon. Power at the lake is Delta Electric and they don't have as much damage to deal with today as some of the other power companies. Gary's house in McComb has a tree down, but as far as we know that's the only problem. Power is off there. Randy's family is also without power in Jackson. They have trees down, but fortunately none fell on the house.

The Sun Herald has good info and photos at www.sunherald.com.

For those I haven't told yet, we have a brand new granddaughter, Sophia Joelle. Little Sophie is the daughter of Gary and Nan, born Thursday before all this calamity.

Love, Betty Jo

My father, who presently lives nearby here in Fort Lauderdale, spent a number of his childhood and early teenage years living in Venice, Louisiana. If you don't recognize the name of the town, don't be embarrassed, even today it has a population of about 2200 and encompasses 2.6 square miles of levee land south and east of New Orleans.

Here are some photos of Buras, Venice, Boothville and the surrounding area after Hurricane Katrina.

Dad's family eventually moved to Bastrop, Louisiana where two of his brothers still live today.

Dad's sister, Diana, has been keeping close tabs on them in the aftermath of Katrina. She is sending us letters about family, friends and people we know in the affected area. I will be sharing them with my family and friends here on the blog.

In addition to serving ourselves, maybe someone else will find information about someone or some place that they care about in the letters.

I spoke with Jim today and he said they had found all the students they had been looking for in Pine Bluff at a campground. They are staying put as all the campgrounds are loaded to capacity. Of the eleven people that are at his house he thinks only one of them is going back to Austria. He expects that the rest will be there for awhile. They heard from Alice's sister's husband and he is driving a truck up above Lake Ponchitrain at a red cross shelter. He brings in supplies and leaves them at the camp. Since Alice's sister Margaret Ann and her husband are both retired they will be fine on income. Not as good for the other folks as they are out of jobs. Jim said the church is feeding many of the refugees tonight.

He said the banks and phones go through Baton Rouge so they can't use credit cards at all and the land lines are sporadic. His cell does not work at all. They do have electricity but may run out of gasoline for the cars soon. This all in about as far north as you can get in Louisiana.

Word from Martha is that Judy (Uncle Zeb's youngest)and her family had evacuated. Not sure about her house since Slidell was hit pretty hard.

If you would like to donate your money or time, here is FEMA's list of charitable organizations helping victims of Hurricane Katrina.

And the Cummins Family gets power back just in time to watch helplessly as a now Category 5 Katrina prepares to batter and drown the city of New Orleans.

Yesterday there were no less than 9 large pole-digger trucks in my neighborhood alone. They all had South Carolina license plates. The actual crew that was working on the power lines draped gracelessly across my neighbors swale was from New York, New Jersey, and One fellow was from Texas.

My neighbors across the street still do not have power. (or most of their solar power panels either, for that matter; just one left.)

I'm not looking forward to going up on the roof today (after just getting back my a/c) and breaking out the sawzall to rid my home of the new leafy crown it now wears because a 25 foot oak branch fell on it from one of my trees.

And yet, the people of New Orleans? Category 5?

The stubborn had better flee.

There won't be trees on houses after that storm, there'll be trees "in" houses, or worse: empty, flooded plots.

Don't think you can ride this one out! Get out of there!

Steve H over at Hog On Ice points out that the nation will feel the effects of this storm as well, from sea to shining sea.

Most people have never heard of Port Fourchon, but it is the nation's premiere oil and gas support services facility--and right now it lies within 12 miles of Hurricane Katrina's CAT-3 or CAT-4 bullseye. Over 600 platforms and 75% of the Gulf’s deepwater projects lie within a 40-mile radius of Port Fourchon. Unfortunately, Port Fourchon is a Louisiana island. An island that is connected to the mainland by a single two lane bridge...an old, single two lane bridge. This bridge is the only means of getting cargo and supplies to the Port. More than 1,000 cargo trucks go across this bridge each day, delivering materials to the Port for Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) drilling rigs. If there’s no bridge, there’re no drilling parts and supplies.

Do you see where this is going? When people say our infrastructure is vulnerable, they are not kidding—and not all of it is about terrorism.

The Port is crucial to our national security—for a number of other reasons. While the Persian Gulf provides around 23% of the U.S. oil supply, Port Fourchon supports the offloading of over 18% of all domestic oil and gas and 13% of all oil imports. Port Fourchon is the site of the enormous booster pumps that carry crude oil from the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) to underground salt dome storage areas in Galliano. The LOOP is the first and only offshore oil terminal operating in the United States. It's located less than 20 miles south of Port Fourchon in the Gulf of Mexico and allows the off-loading of oil from supertankers into special pipelines that connect directly to more than 30% of the nation’s refining capacity. The LOOP takes in about one million barrels of foreign oil and 300,000 barrels of domestic crude from Gulf of Mexico OCS each day. Loose that capacity and you've got big trouble.

Put another way, there is no other dot on the map that is more important to the nation’s energy supply, yet it’s connected to the mainland by an obsolete bridge and highway and it has a possible CAT-4 hurricane bearing down on it. It’s not a good situation and Port Fourchon authorities have been warning government officials about it for years.

The transportation bill they just approved had so much pork in it that it should have had a heart attack before the president signed it. If I remember correctly, there were funds for a multi-million dollar bridge in Alaska that connected an island of 50 people to the mainland.

Why wasn't a better bridge built here?

I am feeling like I want some heads on a platter, and if I have to vote democrat to get them then that's just what I will do.

I will be soooooo suprised if our power stays on. The nearby transformers are making a LOT of noise, and the power goes off every 30 seconds or so. Almost a waste of time blogging, but I suppose it's interesting history for the family blog. :)

Whoops. There it goes.

We're hard aground on the UPS.

Looks like we might see the eye of this thing!

Click on the photo for a larger pic:

Well, I stopped programming. It's the end of the day and there is this lovely storm to blog about. My kid Dan is going to be Storm Blogging as well, so you'll be sure to get the 13 year old perspective.

Mom and Dad are weathering the storm on the boat. I'm talking to dad on the IM; he says that they are already listing 30 degrees against the storm lines, and that someone has already lost a roof over on Isle of Venice. Since the storm is not so bad as far as these things go, it must not have been secured very well.

Dad's friends are down on the beach at the Elbow Room enjoying the Hurricane Party.

Our home is in downtown Fort Lauderdale, and the streets here are littered with the typical flotsam and jetsam of tree parts that typically fall in beginning of any good storm. It's not too bad other than that.

If you stand out side you can hear the popping of the electrical transformers. I hope the power doesn't go out. You'll know if it has or not, of course; the website will be down.

If my camcorder charges up I'll venture out and take some video for you.

Hi I'm Dan, I normally write Dan's Daily News Report. Today I will be describing and tracking hurricane KATRINA. As of right now the rain is not very heavy and the wind is coming in short, strong bursts. The storm isn't so bad right now, but I will be blogging regularly to tell you how the storm is affecting us in Ft. Lauderdale.
To research the storm click here

It's not just the rain we hear right now, it's the ocassional thunk of tree parts as Katrina helpfully rids the neighborhood of loose branches and bird nests.

For friends and relatives who are interested, this is the only link you really need to follow the storm's progress.

We'll keep the TrenchCam running for anyone who wants to see our front yard being blown about.

This website is being hosted here at the house; we have a T1 line out of Boca Raton. Since the storm looks like it will make landfall between Boca Raton and here in Fort Lauderdale, it is an irony that every packet you are viewing traveled through the worst part of the storm to get to you. :)

Well, the point of landfall did not change all that much, that much seems to be holding steady. That is good news for us. I made another map, this one displays the latest predicted path with a few extra bits of information. Assuming that this track is true (don't hold your breath), then my house will be about 75 miles from the eye of the hurricane at its closest point, and I will be on the best side of the storm, the South West quadrant. It looks like it will land in Fort Pierce. If that is true, then Vero Beach will be more or less destroyed. Also, Orlando will be in the North North East quadrant of the storm, and only 45 miles from the eye of the hurricane, one of the worst places to be.

I'll write another update when I wake up in the morning ; the next full update from NOAA will be issued at 9:00am, so expect to hear from me some time shortly after that. Unless, of course, I am helping dad run more lines on more boats.

Good Night!

I superimposed the satellite photo over the maps and streets screenshot to create this image ; it gives you an interesting perspective of how large this storm really is...

Sorry I am a bit late with my update; I had to help my parents secure a number of boats. Hauling anchors, running line, running chain, stowing missile hazards, such things are the staple of hurricane preparation. A number of yachts and sailboats have fled up river already. Tommorrow at 4 a.m. the county will secure all drawbridges, but most captains will have everything secured long before then.

Fort Lauderdale is the "Venice of America", with more navigable waterways than the Italian City of that name. There is an enormous maritime community here, it just can't be described in words. You have to see it.

Anyway, things are looking a teeny better for Rob and his family, as long as Frances doesn't have any "Charley-like" tricks up her sleeve. As you can see by this hurricane map and satellite photo, the expected landfall has drifted just a tad North, right about where Fort Pierce is.

I feel sorry for wherever this thing lands. For those who cannot remember Hurricane Andrew in 1992, power was out for weeks, even months in some areas. Not even traffic likes. It made you think you knew what a nuclear holocaust would be like.

Fort Pierce, Stuart, West Palm Beach. Wherever it lands... They'll know what that might feel like, too.

I am not to worried at this point. It looks like it is trending well North of our home. We'll likely see 60 mph winds here, which aren't so bad at all. Our dogs won't like it very much, we'll make sure to give them lots of extra hugs.

The only real worry is if it suddenly turns. Confident security could become peril before you have time to realize what is happening , and the scores of brief tornados (they do the real damage during a hurricane) are unpredictable, and more common the closer you get to the eye of the hurricane. The NE corner above the eye is rife with them, and the worst place to be.

We are in a good position to ride the storm out in the weakest quadrant, the SW corner. Even if it does drift further South, we're still likely to be in a good spot.

The next partial advisory will be at 2000hrs, the next complete picture will be at 2300hrs. You might hear from me again at 8:pm, but certainly by midnight with another update.

Not to forget what is truly important: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM and HAPPY ANNIVERSERY to the most incredible woman I have ever met: My wife, Wendy. I am grateful for whatever bout of foolishness you fell prey to when you agreed to marry me. I will forever try to live up to the measure of the man you see in me.

Anyway; Mostly, these entries are for friends and family who want to track the progress of (Hurricane Frances) the storm. I am tracking the hurricane using Microsoft Streets and Maps so that local landmarks are more visible to those who need to know, and because I can draw handy radius circles on the screen to show people where hurricane force winds will be and where you certainly don't want to be.

Current Map and Photo of Hurricane Frances

Wendy and Danny are outside putting up the wavy fiberglass window shutters that were made for our windows, and I am about to cut a piece of fiberboard to fit over the new window that does not have one. Yes, I know fiberboard will come apart in wet weather, but it will last this one storm and then I will toss it out. I need proper shutters for the front window.

It looks like the storm will be far enough North of us that we'll just get bad weather at this point, maybe hurricane force winds, maybe gale force winds. We shall see.

The servers should be just fine, they are in a poured concrete bunker, so this website should remain up even though it is closer to where the hurricane will make landfall than we are.

The blue flag on the map is us, the red flag is my friend and employee Rob Miller, who is much worse off than we are.

I have to get to work. I'll post another update shortly after 5 p.m., when the non-interpolated data is released from NOAA.