According to this Chronicle article.

What was the most damage? Food, according to this report.

• Foods, perishables: $75.8 million

• Power grid repair: $20 million

• Fences: $4.9 million

• Signs: $4.8 million

• Roofs: $3.9 million

• Windows downtown: $100,000

• Other: $1.5 million

• TOTAL: $111 million

So, FEMA should reimburse the population for spoiled food? Yes, my refrigerator full of caviar lost power, and i'm RUINED. Seems like the biggest losers were the grocery stores that lost power. They should have insurance for that sort of thing, right? I agree regarding the power issue though, but the other counties need so much more help that us.

No surprise, a rash of bulgleries in Houston during the Rita evacuation. What was the police response? Harsh words.

Houston police said they arrested at least 74 suspects, but they will not know how many residences were burglarized until they can compile statistics next month.

"We're hoping the number is not high," said officer Johanna Abad, a Houston Police Department spokeswoman. "We know the strong police presence was there. And Chief (Harold Hurtt) came out and said looting will not be tolerated, and people were listening."

Right, the police had a big presence. They could do that, and evacuate, and police the contraflow lanes, and bail out everyone who was trying to evacuate...during the evacuation, we only saw two police motorcycles.

"Tameko Wilson doubts police were in her neighborhood because burglars had time to ransack multiple units, cook meals, drink beer and steal big items such as her 67-inch television."

This is quite believable, which is one reason we took our most valued possessions with us. I was very concerned about looting when we left. But, of course you can't take your 67" TV with you.

A beer mat that notifies the bartender when the beer is empty, so they can get a refill.

Designed by, who else, German students.

This is insane. "ocean front" property in Biluxi is selling like hotcakes. Nevermind this properity is just a bunch of toothpicks.

Kim Weatherly, a 50-year-old casino worker who lives in Biloxi's Point Cadet community, is watching it all with a heavy heart. The neighborhood is potentially the city's most valuable piece of property, sitting on a peninsula that juts into the Gulf of Mexico that's a center for casino gambling.

So let me get this straight. Tons of people, apparently, want to rush into Biluxi, buy up homes near the shore and near gambling? Even though that property is in no way safe for hurricanes? And who wants to live next to a casino? Gambling addicts?

Call me crazy. On a related note I hope the influx of Katrina evacuees will bump up my condo price somewhat. Dunno if that will actually happen though. At least Houston is mostly safe from hurricanes. Seems like a direct hit is a once a generation thing, unlike florida or louisiana.

He'll buy storm damaged property or nearly vacant lots for next to nothing. While real estate brokers find top-dollar buyers, Triplett makes cash deals or pays off mortgages in exchange for land.

"I deal with the other part of the spectrum of the market: people who don't necessarily care to get full price but they need to sell quickly," said Triplett, who said most of his post-Katrina business has come from retirees and those who lost their jobs.

Lovely. So this vulture capatilist is willing to buy the worst affected peoples demolished homes, and resell it for large amounts of money? What a nice guy. Yes, i know, someone has to be the protozoan of capitalism.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine....count on journalists to scare the bejesus out of you.

According to CNN, the avian flu could:

1) Become totally resistant to existing influenza drugs; already 70% of strains are resistant to two common drugs.
2) Become transmittable from human to human (instead of bird to human as the case is now).

So we're looking at the end of the world. Again. For the third time this week.

I can't believe there is a wikipedia definition of the color, pink.

this is funny. Something about a Iowa biosphere type thing. Who knows, but it's funny. The next scrappleface?

Really good blog on Katrina aftermath. Comparing Rita and Katrina seems like comparing a ferret and an elephant.

Boston globe posts a list of what they think are the best scifi shows to hit TV.

6) Stargate SG1 - my favorite show of all time, and perhaps the longest running recent scifi? I don't count Dr. Who in this (which is #7 btw).
5) Babylon 5 - an excellent show, but one you really need all 4 seasons of; almost every episode is involved in the story arch. The 5th season was a filler joke.
4) X-Files. Also a great show. My wife is addicted. Err, was. She's now a Josh Weldon fangirl.
3) ST: The Next Generation. My 2nd favorite show of all time. Also ran a long time, had 2 movies, very successful franchise.
2) Battlestar Galactica (the new 2005 series). I disagree with this, putting it above shows that ran for 10 seasons (SG1), multiple movies (B5, TNG), etc. And the first seasoon was not spectacular I think. The miniseries was great (eps 1 and 2?). 2nd season is much better. Again, one of those 'must see every show'. Time will tell with this one.
1) ST: Original Series Well, this is really the granddad of them all. I thought it was hoakey, but that's more of a generational thing I guess.

Not in the top 10:

Andromeda (Gene Roddenberry); a great show, esp the first two seasons. The last season completely sucked, as did the finale. I would list this as #5.

Farscape; probably the series that made the SciFi channel (that and MST3K). Similiar to B5 in the 'must see every episode'. Big story archs, a very fun show if you see every episode. Otherwise you won't get it. I'd rank this as #4.

SG: Atlantis. From what i've seen of this show, I like it, but i have too much in my life to watch it right now.

Also apparently Firefly, Buffy, and Angel aren't considered Scifi, or at least not the top 10. Buffy was good I guess, should be in the top 10 somewhere.

My ranking would be:

1) Stargate SG1
2) ST: TNG
3) Babylon 5
4) Farscape
5) Andromeda
6) X-files


Update: Firefly is #17. ST: Voyager is #14 (which is also a really good series, I think). Xena is #12 (this is fantasy, not scifi). Buffy/Angel aren't in the top 20, but Xena is? Whacky.

That's what some are saying.

Here's the list:

1. Galveston (Texas) Hurricane, 1900, estimated 8,000 deaths
2. Great Okeechobee Hurricane in Florida, 1928, estimated 2,500-plus
3. Johnstown, Pa., Flood, 1889, estimated 2,200-plus
4. Louisiana Hurricane, 1893, 2,000-plus
5. South Carolina-Georgia Hurricane, 1893, 1,000-2,000
6. Great New England Hurricane, 1938, 720
7. Hurricane Katrina, with the latest toll at 710.
8. San Francisco Earthquake, 1906, 700
9. Georgia-South Carolina Hurricane, 1881, 700
10. Tri-State Tornado in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, 1925, 695

First, all of these disasters occured much earlier, only one, the Greater New England Hurricane, which occured in 1938, happened in the last 70 years. Two others happened last century (the 1900s). The rest happened in the 19th century (1800s).

Second, this death toll does not tell the whole tale. Death tolls have been steadily falling because of improvements in planning, health care, and forecasting. More important, is how many lives the disaster upended. I don't know how many homes Katrina destroyed, but I am guessing 300,000. That's alot of people.80% of New Orleans was flooded, and most of those homes, while structurally intact, will have to be raised. Then there is the economic cost, which will be probably $200 billion in federal funds. When you aggregate these three factors, Katrina is by far the worst disaster in US history.

Third, as of 9/27, the toll was 885 people, which bumps it to #6 in the top 10 in terms of body count.

Anyway this is all by way of looking at the fact vs fiction account at Gateway Pundit. Most of the accertations I believe in. Where were the 10,000 victims? Where were the rape babys? Lots of things happened; looting, murder, etc. But not the most henious of crimes that were floated by a media in a black hole of information during those dark days. As usual, the media didn't do their job and attribute sources, and fact check. And the major of NOLA and the police chief made grandious statements, which later turned out not to be true.

Is here, with pictures of the damage from Rita. Hats go out to them for great journalism under austure conditions.

Mike Tolson has a pretty good article that sums up Houston's response to Rita: run, run, run.

This time we ran. Having seen the handiwork of Rita's vicious cousin, Katrina, all of Houston's coastal suburbs and a good percentage of everybody else in the area decided that discretion was the better part of valor. There was no talk of hurricane parties.

Some 3 million people fled from Rita, an unprecidented migration. The media and forecasters needed to do a better job in telling people in certain areas when to leave. We were close to the zone C evacuation zone, so we decided to leave in the event that Rita maintained it's catagory 5 strength and directly hit Houston. But people in Hempstead, Conroe and Katy, much more inland, had no business leaving, I think. But it just goes to show that everyone was scared, and no one knew where it would hit, and how bad it would be. We really dodged the bullet, in the final analysis. Beaumont, an hour away by car, is hit very bad. Louisiana is devestated, again.

Update: The chronicle talks about the evacuation of Katy, many commenters think that wasn't a smart idea.

SciGuy, a blogger working for the Houston Chronicle, has a good site on the Rita aftermath. It's actually pretty good, considering it's main stream media.

Mickey Kos, a blogger who writes in Slate, mocks the New York Times new policy of forcing people to pay for a full year's subscription to read their op-ed writers on the web. What's more, the Times is forcing every other paper to do the same thing. People like Paul Krugman and Maureen Daud are behind the wall of death, and bloggers rejoice. Why? This essentially shuts down all notice of the NYT op-ed writers, who are to a person, extremely liberal and not exactly logical. Anyway, for the rest of us, this is a good thing. The power of these people will diminish substantially.

Wow, that was a non-event. Still, I think we made the right call; authorities predicted a cat 5 hurricane near Houston. They were wrong, it was a cat 3 which made landfall in Beaumont, north-east of Houston. Thats important, because the western side of a hurricane doesn't receive much wind/rain/flooding. It wasn't until very late until forecasters figured out that Houston would be on the western side and not receive much/any damage. Still, 'you never know' and 'better safe than sorry' to use two tired old phrases. We had a enforced 5 day paid vacation over the weekend; it wasn't terrible but I'm glad to be back home.

Damage? Practically none around here. There were a few blown down branches. A neighbor who rode it out said they had minimal power loss, no flooding or anything. My car was still there, i somewhat illegally parked it in a near-by parking garage. I got a nasty note but that was it. I figured they would be too busy to tow my car, especially considering the real disaster; 3 million people evacuating via a handful of two lane highways (each direction). Did i mention that it took 17 hours to get to Austin? I rode my bike to Austin twice in the MS150; I calculated it took 14 hours over two days; and that was with lots of stops for food, etc.

The main disaster here was this: hundreds of thousands of people stuck on the highways, no fuel for hundreds of miles, 5 mph traffic for 100-150 miles around Houston. That was the disaster, and something that was not forecasted. It was tense, frustrating, worrysome. Everyone was worried about running out of fuel. We didn't find an open gas station until 100 miles out. We didn't find gas until Austin, about 150 miles away.

Of course Austin was also hosting the Austin City Limits, a huge music festival, over the weekend. So the city was pretty packed. I wanted to go to the festival, but they were sold out way in advance. Maybe next time.

As of tonight or tomorrow morning, the missus and I are evacuating to Austin. Many people from here are doing so as well. The medical center is basically closed Thur and Fri, essential personal only. We're not, of course.

Update: We are leaving at 7pm, so no blogging after that. Everyone pray.

The misses and I will evac to Austin. Likely anyway. Everyone here is getting seriously ready. We haven't had a serious hurricane strike in decades.

Rita may strike with the same CAT 5 storm surge — but I believe it will cover a somewhat smaller extent
of coastline — about 50NM - compared to Katrina's 120 mile wide path of utter devastation. But keep in mind
even if the storm does come ashore near Freeport — the storm surge in Galveston Bay will be severe.

She's big and getting bigger catagory. From the weather underground.

RITA EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY 5 - 914MB PRESSURE

The latest RECON, and confirmed measurements from NHC - report RITA's central pressure is now down to 914mb. MAX sustained flight winds are 161Kts, with sustained surface winds of 165mph -=- and gusts to 185mph. The thermal eyewall temp difference is an astounding 21°C The pressure has been dropping at 6mb/hr which may be s some form of record of it's own. Furthermore, there are no signs yet that Rita has finished intensifying.

This places Rita in the top 10 of all-time Atlantic Basin Storms — and in the top 4 for the Gulf of Mexico.
At it's peak — Katrina reached 902mb.

Latest numerical guidance continues to show a landfall on Saturday between Port O'Connor and Freeport.

Rita is now at 914mb of pressure, joining the top 10 of biggest gulf storms ever. (Katrina was 907 at max I believe). The pressure is a good indication of how big the storm is. 960 mm Hg is standard pressure, one atmosphere. The lower it is, the worse it is for hurricanes. Yesterday it was around 950 mm Hg, a few hours ago it was 934 mm. Now it's 914 mm. They expect it to weaken before it hits land, but not much.

I hope I have a house left.

Update: How bad will it be? I biked home, along tree-lined avenues, and wondered how much would be left. I dug up the Katrina data, and found this:

KATRINA WEAKENED AS IT MOVED INLAND TO THE NORTH-NORTHEAST BUT WAS STILL A HURRICANE 100 MILES INLAND NEAR LAUREL MISSISSIPPI.

We're not in the direct path, but to the NE of the eye (which is worse). But we are 50 miles inland. We might see a cat 1 strength hurricane, nothing more than that I don't think.


Update: It's cat5 and STILL INTENSIFYING. (From weather underground Steve Gregory)

The 3:37 pm eye report from the hurricane hunters found a 914 mb pressure and flight level winds of 161 knots (186 mph). These numbers plus the satellite intensity estimates support upgrading Rita to a Category 5 hurricane. Tonight, Rita will be passing over the Loop Current, a warm eddy of water in the Gulf that aided Katrina's growth to a Category 5 hurricane. Fueled by this pool of deep warm water and an almost ideal upper level wind environment, Rita should continue to intensify until Thursday morning, when she will pass beyond the Loop Current. The eye has started to shrink as Rita continues to intensify, and is down to 20 nm diameter from 25 nm earlier this afternoon. By the time the eye shrinks down to 10 nm, the eyewall will collapse and an eyewall replacement cycle begin, putting an end to this intensification cycle. With another 12 hours to go before this happens, Rita could approach historic intensity, and is already one of the ten strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record.

Now's my chance. The forecast from Weather Underground is pretty grim. Right now Rita is nice and small, but they expect it to grow in size; it's already cat 4, and will not diminish until it hits shore.

Rita now Rita's presentation on satellite imagery is classic; she has a well-formed eye, large Central Dense Overcast (CDO) of cirrus clouds surrounding the eye, and well developed outflow on all sides, particularly to the north. This is the look of a solid, intensifying Category 4 hurricane. Intensification will continue until the eye shrinks to 10 miles or so in diameter and grows unstable, when the eyewall will collapse and an eyewall replacement cycle will begin. This may take another 24 hours or so, at which point Rita could be a Category 5 hurricane. Rita is currently smaller than Katrina, though. Katrina at her peak had hurricane force winds that extended outward 120 miles from the center; Rita's hurricane force winds only extend out 45 miles from the center. This will change as Rita continues to intensify and expand in size over the next day or two. There is little shear over Rita at present, nor is there expected to be the next three days. Water temperatures are 1 - 2C cooler over the central Gulf than they were for Katrina, which may keep Rita from attaining quite the intensity Katrina did. However, once Rita crosses the Gulf and arrives in the western Gulf on Friday, water temperatures warm back up to 30 - 31C, about the same temperatures as the waters Katrina had to work with. I doubt Rita will match Katrina's size or ferocity, but she might come to within 90% of the storm that Katrina was.

Rita at landfall
Rita's future intensity will largely be controlled by impossible-to-predict eyewall replacement cycles. Rita is growing large enough that she is creating her own upper level environment that will be relatively impervious to any external shearing winds that try to weaken her. I expect Rita to be a Category 4 hurricane at landfall.

The landfall location forecast has increased in confidence since yesterday, as the computer models have started to converge on a landfall location on the middle Texas coast. Western Louisiana still needs to be concerned, as does Corpus Christi, but New Orleans should escape Rita with nothing more than some fairly ordinary thunderstorms in some of the outermost spiral bands. A significant storm surge capable of flooding New Orleans is very unlikely.

A very significant storm surge is expected along and to the right of where Rita makes landfall on the Texas coast. Surge heights may reach 18 feet or higher, breaking the record 18.5 foot storm surge seen in 1961 during the Category 4 Hurricane Carla.

Well good for NOLA, i guess.

Update: it's official, Galveston and parts of Brazoria county are under a mandatory evacuation. The evacuation maps are here.

So far neither me nor my cousin in Pearland have to evacuate. I think they are jumping the gun slightly but 'better safe than sorry' to use a tired cliche. Also the only route out of galveston is two-lane I45, which can become jammed every day, let alone on days like today.

Declarations of State of Emergency:

Galveston and Brazoria County Judges have indicated they will make Declarations of Emergency for their respective jurisdictions this afternoon.

Traffic Management Plan for Galveston and Brazoria Counties will commence at 6:00 PM, 21 Sept 2005.

Mandatory Evacuations from Galveston and Brazoria Counties:

Voluntary evacuations will be recommended by the Judges for their Counties later today.

6:00 AM, 21 Sept 2005 for persons in Fixed Health Care
Facilities
6:00 PM, 21 Sept 2005 for persons in Evacuation Zone "A"
2:00 AM, 22 Sept 2005 for persons in Evacuation Zone "B"
Noon, 22 Sept 2005 for persons in Evacuation Zone "C"
Evacuations are to be completed by midnight 22 Sept 2005

Update: The Houston Chronicle now has a Rita blog. Smart.
Everyone is so far taking this seriously; good. It's got potential to be very intense, and will strike somewhere on Texas, somewhere relatively near Houston. Relative being the key term. The misses and I are thinking of going to Austin for the weekend if it gets bad and a direct impact is forecasted. We'll probably stay here though, for reasons outlined above. Not to mention the astrodome is less than a mile away.

Update: Steve Gregory at the Weather Underground has this to say:

What is becoming of great concern is the forecast development of a very large anticyclonic system across the entire Gulf of Mexico during the next 24-48 hours. This will permit the storm to grow even larger in size and intensity. The similarities in the size and location of this anti-cyclone is again eerily similar to that what took place 3 weeks ago with Katrina. All the models are beginning tightly cluster along the upper coast of Texas — and several of the more reliable models are forecasting Rita to reach CAT 4 intensity. The increasingly smaller range of track evolutions — and for intensity forecasts - along with the actual data - do support the distinct possibility of a very large, CAT 4 storm in the Guff by Thursday, and one that will turn northwestward and then northward striking the coast on Saturday near Galveston. The GFS has been the leader of the pack for the model forecasts — and when dealing with track forecasts beyond 36 hours — is
often very reliable. The 12Z run, and the most recent 18Z run now show a landfall on the east side of Galveston Bay Saturday afternoon. Except for 2 cycle runs yesterday, the GFS has been forecasting a land fall near Galveston for 3 days (12 model run cycles).

Sounds pretty grim. I am going to go out tomorrow and make sure we have enough food and water for 3 days. If that thing goes directly over galveston, we might sustain wind damage, and we might lose our cars. ALthough, fortunately, the roof was redone a year or two ago. Its impossible to tell right now, but the hurricane center map shows it impacted a hundred miles SW of here.

Update: They are now predicting a cat 3-4 storm, hitting around Matagorda, tx. What's interesting is that the models have not deviated much, they are getting more accurate this season. Matagorda is about 80 miles away from houston, as the crow flies. Which, according to sciguy, is about the worst case scenario for Houston. Alot of people are wondering if they will evacuate or not, i expect harris county will be voluntarily evac. starting tomorrow. My cousin is thinking of going to Dallas. We may go to Austin. Our other friends we don't know yet.


Update: By the way, New Orleans, this is how you should do evacuations. First, have Buses. You know, those things you let sit around and get ruined? Second, let people evac with their pets. Third, start evac. three days before. Asshats

Mary Jo Naschke, the city's public information officer, told FOX News that people wishing to leave Galveston could make bus reservations by calling 409-797-3710. Individuals with special needs would be boarded first, followed by those with reservations.

"We're looking for early Saturday morning" for landfall, Naschke added.

People were being encouraged to leave with their pets, which Thomas said should be transported in carriers displaying the animal's name and wear identifying collars.

Galveston is calling for a voluntary evacuation today. My take is that there are still 6 days left, the storm could do anything. What it probably won't do is weaken. It will strike somewhere in Texas/Louisana. Right now the path is directly towards Houston, but I expect that to curve northwards. Seems like hurricanes that are initially predicted to strike houston often change and go northwards. But we'll continue to monitor. Anyway we're 50 miles inland, which will absorb alot of the energy. And I'm on the 2nd floor, so no flood danger. I feel pretty safe so far.

Update: SciGuy from the Houston Chronicle reiterates teh lack of danger to Houston. And has a handy link to the NOAA flood maps of Harris county.

Also, Jeff Masters, from Weather Underground, a great weather blog, also predicts the storm will shift north-east, but he has actual data to support this. He thinks...get this...it will hit louisiana. New Orleans: here you go again. He also predicts a cat 3 storm.

Each set of model runs has moved the track of Rita progressively further east. The official NHC forecast has been following along, but staying further back. What we've seen so far this hurricane season is that when the models start trending this way, that's where the storm eventually winds up going. So my best guess is that Rita will hit Louisiana Friday as a Category 3 hurricane. What's the average error for a 5-day forecast? 270 miles. So, everyone from the Florida Panhandle to the Mexican border is still at risk.

Update: Rita now a cat 2, and they expect it to stay at cat 3 throughout it's journey through the gulf. The wake of Katrina is helping, because it made the water cooler by mixing. Cooler water lowers hurricane strength. And New Orleans is out of danger (apparently).

Threat to Louisiana fades
Last night, the NOAA jet flew its first mission into Rita, and collected high-density data used to initialize last night's computer model runs. The models are more tightly clustered than before, and now all the models point to a landfall in Texas Saturday, somewhere between Brownsville and Galveston. NHC thinks that their current projected landfall point near Matagorda, TX is more reliable than usual. If we take the average NHC 4-day forecast track error of 200 miles and knock it down by 50 miles or so since we're assuming NHC is correct about their more reliable than usual forecast, this gives a probable landfall point somewhere between Corpus Christi and the Texas/Louisiana border. So, western Louisiana is still at considerable risk, but New Orleans will miss this hurricane.

So it looks like the general consenus has shifted the impact site south, to corpus christy, which is about 200 mi away. But really it could strike anywhere along TX. Again, in metro houston, we are in danger only if the storm stalls right above houston, which happened with allison. We are currently taking precautions.

It's hurricane season, can't you tell? Potential impact for the Big island, but most likely it will pass 300 nm east of it.

Apparently some people have nothing else to do except fly around and look at various movie sets. If it were me, i'd rather relax and so forth. But maybe this is an additional tourist attraction. I might be interested in such a tour. I guess i just don't care that much where jurassic park was filmed. I might be interested to see new zealand soemtime b/c of LOTR though.

Color me sceptical. Austin bay agrees.

Update: Color me shocked. NK now demands light-water reactors before giving up their bombs. Before (two days ago or yesterday), they signed a statement saying the opposite.

I think it will be a cold day in hell before NK gives up their bombs. Hopefully they'll just imploid quietly. Which they would do sooner if we cut off food aid. Yes, millions will die, but so what? Either we prop up this lunatic regime, or we starve them out. It will only take a few years of the later. Decades if the later.

This mobile clinic (Med1) was bemoaned by CNN and others because it was 'stuck in red tape' and couldn't get to Louisiana. It did make it to Bay St. Louis, ground zero for the hurricane. Dr. Tillinghast photoblogged Med1 and other things in Bay St. Louis. Very interesting post.


This is what really happened to Med1: (from Mudville Gazette)

It travels in a convoy that includes two 53-foot trailers, which as of Sunday afternoon was parked on a gravel lot 70 miles north of New Orleans because Louisiana officials for several days would not let them deploy to the flooded city, Rich said.

Of course, in order to be fully outraged by this "failure" we must ignore the fact that where they were "stranded" was actually ground zero for Katrina. And there the team found their calling, as Dr Stanley Tillinghast, M.D. tells us (along with some other crucial details CNN missed) here:

The Med-1 team was ready to go just after the storm; an agreement between the governor of North Carolina and Governor Blanco of Louisiana was prepared and faxed to Governor Blanco. 24 hours elapsed and the agreement was not signed. The team was ready to leave on Friday, September 2, and the agreement was not signed. The team was then federalized by FEMA and ordered to deploy. They made it as far as Mississippi—still no agreement. So instead of heading for Louisiana, Med-1 came to Bay St. Louis, where it serves as a temporary replacement for Hancock Memorial while the latter is out of commission.

This is for the new console system, the Nintendo Revolution. It works by interpretting your motions. I can't really describe it much, but here is a Gamespot article that talks about it. CNN Money also has an article. Looks pretty interesting. Perhaps this is where interface devices are going.

A simple, line-drawn-style pond full of multicolored fish (in the vein of Yoshi's Island) was displayed onscreen and challenged us to do some fishing. A small human hand functioned as the onscreen cursor to show us where our controller was pointing. You could take hold of a fishing rod that rested in the center of the screen by moving the hand over the rod and waiting until your virtual appendage took hold of it. Rod in hand, we were able to move the controller around to move our virtual rod up and down, right and left, and back and forth on the screen, which affected the position of the rod's lure. Obviously, the key is to hook fish. We tried our hand at introducing our hook to a few of the finny locals. The controller would rumble with each fish nibble, providing us with our cue to reel it in. Rather than hand-crank the line, we simply had to pull back and flick our wrist back at the right moment to snag our catch.

ANyway Nintendo has been moving towards more 'life-style' type 'games', for example dancing games, sports games, and just odd things that wouldn't really be described as games. They are big into innovation. The Revolution isn't out yet, sometime next year (xmas?) is likely.

This article somewhat summerizes the differences.

Two years later, in a bioethics journal, Calvert and an IDnet colleague, biochemist William Harris, summarized the differences between Biblical creationism and ID. "Creation science seeks to validate a literal interpretation of creation as contained in the book of Genesis," they explained. "An ID proponent recognizes that ID theory may be disproved by new evidence. ID is like a large tent under which many religious and nonreligious origins theories may find a home. ID proposes nothing more than that life and its diversity were the product of an intelligence with power to manipulate matter and energy."

I think creationism is dying out and being replaced by ID, which is good. ID apparently accepts scientific processes, evolution, old earth, and, importantly, evolution. It does postulate that God started life 3.8 billion years ago, pointed to evidence suggesting that bacteria arose very soon after a habital earth appeared. Also ID questions the origin of biological macromolecules and cellular structures. How did the first bacteria evolve? How did they replicate? How did DNA come into existance? How about RNA. RNA can self-replicate, DNA can not. RNA can form enzyme-like molecules, DNA can not. DNA requires RNA and protein to replicate. I think this are good questions, but ID kills scientific advancement in these areas, if they just answer these questions with "God did it". These are important questions to be answered if we are ever to understand the origin of life.

I agree with this post. I was suprised, like many, that so far the casulty count from New Orleans was so low, when everyone was predicting major disaster. Mayor Nagin first predicted 10,000 deaths, but that turns out not to be the case. So what went right? Seems like many rescues were 'under the radar', and not coordinated by any agency, ie FEMA. So even though this was a disaster, it wasn't the absolute worst case scenario, that of a catastrophic, rapid flood. This was a slow flooding, and stopped at the roof level, thus allowing many people to camp out, for days, awaiting rescue. Anyway, this is a under-reported piece of good news.

From CNN.

When told it was going to take 80 days to drain flood water out of New Orleans, Conan O'Brien joked that Bush said, "that's almost half a vacation."

Jay Leno said the Federal Emergency Management Agency head recently appeared at his doorstep and said, "I'm here for the earthquake damage you had back in '94."

As Hurricane Ophelia neared North Carolina, David Letterman said that "the Bush administration is getting ready to ignore it."

ABC news interviewed 6 people at the Astrodome about what they thought of the Bush speech. They were all enthusiastic, despite the best efforts of Dean Reynolds, the interviewer, to stear them towards Bush bashing.

The transcript is here:

I think one reason they have hope is because of the support Houston has shown.

Ouch.

According to the story, both Nagin, the New Orleans Mayor, Blanco, the LA governor, and Bush (the pres, duh) took some responsibility. That's a good first step.

Lots of personal stories too.

"Doctors handed mops"
"Firefighters undergoing sex discrimination training in Atlanta"
"Trucks full of supplies unable to unload due to paperwork"

Ouch.

CNN is increasingly shrill recently, but perhaps with reason. Perhaps. Meanwhile I am looking to other agencies to get less-shrill news.

Try 18 hours days, 7 days a week. Says Major Bill Cowlings, a liason officer for the Army Corps of Engineers in Mosul, Iraq. This is from the Tampa Tribune 'voices from the front series', Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds.

"I was talking to ... the guy I was replacing and I asked, is it true what I've heard, that you work 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week? He said, "I don't know where you heard that. It's 18 hours a day, seven days a week.' ... In Task Force Freedom's area, there are almost 500 construction projects going on, and I'm supposed to know what they're all doing. And if you talk about the northern part of Iraq ... there's a couple thousand projects going on.

There's much more at the site.

Sadly, the funding looks to be cut in the next few years, as congress, weary of years of combat in Iraq, will demand decreased funding and 'bring the troops home'.

"They want us to be careful, manage our money well and get our troops home as soon as we possibly can," Sen. Jeff Sessions (search), R-Ala., said of voters' attitudes toward Iraq.

I know the morale is low, but how much does the media contribute to that? Do the American people not realize victory is close at hand? It amazing that all the good news is shunted because of the latest body counts, no matter how grim. We must not lose hope.


Update:

A second posting is here,

The interview is with Sgt 1st Class Jetton, who's official role is field artillery meteorologist, but is also involved in the reconstruction of Iraq. He also notes that the insurgency attacks has gone down, which is what Maj Cowlings and others reported.

``It hasn't gone away but it's definitely diminished. A large part is we're seeing the Iraqi army being a lot more stabilized and picking up a lot of the areas we were having to be concerned with before. I know the sector that we're in had absolutely no Iraqi army in it when we got here, and now we're seeing them out manning checkpoints. They definitely contribute a lot to enabling us to focus on other areas and do missions like the team I'm on right now.''

And more and more Iraqi Army troops are being trained. This is a pendulum; eventually so many IA troops will be trained, and the US Army troops will still maintain presence. I predict within a year (2006), the insurgency will be much lower. It may not be extinguished for years, but hopefully these huge mass-casulity attacks can decrease. Hopefully. I also predict that many or most of the troops will be home by the end of next year, unless things take a dramatic turn for the worse.


Update: Iraq the Model says the same thing: the recently captured insurgents are not as skilled as those previously captured, and they do a poorer job of, well, trying to kill people. ITM also says that the reason Al Qaeda is launching this huge bombing raid is because they suffered severly in the recently combat in north-west Iraq.

The Al-Qaeda called it the "battle for avenging Talafar" and this gives us a clue of the extent of the losses inflicted upon Al-Qaeda by Iraqi and American troops and the anger and frustration associated with these losses.
The huge losses of Al-Qaeda in Talafar were in my opinion a result of the poor training of the new recruits as many of the old, well trained fighters were either killed or arrested over the past two years.

That's what the military is saying; 80% of the terrorists in North Iraq (where most of the violence occurs) have been killed/captured.

From an interview w/ Col. Brown.

COL. BROWN: One of the great pieces of information we got recently is 80 percent of the al Qaeda network in the north has been devastated. And those are not our figures, those came from the last six leaders in Mosul, al Qaeda leaders that we captured; they informed us of that.

And, 80% of people in Mosul are going to vote in the next election. This is a Sunni-dominated area, and if you recall very few Sunnis voted in the last election.

You know, we went from last January we weren't sure if we could even have elections. Right now, 80 percent of the folks on the street in Mosul and Nineveh province in the north here say that they will vote. And very interesting -- these are -- many of the folks I talked to are Sunnis who are very upset that they were lied to last election, told not to vote, and they were very excited to vote this election.

But don't expect to hear this from CNN.

Hat tip: Gateway pundit.

This is odd:

Bicyclist dies in head-on crash

August 17, 2005
PLANO (AP) - A 52-year-old bicyclist was killed and another seriously injured when they collided head-on on a street frequently used for training and races.

Cyclists were puzzled by the head-on accident, which occurred Sunday on a lightly traveled road.

Both men were wearing helmets, but it wasn't clear how fast they were going, Plano police said.

Michael Mahoney, 52, of Allen, died Sunday at Medical Center of Plano. Jordan Muller, 37, of Richardson, remained in the intensive care unit at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas on Tuesday.

Police spokesman Carl Duke said no charges were filed and the department was treating it as an accident. But he said the case would be referred to the grand jury because a rider died.

Two points.

1) It's odd that there were serious injuries resulting from this collision. I can only guess that the injuries were not due to the collision per se, but where they ended up afterwords; ie fell down a small cliff or something. THere is more than they are telling.

Update: I found these points from the velonews article
a) The streets were public and occured in the middle of the road.
b) The streets were used as a race course for local bike races
c) One of the cyclists was going in a non-traditional way,counter-clockwise
d) The accident occured near a 90 degree turn, near a downhill slope.

These factors suggest that both cyclists were going extremely fast; 25-30 mph. So I guess it's not too surprising that the accident was fatal, even though both were wearing helmets. Helmets are most helpful against ground collisions, but offer little help against collisiosn with moving vehicles or bikes.

2) The other odd thing is that now there is a grand jury looking at the case, yet when a cyclist was hit and killed in Houston recently, there was no such investigation. I think the driver was cited and released. So that's got some cyclists upset, understandably.

Bike accidents occur usually because people are doing something stupid or are not paying attention. All my accidents were because of these factors, although mechanical failure can occur.

From the Chronicle of HIgher Education

*ANN ARBOR, Mich.—-A Web site that provides a comprehensive search function to find housing for those displaced by Hurricane Katrina has been launched by the School of Information at the University of Michigan.

The site, http://www.katrinahousing.net, will list about 375,000 beds in all 50 states, making it the single largest known list of homes for hurricane evacuees.

Seems like a good thing.

Also i heard reports that Yahoo and Microsoft are battling to create either a search engine (Yahoo) or a unified database (MS) to reunite familys, similiar to the Wiki project I wrote about earlier. The catch? THe yahoo engine won't search the MS database, they aren't compatible. Talk about SNAFU. Apparently they are trying to work it out.

Yup. This happened during TS Allison here. Decades of research from some labs, gone. Grad student projects, down the drain. If they ever get back, they'll likely have to rebuild for years. I feel for the grad students at Tulane and other places (LSU got hit worse, i hear), particularly doing biological research. This type of research, I'd argue, is the most sensitive to natural disaster. Still, it doesn't matter. Those grad students will have to start their projects over, or pick a new project and new advisor. If our lab lost power, I'd probably not lose too much, since my work is DNA based. DNA is usually quite stable, and it's protected in tubes. But still, if the lab was physically destroyed, I'd be really SOL.

if it were true.. From a paranoid overblogger. (says Mickey Kaus)

Notice how Bush, et al., are shipping the mostly black remainder evacuees from New Orleans et environs to Texas? It practically amounts to gerrymandering of a sort. Since many, if not most, of the evacuees -- certainly mostly Democratic voters -- will remain in Texas, get jobs and homes, and never return to the Big Easy, Louisiana, a purple state (Clinton '92 and '96, Bush '00 and '04) becomes redder, and Texas, a huge very red state, gains yet more population while turning only slightly less red.

Is it possible these effects are the result of deliberate design on the part of the White House political office and, namely, one Karl Rove? Otherwise, why wouldn't they be evacuating people to Memphis in purple Tennessee? Or Little Rock in purple Arkansas? [Emph. added]

Brunilda Nazario, MD, who helped handle the huge influx of evacuees from Louisiana and Miss. to Atlanta, is pretty hard on Red Cross. Good.

My bottom-line message is this: This country is not prepared. We don’t have enough medical personnel to help people in a major disaster. Even when doctors try to help, there is no one in charge to facilitate the process. We need to roll up our sleeves and do what needs to be done

Who the heck is really in charge of a national medical emergency? No single agency or authority, that i can tell. Who can coordinate medical professionals to respond to these crises? No one. Dr. Nazario found only a handful of MDs taking care of thousands of people, this is not right. There was no institution in Atlanta that said 'our docs will take care of them'. Red Cross was a joke; they didn't even have anticeptic at their shelter. These organizations need to do much much better. Yet, we continue to pour money into them, for little benefit, seemingly. Many stories abound where officials from any level are nowhere to be found. How many hundreds of millions of dollars does Red Cross have to work with? What are they doing with it?

At the astrodome, there was chaos and confusion, and, really, it's a terrible place for a shelter. They initially had little medical care (The medical center at the Reliant Center was organized later) The George R Brown was set up last Saturday, and Univerisity of Texas mobilized it's entire campus to treat people. They had dental, vision, radiological, pediatric, geriatric, podiatry, and psychology experts on hand as the evacuees were streaming in. They saw 5000 cases in a week. We are lucky to have good organization, and the resources to handle such an operation, other cities aren't as fortunate.

The NEJM has an interesting piece on the terror attacks in this weeks issue.

Due to the unrest in Ireland, the UK has been exposed to many terror attacks over the years. Thus, they were very well prepared to handle the July 7th attacks. If this happened in, say, New York, would our response be as good? Doesn't look like it, from the response to Katrina, and the recent power outage in LA.

This is interesting, from NEJM (new england journal of medicine). From Dr. Andy's blog

Finally Wessely, a psychiatrist, reviews some of the challenges faced by survivors. He notes that immediate psychological intervention is at best useless and may actually be harmful:

There have now been more than a dozen controlled trials in which people who have been involved in accidents and other traumatic events have been randomly assigned to receive or not to receive such counseling. The results have shown conclusively that such immediate psychological debriefing does not work. Those who received it were no better off emotionally than those who did not. Worse, the better studies with the longer follow-up periods showed that receiving such counseling actually increased the likelihood of later psychological problems. In fact, the people who seemed to be harmed by this intervention were those who had been especially upset at the time — precisely those who one might think ought to be treated.1 So whereas immediate post-trauma counseling may reassure the rest of us that something is being done, it does not actually help those who receive it.

These will likely continue. It's from a rescuer; pretty short but riviting. Key quote: "Haiti? It's more like Hades". What is amazing to me is how fast civilization can fall apart, with the breakdown of transport, communication, water, and electricity. Seems like that's all it takes.

This is wrong.

here Its recent but interesting. Pictures too. ALthough we were told at teh GRB that no pictures were permitted. Decency and that sort of thing. Which i agree with.

I've been doing that for a few hours. It's a wiki project, trying to setup a master database to reconnect people. I am not sure how much this is actually helping, seems like most people are getting help at the shelters, or through contact teams like Technology for All is doing at the astrodome. Anyway, i was working on the yahoo messages, some 5000 or 6000 postings for missing loved ones. Some of the messages are heartbreaking, a very few show 'person X found'. A typical message is here.
Finally, most of these are inputted, thanks to a huge team of people throughout the world. What would be interesting to find out is how many people actually reconnected trhough the internet and not via phone or personal contact. In other words, did all these databases help or not? Also, if someone posts a missing person message, how many people are reconnected and that information never updated? Some people are listed in half a dozen databases as missing, and the vast majority of the people in the central Katrian Finder database are still listed as missing. Yet, the death tolls are so far very low, and the shelter populations continue to plummet. So, I think most people are reconnecting, but the databases are not updated. So the role of the internet in this effort is unknown.

Update: Found this website for the astrodome efforts. They claim 1150 evacuees/guests have been reconnected.

The Guardian (UK) has an interesting piece on why science reporting is so bad. (From their Bad Science series) Key quote:

There is one university PR department in London that I know fairly well - it's a small middle-class world after all - and I know that until recently, they had never employed a single science graduate. This is not uncommon. Science is done by scientists, who write it up. Then a press release is written by a non-scientist, who runs it by their non-scientist boss, who then sends it to journalists without a science education who try to convey difficult new ideas to an audience of either lay people, or more likely - since they'll be the ones interested in reading the stuff - people who know their way around a t-test a lot better than any of these intermediaries. Finally, it's edited by a whole team of people who don't understand it. You can be sure that at least one person in any given "science communication" chain is just juggling words about on a page, without having the first clue what they mean, pretending they've got a proper job, their pens all lined up neatly on the desk.

I've been interested in this problem too. After all, there isn't much i can contribute the public except the dissemination of scientific data. But I'm lazy, and frankly, nit-picking the science journalism is a hard and unrewarding job. Some of the articles are good, some are not. I don't think it's as bad as the Guardian makes it out to be, though. But journos do like to scare people, that's their job really. I may get into this more when i graduate.

First the city has leased the 'megashelters' until December. Now they want them all out by next week. Could this be due to the fact that the Texans are playing next week?

The Houston Texans say they do not expect evacuee operations at Reliant Park to affect the team's first home game on Sept. 18 at Reliant Stadium.

Those in charge of shelter operations at Reliant say they hope to have the last of the evacuees moved out of the shelters at Reliant Park and the convention center by Sept. 17 or 18.

Texans' Senior Vice President Jamey Rootes said any shelter operations still remaining would not affect most of the parking for Texans fans. Ticket-holders with assigned parking in the orange lot would be assigned to a different location less than a mile from the stadium, and shuttles will be provided, he said.∃

This is very bad, and will lead to a huge unemployment spike and homeless spike. If these people are pushed out the door with a month's worth of money but no job prospects and no where to go, they will go right back into the street. But it seems the City of Houston doesn't care. Must be pretty disconcerting for the 'guests'. First they are welcome, next they are kicked out.

Another 40,000 evacuees are in hotels, according to a census requested by local officials. The number of evacuees staying in private residences and private shelters was unknown.

So they expect people to pay $100/night to sleep at a hotel now? This isn't a good idea, yet I heard from two different people that evacuees are getting reimbursed paid to go to hotels from the shelters for 14 days. It was supposed to work in the opposite idea. Sounds like the city just wants to sweep this whole mess under the rug. I can guarantee that the 'community' will not welcome them with open arms, they are in the best place right now (the shelters) to receive community help. Here in the inner city, people run their own lives, and are busy just surviving. They don't have time/energy to help another potential competitor for their job.

Anyway, my stint at the George R Brown is done, UT won't need us anymore I think, and the 'other side', actually helping the guests with food, supplies, is way overstaffed. So we are done.

At Biloxi, MS. "an atomic bomb could not have done worse damage". I dont' think that is true, but you get the idea. It's a great tragedy.

Arial shots are here. The town is just obliterated.

From Arther Chrenkoff.

All the news that you won't find in the press.

Regarding flight 93 that crashed in Penn, it's target was the white house.

On September 11, at 9 PM (ET/PT), Discovery Channel will screen this documentary in the United States, with other countries to follow soon (please check you local TV guides for details). Thanks to the show's creators, I got a sneak preview and just finished watching it.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.

You simply cannot miss it. I never type in capitals to make a point, but you can take it that I am now. Extensively researched and drawing on some previously unpublished information, "The Flight That Fought Back" provides the most complete and comprehensive recreation of events onboard Flight 93. It's a stunning, immensely moving production.

From Radio Blogger. This is an interview with the CO of teh 82nd airborne. They were called Saturday morning, and were on airplanes 6 hours later; 5000 troops. Pretty amazing. Of course they anticipated, but that's what good troops do.

JB: Now, how many people are actually leaving these days from New Orleans? Are people cooperating with your guys? Are they meeting resistance? Are they being told go on, get away, we don't want you?

WC: I'll tell you. The people have been great. When we came in here last Saturday, we got an alert last Saturday morning about ten o'clock. And by four pm in the afternoon, we had taken off and headed down to New Orleans, and have been working since. And out of the New Orleans area, we've evacuated right at about 4,000 people now, since Saturday evening when we started the evacuation process, or picked it up and took over at that point. And we've rescued about another 500 of them.

Nagin predicted 10,000. Seems to me this was a good estimate. Now a reservist who has been on the ground for twelve days estimates 1000. Which is, all things considered, pretty amazing. BUt that's just from new orleans. Still the horror story of 10k or 100k didn't happen (seemingly). As they say, read the whole thing.

The long summer breaks (they were gone all last week, and monday), and lack of 'tact' has lead to defectors from the daily show, particularly ann althouse and glenn reynolds.

Ann says this:

This week's show, the first post-Katrina coverage, has been just blatantly telegraphing from the very first moment that the whole point of the show is to slam Bush. I'm upset about the hurricane and find it very off-putting to see political ideologues salivating over a chance to get Bush over this. I'm not even sure that's what the show goes on to do. I just can't bear to watch it. Instinctively, I don't want to watch.

I agree the Daily Show has been increasingly polarized (to the left). I think it's just hard to find anything funny abuot the world we live in now, which is hard for comedians. There is alot of outrage, hurt, etc. The astroterf for your lawn segment on this week was pretty good though. But Jon's favorite game is Blame Bush, and he interviews alot of leftist to make his point. Occassionally there is a right-winger politician or ex-pol, since it's probably the kiss of death to be caught dead on camera with jon stewart. Shrug, take it for what it is, cheap entertainment.

UCI, the union of cyclists international, which is basically the world body of cyclists, somewhat akin to the NFL for football i guess, anyway they had this to say about the case. The case, FYI, was that the French anti-doping lab released to a French newspaper some lab results positive for EPO, and the paper claimed that the samples were from lance. Not only were the samples tested 7 years old, but they had no permission to release the medical records of lance. I recall that the French still refuse to release Yassir Arafat's medical records, even though he's dead.

UCI said it was still "awaiting plausible answers" to its requests to WADA and the laboratory.

"We deplore the fact that the long-established and entrenched confidentiality principle could be violated in such a flagrant way without any respect for fair play and the rider's privacy," it said.

Heads should roll, I think; people on all three levels screwed up, and it will cost billions more to fix their improper preparations and initial relief efforts.

Mayor Nagin of New Orleans:
From Foxnews:

Here's how Nagin described the emergency call from the National Hurricane Center on Sept. 6.

"I ordered the mandatory evacuation the night that I got a call from the head of the hurricane center, Max somebody … and he said, 'Mr. Mayor, I've never seen a storm like this. I've never seen conditions like this.'"

Yet we all know that the mandatory evacuation was placed on Sunday morning, not Saturday night. Big difference.

Michael Brown of FEMA, who claims he didn't know that evacuees from the convention center in New Orleans were there, despite 3 days of newscasts, has been recalled to Washington.

Governor Kathleen Blanco, of Louisiana, who asked Bush for troops, even though her own National Guard took 5 days to get to New Orleans and other areas. Federal troops are not allowed to do law enforcement, unless in times of insurrection. What exactly would they do? The Army Corps of Engineers were already doing the best they could do to restore the levees, levees that were old and only made to withstand a cat 3 hurricane.

Update: The NYT has a good article. Count on the press to be the vultures after the storm.

Also, Michelle Malkin has a good article about Brownie's incompetence. When you have people like Colin Powell, and FOX news leading the criticsm of a right-wing administration, there is something wrong. It's not just politics as usual.

From the Irish Trojan Blog

NBC's Brian Williams admitted on The Daily Show tonight that when the National Weather Service predicted 24 hours before landfall that Katrina would produce catastrophic damage resulting in "human suffering incredible by modern standards," the folks at NBC were skeptical that the prediction was real, and weren't sure at first whether to air it. This echoes the sentiments of one commenter on this blog, who asked at the time, "Sure it is not a hoax?"

Here is the key quote from the NOAA forecast.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

Here is the full forecast.

NOAA completely predicted the scope of the disaster. Why didn't anyone else? I'll say it again, our government failed at the local, state, and federal levels. They are still rescuing people from rooftops in NO. Parts of MS are still flooded. The southern coast of LA is almost completely cut off. This is far, far worse than 9/11. Already the media storm has subsided (a good thing), but this is the greatest tragedy (on US soil) our generation has seen (so far).

Blogging will be light, got stuff to do.

Went to the George R Brown last night. UT just implimented clinic hours of 8am to 8pm. So we showed up at 7pm, and they didn't have anything for us to do. So we went over to the 'guest' side, the guests are of course the evacuees, but that's a derogatory word. So is refugee. I suppose 'dirt poor nigers' would be an even worse term. Anyway, we got pressed into service hauling diapers. (There is a story on this section by the HOuston Chronicle, here.) We wanted to help w/ the missing persons issues, doing database searches, but they had too many people for that. My feeling is that they had too many people period. And everyone has to attend a 2 hour training session held at a church in North Houston first. I don't have time for that, neither do the other grad students. So i think our volunteer effort is over; there really isn't anything we are qualified to do except haul stuff around. I did get a chance to look at a mobile radiology clinic, which consisted of one 25 year old x-ray machine, a dark room, and a bunch of patient rooms. Nice, but obsolete. They need a portable ultrasound, and a digital x-ray would be good. Not sure if those are portable yet though.

Within a week after news and images of the chaos left by Hurricane Katrina were broadcast, Americans donated over half a billion dollars to charities aiding victims of the flood.

The speed of the money raised has outpaced the rate of donations offered to victims of the 2001 terror attacks and could hit $1 billion, according Stacy Palmer, editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a publication that tracks nonprofit organizations.

"It is unprecedented in scale and speed," Palmer said.

"This outpaces anything we have had," said Ryland Dodge, spokesman with the American Red Cross. "The 9-11 donations ended up being $1 billion dollars (collected) over a long period of time."

This gels with what I've been seeing locally, its been a huge effort for houstonians. Personally, i gave more than i did for 9/11, since in this case there are many more people who are left homeless and jobless. With 9/11, it was a huge tragedy, but the relief effort was more to give widows something to live on, and that was only a few thousand people. Here we are dealing with half a million people who are displaced, lost everything, literally everything. This wasn't the case in 9/11. Just compare/contrast stuff, not saying one was worse than the other.

definately not work-safe. Lots of f words

Yup, I've said this before. At least I think I did!

For that reason, it was a relief when Blanco hired James Lee Witt, who enhanced FEMA’s reputation when he headed the agency during the Clinton administration, to advise her on the reconstruction process. No one will benefit if the local, state and federal agencies responsible for responding to disasters end up tripping over each other. Clear lines of command might well speed up the recovery, and putting someone of Witt’s expertise in charge of the process ought to help.

I've seen that happen here. We have a heiarchy here. UT Houston Health Science Center is the administrative body, and underneath that are the medical, dental, nursing, and graduate schools (I'm in the later). Each of us schools took it upon ourselves to coordinate donation/volunteer efforts. But the higher-ups decided UTH-HSC would be the principle player in charge of the operation, what they are doing at the George R Brown convention center. However, the graduate students i've talked to don't want to come in individually and coordinate directly with UTH-HSC for voluteering, they want to get groups of students ready. UTH-HSC has completely resisted my efforts to coordinate such a thing, it's a similiar mentality. Ideally there should be a chain of command, since such a huge undertaking requires more than one level of command. But they (UTH-HSC) won't hear of it, wanting all the ...whatever, glory, fame, recognition, I don't know. Meanwhile AFAIK none of our graduate students have helped out except my group. Anyway i'll write the volunteers today and see if i can figure out what deal they made with UTH-HSC, and if they would want to go. I hit upon this approach last night as the way to circumvent the stupid way that UTH-HSC is doing things.

Hugh Hewitt has a good article on what it will take. Lots of grass-roots efforts. I also think the specialists will be needed, the utilities companies, the home restoration/demolition/construction people. Fortunately (i guess) this is in the middle of the country. People will swarm from all over, it will be a national effort. We'll get these cities back into shape, better than they were.

This is funny, from likely the *only* blog in New Orleans still. It's from an internet provider, who 'heroically' stayed with their data center while the city flooded (they were in a large building).

Sometime around midnight, a squad of 82nd Airborne guys accompanied by a US Marshall busted into our Data Center with their M4-A1s to investigate the lights and movement. Personally, I know they were just bored -- there's no way they honestly thought there was some kind of threat up here just yards away from several huge military and police presences. Anyway, they came up and demanded to account for us all. That means they told Donny, who was still up, to come wake up Crys and me in the side closet room type area where we sleep. I could hear Donny telling them that I was exSpecial Forces as he came to get me. He stuck his head in and explained the situation while I made Crys get up and get dressed. We came out and I gave the Marshall a sheepish look which said was this really enough fun for to relieve your boredom? He kind of knew they shouldn't be up here -- I think it was Crystal's being here which really made him snap out of it. He began apologizing and I could tell the yound soldiers with him were really shy about having seen Crystal come out too.

But I didn't let them all off that easily. "Hey, I understand. I know you guys are just doing your job." He kept apologizing. Then I put them to work. "So wait, how did you get up here anyway? We locked this building down....

The Marshall claimed that one of the emergency exits -- the one on the Lafayette Square side had been open. I knew this was bullshit. For one thing, Sig and I tied down and concealed that door. It would have taken a group of guys to open it. For another Lafayette Square is to the south of our building. The only lights visisble are from Poydras to the north. Am I to believe that they bypassed the obvious entrances (also locked down) to look for one they didn't even know existed and it just happened to be open?

No, they searched for a way in, and by the time they got around back and found the emergency exit, they were ready to break in, so they did.

"Wait, we secured that exit. That means that this building might have other people in it," I told them.

They all knew what was coming next. If it was their job to check on lights and movement to look for people who didn't belong there....

I asked them to sweep the building for us.

And they did. All 27 floors of it with no elevators.

If you want to play soldier with me, I will make you play it a lot longer than you had in mind.

Crystal and I went back to bed secure in the knowledge that a US Marshall and a squad from the 82nd Airborne cleared 27 floors and the roof of our temporary residence. And then they secured the door they must have spent 45 minutes breaking into.

Mo

This is good news, and underreported i think. 94 countries have given aid. Or want to give aid:

SYDNEY, Australia — Many of the nations offering aid to the United States after Hurricane Katrina — including India, South Korea, Japan and Germany — said today they were still waiting to hear back from Washington on whether their donations had been accepted.

Hmm, what is Condi Rice doing, i mean she is sec of state. Don't want to piss off other nations again, ala 9/11

This is probably a good thing.

On the Dome's second level, Celina Ramirez, Houston-area coordinator for Katrina's Caravan, was busy trying to sign up evacuees for vans headed to cities such as Memphis, Los Angeles, Lexington, Ky. and Chicago.

I think 'blame' can be passed around alot; to the individuals who ignored evacuation warnings, to the local authorities who were not prepared to evacuate people, and who did not have any supplies for shelters for the 72-96 hrs it would take for federal support to arrive, and to federal officials, for not providing that timely support. Evidence of these failings abound and I (and others) have blogged it for a week.

Glenn Reynolds has an excellent article about all of this and what lessons can be drawn. To me as an individual, I need to be more prepared in case disaster strikes. I also need more disaster training by Red Cross and others, since they will need help immediately, and not two weeks later. Also most relief agencies have no (or little) clue what they are doing, the few people who are on staff can barely coordinate the thousands of volunteers. This creates SNAFUs that takes days or weeks to sort out optimally.

Seems like a good idea. Basically the problem is that so many people are scattered all over the country. ANd there are 20 different databases, some easily accessable, some not. Part of the volunteer effort at the astrodome is searching through all these databases and looking for people. This could be alot easier if we had only one database to search through.

Interestingly (or not), the data that my team spent 7 hours inputted can not be searched, due to HIPAA requirements. Further, each of those computers is firewalled and blocked off from the internet (somewhat, we could still google). ANyway the evacuee data has already been created the moment they got to the george r brown center.

Update: THis wiki page has all sorts of info on the project, and what data enterers can do. SO far, approximately 50,000 data entries have been made (within a day or so).

Update: I just finished part of my section. Well, I didn't finish it, there are 12 messages left. I'll come back later and do the rest. Its labor intensive but that's all. Just sifting through messages and sticking them into a database entry form. Within a few days these data will all be entered and the master database should be online. I am only slightly concerned about the posting of huge amounts of personal info (name, phone #) for spammers to get. They will, they have no scrupples, but it's worth it. We need to get these familys back in touch with each other.

So far things seem to be going well in Houston and Dallas

I voluteered at the George R Brown (GRB) last night, along with three other friends/grad students. We entered part of medical records into computer databases. Not sure if it was helpful or not; we only made rudamentary efforts to track diagnosis, and the patient history and full diagnosis was on paper files. Also, they already inputted all evacuees that entered the GRB. Anyway the four of us worked about 7 hours, pecking away like mad. We got through about half of the previous two days records, and most of the current days records, probably about 500 in all. So that means in the past 3 days, 1000 people have been examined there at the GRB. Most of the complaints were expected; hypertension and diabetes untreated because of lack of medication, or rash due to the water and filth, or viral illness b/c of same. Many had psych issues due to the obvious anxiety/stress. Apparently, many are in the first stages of PTSD.

Here is a houston chronicle article that talks about it. Key quote:

It was the aftermath of 9/11 and Saldana, then based in New York City, was among assembled doctors prepared for the wave of patients, a wave that never came. This time, he knew his services would be needed.

"It's nice to have patients," said Saldana, now an emergency room doctor at The Methodist Hospital.

Indeed, its nice to have patients. Don't know how many died in the clinic, but most patients seem relatively okay.

Update: Here is a story about the crime rate in the evacuee population. Less than you'd think.

... federal charges may be filed against a man who received aid but is now suspected of not being a hurricane victim, he said.

I saw this myself. I don't see the issue that we're processing thousands of people; we could easily do the same for the homeless. The homeless in houston are much worse off than the evacuees, in terms of medical care, shelter, and food. Sure, they shouldn't be applicable for federal aid checks, but would we deny them a roof and food? There is plenty to go around.

Update2: Found this from the dome blog

. Dome City 17,500 residents
. Center City 3,800 residents
. Arena City 2,300 residents
. George R. Brown City 1,300 residents

Early thoughts were that GRB had 10,000 evacuees. Now they are saying 1300. From medical records, there are at least 1000 I think. I hope GRB will be the longest-lasting shelter, because it seems it's the most organized and has everything we can offer; food, showers, entertainment. THe dome is way too crowded, there are only 4,500 beds. GRB has about 1300 beds I'd say. So there's a huge disparity in beds. I wonder if they are hot-bunking at the Dome; give everyone 8 hours to sleep. If not, some people are miserable, having not had a bed for 8 days now. We have to get the people out of the dome, but they don't want to leave.
We have two cruise ships ready for evacuees, but few takers so far. If it was me, i'd be there in a heartbeat, if it was a real cruise (it's not thought). At least the people will have rooms, beds, food, and individual showers. I imagine people will go today or tomorrow, once they settle a bit.

Report: Police shoot gunmen

Police shot and killed at least five people Sunday after gunmen opened fire on contractors crossing a bridge to make levee repairs, The Associated Press reported.

Initial AP reports had wrongly indicated that the contractors themselves were shot by police; no other details were immediately available.

My labmate exclained that the cops were shooting the US ACE contractors...now alot of Americans will wonder what is going on and is the city safe or not? This sort of reporting makes life more difficult for those on the scene, and could cost lives.

My mom, among others, will be there to take care of them.

Story is here

11:47 A.M. - PHOENIX (AP) - The first group of Hurricane Katrina refugees who will be given shelter in Arizona arrived Sunday morning at Sky Harbor International Airport. About 150 people from the New Orleans area were aboard the first plane to arrive in the Phoenix area, said airport spokeswoman Julie Rodriguez. They were greeted by Phoenix's mayor, Red Cross officials and other local officials.

All Americans are stepping up to the plate. I just got a call begging for University of Texas volunteers for tomorrow and next week. I signed up for an 8 hour shift, from 3pm to 11pm.

This is great; Texas is really mobilizing to help these citizens.

Thomas Poche was surprised to run into his brother in the cafeteria on Saturday afternoon, and the first thing they said to each other was how nice the conditions were.

“I ain’t never seen nothing like this,” Poche said. “They checked me out, they fed me, I got to take a shower, and they gave me clean clothes. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

In a brief phone call with him, Vrolyk received a half-dozen phone calls, all of them offering to help. Papajohn’s wanted to know where to deliver 100 pizzas. Lunchmeat was being delivered from Sam’s Club.

“The whole city of San Antonio is right now pulling together and making these people feel like they’re in good hands,” said Vrolyk, who said he was working on 50 hours without sleep. “If they have a concern like clothing, shoes, these large companies are organizing that.”

I think what is amazing is that all these people want is a change of clothes, food, a shower, and a place to sleep. Not too hard in this day and age. THe more difficult questions of jobs and perminant housing will be answered later.

Worse than humans, of course. If thousands of humans died, then tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of pets have likely died, due to flooding, starvation, etc. A CNN story somewhat deals with it. I am not sure i would leave without my pets.

Update: Whole pet stores have needed rescue. The SPCA is working hard but has only rescued 600 hundred pets so far. Thousands are likely trapped and dying/dead.

Update2: Another pet story here

Lots of stuff at the dome blog Surprising, the media is not being allowed inside the dome or allowed interviews with the evacuees.

Today at church there was alot of stuff on the hurricane survivors. THe pastor said it was worse than what we see on TV, which is hard to imagine. He also said the church is mobilizing volunteers from the parish. First we have to be trained by the red cross. So i'll see if i can do that. Apparently the training is an hour long video; i heard that from someone else.

Anyway things are getting better slowly.

I think they deserve most of the criticism directed towards them. What have they done? Very little. From an interview with the FEMA head Chertoff.

"That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight," Chertoff said.

He called the disaster "breathtaking in its surprise."

But engineers say the levees preventing this below-sea-level city from being turned into a swamp were built to withstand only Category 3 hurricanes. And officials have warned for years that a Category 4 could cause the levees to fail.

This is just not true. I've read and linked plans and predictions of what would happend if a cat 5 hit New Orleans. The man is an idiot and a liar.


Brandon Loy agrees with me, or I with him. Something must be done with FEMA. The budget must be increased, or the agency should be scrapped all-together. But you know what, knowing the bush admin, they will refuse to admit anything, and they will obfusercate. Has Bush ever asked pointd questions of his lackeys? No, i don't think so. Even George 'slam-dunk' Tenet, he gave a medal to.

Update; The Times-Picayune, who continued coverage of the hurricaine in New Orleans, had this to say to the president in today's editorial.

Despite the city's multiple points of entry, our nation's bureaucrats spent days after last week's hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city's stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.

Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

Mostly.

The Louisiana Superdome and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center have been emptied of evacuees, state police officials said Saturday night.
While hundreds of people still gathered outside the two facilities at any given time, officials said they were arriving on foot to await transportation out of the city.

Update: This is good news

Even though streets are strewn with storm debris, some neighborhoods remain flooded and almost homes all lack electricity and drinking water, Jefferson Parish residents will be allowed to return Monday at 6 a.m., Parish President Aaron Broussard reiterated Saturday, despite widespread skepticism from state and other parish officials.

I've been hearing ancedotes about how poorly refugees were treated in Baton Rouge. Here's one story.

We showed up about 9am this morning, five graduate students including myself who got together. We joined a heavy stream of volunteers. When we showed up at the AstroArena, we joined literally thousands of people who showed up, wanting to help. After an hour of waiting and nothing happening, we headed to the George R Brown convention center. They were taking donations directly, blankets, bedding, clothing, etc. One part of the huge convention center was packed with food and sorted, donated items. Another part had set up air mattresses or regular matresses. Our small group helped set up a bunch of matresses and fit them with bedding. We left after a few hours when things slowed down, as we left the scene was very busy, the downtown area was jammed with cars containing volunteers and donations. For people to be able to bring items directly to those who need it was so helpful. At the astrodome the red cross was turning away anyone who wanted to donate food, items, whatever. They also turned away volunteers until late thursday. Anyway it was surprisingly organized, and I was overwealmed by the huge turn out, I think the majority of the city has mobilized to get these people what they need. Our city has 4 million people, if everyone donated one hour of time, or one can of food, or one article of clothing, that would make a huge difference. I plan to come back at some point to help feed people, maybe on monday. We (grad students) will be doing this for a while, we are in for the long haul, which we know all about.

Because, you know, leaving them at the convention center and Superdome is almost like a death sentence. And blaming the old, sick, or poor for not evacuating is like blaming your dog for peeing on the rug when you forget to let him out.

Then theres this photo: thousands of school buses sitting in a lot, now ruined. Why weren't they used? I suspect because the City of New Orleans did not have anywhere else to take their citizens, officially. Another huge communication failure at the local, state, and federal level.

From the dome blog

A doctor told Bryant some people have died on those buses.

Makes sense. Lack of medical care, food, water, for 5 days will do that.

I saw a steady stream of ambulences from the dome to the med center yesterday, it was still going on at midnight, probably all night. There's also a huge MASH style hospital at the reliant center I guess. I think the officials are wondering how they are going to cram 25,000 people in there. Who gave that figure? Did they check with anyone before doing so? It's disgraceful to say, we'll take in 25k, but then stop at 11k. What about the other 14k people? What will they do?

Out in the parking lot, dozens of buses filled with more evacuees are waiting to unload. Bryant says Harris County Tax Assessor Paul Bettencourt said as many as 18,000 people may be on the grounds by noon.

I guess they are changing their minds now. I'm surprised the streets around the dome are even clear, to be honest.

Here

Of course it's the MSM (Houston Chronicle). Of course they are just distributing info. I somewhat wanted to blog it, but limited access and time. I'm graduating in three months, and I am spearheading the volunteer effort for the graduate school. I'm not being paid to blog, like some people. I do it because I enjoy it, and don't expect much compensation. Business as usual.

Update: This interesting bit from one blogger who volunteered today.

We rolled into the Dome gates a little after 4 p.m., Ryan Chavez and I, a bottle of water under each arm and no idea where to go. I'd made a couple of phone calls to friends who had plans to go down there earlier and gotten a rough idea, though. East Gate of the Astrodome. Oh man . . . East Gate. If the Astrodome were New York City, the high-traffic West Gate would be its Manhattan, the by-association/necessity crowded South Gate its Brooklyn, the North Gate its ignored Queens/Harlem and the East Gate its Jersey City/East River/no mans land. Geographically, that metaphor makes no sense, but so far as the personality of each gate at the Dome, it would stand to say that nobody likes the East Gate.

I'm going to get a group of people to volunteer tomorrow. But they also need help at George R Brown, which they are setting up as another shelter (i think). So far the MSM hasn't picked up on that yet (thankfully). Looks like 30k+ at the dome site, and probably 15k at George R Brown?

A non-Katrina post. Glenn Reynolds has a huge post between the disparity of chinese and US education. Its huge and not getting better. Quite the opposite. Here's something more pertenent, amount of PhDs in natural science awarded, china vs U.S.



I think when you compare the levels of science funding (where is the chinese data for grants) vs US funding, the difference will be huge, for the US. The amount of degrees awarded from China vs US is huge, for China. So what china is doing is churning out thousands of science degree holders, and they are all flocking here to do research. Meanwhile US citzens are competed out of funding and jobs because of this. THen the chinese (some) go home, and take their learning back to China. Which is fine, since they research is always published in journals that are distributed world-wide, thanks to medline (another US invention, thanks). I don't have a problem with them going back, but I don't like the fact that I have to compete against a million immigrants for funding from my own government, which I am paying taxes for (and they are not, mostly. They do pay a lower rate of income tax, and here in texas there is no state income tax, so I as a homeowner am paying that tax for them).

Anyway the situation isn't black and white, yes they pay some taxes, yes grants are chosen on 'best in class' status, yes, there are required progress reports, but grants are never taken away (unless its a political move), and you don't have to have published research based on what you said in the grant. In other words, I'm am going to study plant X for medicinal properties to cure cancer. Instead, I study plant X because i am interested in the flowering cycle, so I do research on that instead. I still got funding. Next time, I can write another grant, saying I am going to look at plant Y for medicinal properties. There is no mechanism to say 'hey, this person didn't do what they said last time, why should we give them more money'

Grants are based on two principles. 1) Right project for the investigator. Does the investigator have experience in the field. 2) Right investigator for project. Is the project doable, with solid assays and concrete aims to be achieved.

Anyway, enough blogging, to work.

this is almost funny. There is a complete disconnect between what FEMA director Brown knows, and what is going on as reported by the mainstream media.

For example

Security

# Brown: I actually think the security is pretty darn good. There's some really bad people out there that are causing some problems, and it seems to me that every time a bad person wants to scream of cause a problem, there's somebody there with a camera to stick it in their face. ( See Jack Cafferty's rant on the government's 'bungled' response -- 0:57)

# Chertoff: In addition to local law enforcement, we have 2,800 National Guard in New Orleans as we speak today. One thousand four hundred additional National Guard military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 1,400 today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day.

# Nagin: I continue to hear that troops are on the way, but we are still protecting the city with only 1,500 New Orleans police officers, an additional 300 law enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, and other military personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation.

# Lawrence: The police are very, very tense right now. They're literally riding around, full assault weapons, full tactical gear, in pickup trucks. Five, six, seven, eight officers. It is a very tense situation here.

This is not right.

The Houston Astrodome in Texas, where thousands of refugees had been bused over the past couple of days, stopped accepting refugees late Thursday.

However, authorities later decided to process evacuees at the Astrodome and house them in the nearby Reliant Arena, said Patrick Trahan, city spokesman.

I was there last night at midnight, it was a zoo. A few police were in evidence. They claimed to be able to house 25,000 people, they stopped at 11,000. Also, the Red Cross has refused to take any volunteers so far (that I know of). People have been sneaking on to the Astrodome grounds and just showing up. Otherwise, officially, the Red Cross is turning away volunteers, because they are not 'trained'. How much training does it take to hand out food and set up cots? Especially us graduate students. We have, most of us, masters degrees and close to PhDs. What more could they want? Same thing with the Harris County Citizens Corp. Not one peep out of them.

Then there's this:

Federal Emergency Management Director Michael Brown told CNN that federal officials were unaware of the crowds at the convention center until Thursday, despite the fact that city officials had been telling people for days to gather there.

Are they watching the news? I know they have access to the news, because they are doing interviews every few hours, telling 'x zillion amount of aid is rushing there'. What the hell? Why are people dying from lack of food and water? Where is the coordination between FEMA and the city of New Orleans? This is not good enough. THousands have already died, and thousands more will die, today and tomorrow. Hydration is a sserious issue; normal healthy adults can't last more than a few days or a week max without water. It's been 5 days so far, and the vast majority of people haven't received anything. Same things goes for the hospitals.

Meanwhile I'll call around today and see if can put my legion of 50 (fifty) volunteers to work, since our higher ups are sitting on their asses.

Update: St. Vincent de Paul may have some work for us, but i can't get through to their distribution point. Why? Because they open at 10am, and it's only 9:30. Same thing with the food bank; they posted their hours from 9-5, i called at 5:30, no answer. You'd think people would know, you know, it's an emergency. Nope, business as usual.

Also, found this little quip from FEMA, who should be slow roasted I think.

"Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN.

"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," he said.

"And to find people still there is just heart-wrenching to me because, you know, the mayor did everything he could to get them out of there.

Wow. Not only were there no plans to evacuate those without transport, there was no plans to supply these people once they did reach the evacuation points (the SuperDome). So, who sould we roast first, the City of New Orleans, or FEMA? I think it will take decades to rebuild the city, mostly because people will not want to live there anymore, after this fuck up. It's just gauling for these officials to be sitting around, giving interviews, and blaming each other, while people are dying in front of them (literally).

Of course, since he is god, he controls the weather. A compilation of random mutterings from bush-haters everywhere, here.

Richard Bradley, M.D., is a UT doctor who is working in New Orleans, and wrote about the conditions using his blackberry.

I don't have access to the news, so I don't know what you are seeing. Let me just tell you that this is a public health crisis. We have been pulling thousands of people out their locations where they are stranded and surrounded by water.

Read the whole thing. I get different stories from different people. The New Orleans govt says they haven't gotten any help from FEMA, etc. FEMA said they were never told. Dr. Bradley writes that he hasn't seen any local govt officials.

Sounds bad, but it's getting better; tomorrow will see a vast improvement in security as National Guard and active military forces are rushed in. Supposedly the police presence is supposed to double in NO tomorrow.

Just got an system-wide email from the UT people; they claim that there will be volunteer needs this weekend, but so far I haven't been contacted. I wonder if we'll get a 5pm email like what happened last night. So far I am not impressed with the 'coordinating' office of Public Affairs. They make lots of air how they want to run the show, but as the representative of one of the schools, I have heard zero from them, except 'do what you want'. Shrug. So we will. But we must have patience in these times. It will take a while for the clusterf*** to sort itself out.

Interesting story here in the WaPo. It's an interesting psychological distinction. Most stories I've read, and people I've talked to, agree. Taking what you need for basic survival is one thing. Taking TVs, jewelry, etc is another. There is no excuse for that type of behavior and society will not tolerate it.

Found this website (by who?) all about how Houston is helping hurricane victims. Its a source of assistance information for refugees.

United Way also has a disaster website up.

Click2Houston also has data on how to help.

The Houston Foodbank is just telling volunteers to come down.

From the Houston Chronicle

Brett Coomer / Chronicle
Nicole Matthews of Thibodeaux, Louisiana cheers while holding sign that reads ''Thanks Houston from Louisiana.'' In the foreground is Kelly Saragusa with Ashton Carroll, 1, from Metairie. The Houston Comets treated Hurricane Katrina refugees to tickets for Tuesday's game against the Seattle Storm at Toyota Center.

The Superdome refugees are here at the Astrodome, finally. According to the Louisiana governor, only 2,500 people are left at the superdome.

In a press conference Thursday, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said that the number of evacuees in the Superdome was down to 2,400 after busloads left for Houston's Astrodome. Evacuations were ongoing Thursday afternoon.

Wish they would mobilize us to help. I am coordinating graduate students to sort food at the food bank this weekend.

Well, most of the news is bad. This is interesting and not surprising. Canal street, when I visited it last year, was very ghetto. I was afraid for my life walking in broad daylight there. But now a triage center is being setup at the Ritz Carlton on Canal St., admist the looting and anarchy. Things will undoubtedly improve once the water is drained, and once troops come in to secure areas.

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 are 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.

Update: New satillite photos of New Orleans. Abuot 80% is covered. (bad news). 20% is not flooded (good news).

Update: Now we are all saved. Jessie Jackson is in New Orleans.

4:50 P.M. - Rev. Jesse Jackson: "We cannot turn on each other. We must turn to each other." Jackson said he'll be in town as long as he can; maybe five or six days. He asked people to help one another, calling the aftermath of the disaster "a great faith tester."

Not much good news, but some. From WWLTV.

2:06 P.M. - Corps of Engineers: Lake water continues to go down. Dropped two to two and a half feet in the past two days. Work progressing on plugging break in levee. Sandbags dropped and pilings being driven. Engineer says progress is "looking good."

Blanco said 12,000 National Guard troops from various regions in the nation are being deployed to the area, bringing the total number of troops to 40,000. The Governor added that looters will be dealt with. Blanco said Baton Rouge has its own concerns with refugees, who have reportedly been causing similar trouble in the state capital.

The Bush administration intends to seek more than $10 billion to cover immediate relief needs in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, congressional officials said Thursday, and lawmakers made plans to approve the request by the weekend.

Update: As far as I know, no refugees have made it to the astrodome yet.

Update2: This is good news too. There is a huge list of big corps pledging donations.

Abbott, a pharmaceutical and medical products company, has pledged to contribute $4 million, $2 million in cash donations and an initial $2 million in nutritional and medical products to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. Abbott's initial contributions include cases of pediatric and adult nutritional products such as Similac infant formula, PediaSure and Pedialyte nutritional drinks and Ensure and ZonePerfect bars.

Anheuser-Busch said it shipped 12,600 cases of drinking water for the Red Cross to distribute to victims in affected areas of Louisiana.

Update3: Also here at MD Anderson we are on Emergency II footing, and being prepared to handle oncology cases. Memorial Herman is gearing up to accept other cases. It's a tough situation; on one hand many of the hospitals (such as MD Anderson) are completely full, and have no more room, and need the MDs here to treat patients. On the other hand, we're about to get alot more patients.

I am going around tomorrow adn deliverying food and other material items, and have been coordinating these types of efforts all day.

Update4: More good news. I suspect in the days to come there will be more good news than bad. Right now it's more likely 20% good news.

4:47 P.M. - ST. PAUL (AP): A Minnesota manufacturer of power generators is lengthening its shifts and expanding its work force to crank out more machines needed to bring power to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Coleman Powermate of Springfield has already added 20 workers and is looking for more skilled welders, assemblers and metal fabricators to keep the plant running for 22 hours instead of the usual 18.

Plant manager Paul Klimek says the company wants to double the generator output.

Klimek says the demand is endless and every truckload of generators the company producers is heading south to the hurricane area.

The company makes 5,000 and 6,000-watt generators that can provide enough power to run household appliances.

4:45 P.M. - (AP): In a dramatic turnabout, the United States is now on the receiving end of help from around the world as some two dozen countries offer post-hurricane assistance. Click here.

4:40 P.M. - HOUSTON (AP): Some Hurricane Katrina refugees in Houston are getting food, a place to shower — and a chance to go online.

Companies and non-profit agencies are working to give thousands of evacuees at the Astrodome more access to the outside world. Donated computers with high-speed Internet connections are planned as part of the effort described as "Technology For All."

A center is being set up with 40 desktop computers loaded with office productivity software and connected to the Internet.

The sprawling stadium already has a bank of telephones set up. D isplaced residents from the Superdome in New Orleans are getting ten-minute blocks of time to make free local and long-distance calls.

Update5: The troops are coming to New Orleans: (when?)

The military is increasing the National Guard force on the storm-ravaged Gulf coast to 30,000, and 3,000 Regular Army soldiers may also be sent to help end lawlessness in New Orleans, officials said Thursday.

Not at the astrodome. Except that first bus-load, which wasn't official. I just drove by, there are nothing but police and media there. Couldn't tell if any relief agencies were there, I saw a catering truck, and I saw two Red Cross vans going over. Dunno if/when I'll be 'called up' to volunteer.

Update: Things look worse at the Superdome, now 50-60,000 people are there, coming from other sites in the area. No authority over it. May be days until they can start the evacuation; they won't do it until order is restored.

From Mudville Gazette

Generally, an emergency must exceed the management capabilities of local, state and federal agencies before U.S. Northern Command becomes involved. In providing civil support, the command operates through subordinate Joint Task Forces.

Read the whole thing, as they say. The chain of command of all these agencies sure is awkward though. I think FEMA answers to Dept Homeland Security. NORTHCOM answers to the president. But who's in charge of who. How will they not duplicate efforts? Clearly the military are needed though. They should get as many divisions/batallions into affected areas as soon as possible, at least to restore law and order.

Cycling Friends:

The Alkek Velodrome is hosting a disaster relief drive during our Friday Night Races, Sept. 2nd. We are asking the cycling community to stop by the Alkek Velodrome (19008 Saums Road) and donate non-perishable items, can goods, and donations for us to give to the Red Cross. Please come into the infield to drop off your items. The races start at 7 pm and run through 10:30 pm. Even if you are not a competitive racer, please stop by and give what you can.

If any of you have been through a flood or a natural disaster, you know how stressful this time can be. No item is to little to give. It will all add up.

Please pass this email on to your friends. I hope to see you on Friday!

Kathy Volski
Alkek Velodrome Manager
281-578-0693

This is pretty surprising, but good news; from what I heard from FEMA, they weren't expected until tomorrow sometime. Yes, refugee is a shocking word to use in the U.S., as Brandon notes.

Still very little on the CNN website, and from the 1-2 hours of coverage i saw, they weren't evacuating yet. But whatever, things are in flux. Doesn't matter when they show up. I just wonder how long it will take for the relief agencies to start coordinating. Should know something by tomorrow.

Update: Found this on CNN. I think it's just odd that the newscasters don't even know what's going on. Either does the FEMA rep they spoke to tonight. I'll swing by tomorrow and see if i can get some pictures.

Update2: CNN now reports operation suspended, because of shots fired and general lawlessness. They need more troops there. Sad to say, it doesn't surprise me; we took our honeymoon in the French Quarter on Canal St., the people there were very disadvantaged. I also lived through a near-riot after a city-run event; there were supposed to be buses showing up, but no police were there to guide people into proper lines. Things just got out of control until the police arrive an hour later with horses. People were mostly orderly, but the absense of officials made it anarchy. I suspect poor planning/lack of troops is making this situation worse. Yes, the people also share a huge amount of the blame.