I hope nobody from here lives in New Orleans

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I have to say I'm a little surprised at the lack of response to this thread. This may be the worst natural disaster in American history. It's certainly the worst we have seen in our lifetimes. This disaster is on par with 9/11 and the Tsunami.

We have a major American city in ruins, under martial law, with an evacuation order for everybody to leave. Over a million people have been forced to leave to maybe never come back. If they do come back it will certainly not be the same. And New Orleans didn't even get the worst of the storm. Other smaller cities have been completely flattened.

The ramifications of this disaster are huge.
 
I wouldn't say it's on a par with the tsunami, considering that killed 170,000+ people, but I too am surprised at the lack of responses: not that I'm one to talk, considering I've just been lurking, trying to keep up with the news but a bit too staggered by the enormity to really have much of value to contribute.
 
This is all so incredibly sad:sad:
I just watched a reporter interviewing a man who lost his wife as they were trying to escape to their roof. She told him that he should take care of the children and the grandchildren and disappeared into the water. The reporter was holding back tears as she talked to him. He just kept saying "I don't know what we're gonna do, I just don't know" as a child clung to him and another stood nearby. :sad:
 
Obviously the death toll is not the same due the forewarning and over a million people evacuating beforehand, and thank God for that. But in terms of complete destruction, this is right up there. But now for all those people who have evacuated, everything they have had in their lives is completely gone.

We've got people jumping off the Superdome, looters shooting cops, a major American city in complete chaos and destruction with the National Guard coming in to impose marital law. It is really something that will go down in history. It's going to take billions upon billions of dollars to try to build these cities back up.
 
This is horrible. I really didn't think the storm was that bad....I saw the news covering it but the news always goes overboard with hurricane coverage...the boy who cried wolf.

I live in southwestern Ohio(Dayton), and, while we're far too north to ever be hit by a hurricane, we definitely are getting the remenants...constant rain all day long.

I wish for the best for New Orleans.
 
U2Girl1978 said:
"To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.
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don't even get me started on this "oppressed" bullshit. :|

Axver said:
I wouldn't say it's on a par with the tsunami, considering that killed 170,000+ people, but I too am surprised at the lack of responses: not that I'm one to talk, considering I've just been lurking, trying to keep up with the news but a bit too staggered by the enormity to really have much of value to contribute.
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like chizip said, we had warning. as early as friday (maybe even earlier, but first i heard about this was friday), they were telling people in new orleans to get the hell out.

plus, this is coming from someone who lives around there, you've got a lot of rural areas around there. new orleans is a tourist spot, but has a lot of permanent residents. as far as i know, biloxi and gulfport (the other two hardest hit cities) are mostly touristy towns. and a lot of mississippi is rural areas. once you get a little past the gulf coast, it's pretty rural until you get to jackson, then it gets kinda sparse again until you get to the tennessee border. i'm not too sure about louisiana's population because i've never been there, but i'm pretty sure they've got a bigger statewide population.

for anyone who cares, i wrote an update on katrina in my livejournal. it's not just about new orleans but also what happened in my town. of course we fared a lot better than everyone further south and my heart goes out to everyone who got stuck down there (those who had the chance to leave but didn't, i dunno).
 
I'm really worried about what's going on at the Superdome. Cramped conditions, no power, ungodly heat, stench from sewage, tempers flaring and, yeah, the guy throwing himself off the the second level of the stadium infront of everyone... It's sounds like a pressure cooker about to explode.
 
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I honestly think it's a bit reactionary to be putting the hurricane on the same scale as the tsunami - I don't mean to diminish the severity of the hurricane, not at all (looking at pictures and reading reports has left me speechless), but the tsunami was one of those gigantic once-in-a-lifetime disasters. It impacted multiple countries on both sides of a huge ocean, and worse still, it utterly wiped out some of the world's poorest areas that simply don't have the resources to handle the recovery or deal with the disaster. I certainly wouldn't put the hurricane on that level, and the US has much better infrastructure in place to respond to this.

How this will impact the economy long-term remains to be seen ...
 
shari schultz said:
This is all so incredibly sad:sad:
I just watched a reporter interviewing a man who lost his wife as they were trying to escape to their roof. She told him that he should take care of the children and the grandchildren and disappeared into the water. The reporter was holding back tears as she talked to him. He just kept saying "I don't know what we're gonna do, I just don't know" as a child clung to him and another stood nearby. :sad:
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I just saw that and it brought tears to my eyes. I keep watching and keep thinking about how many thousands of people have nothing left or no home to go to. I'm really afraid that the count of casualties will only go up as the clean up starts. There are still people being rescued from roofs in New Orleans so it makes me wonder how many people were left in their homes.
 
While this may not be as expansive as the Tsunami was and that with the hurricane we did have enough warning to evacuate cities and get people as much out of harms way as possible this is most likely one of the worst natural disasters that we've suffered here in the US so in essence it is our version or at least feels like our version of the Tsunami.
 
Axver is right here. What is happening in New Orleans is absolutely horrible, but putting it on scale with a disaster that killed hundreds of thousands of people in some of the poorest parts of the world with the least amount of resources available to rebuild houses and homes etc. is not appropriate. If we should try to find some kind of comfort right now, it should be in the fact that the U.S., luckily, have the resources to respond to this in the quickest possible way. Although it is, of course, still a horrifying disaster that will haunt these people the rest of their lives.
 
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U2Man said:
Axver is right here. What is happening in New Orleans is absolutely horrible, but putting it on scale with a disaster that killed hundreds of thousands of people in some of the poorest parts of the world with the least amount of resources available to rebuild houses and homes etc. is not appropriate. If we should try to find some kind of comfort right now, it should be in the fact that the U.S., luckily, have the resources to respond to this in the quickest possible way. Although it is, of course, still a horrifying disaster that will haunt these people the rest of their lives.
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i agree, to an extent. i think it's too premature to say whether or not this is on par with the tsunami, really. i mean sure the death toll won't equal that of the tsunami, these cities had the opportunity to evacuate. and yes, we have the means to rebuild moreso than other countries. but still, it hurts the way some are practically dismissing this because it's somehow not severe enough.

however, i wish people would remember new orleans isn't the only city that was hit by this. cnn are in the three worst cities and all three are equally as bad. the cities are just levelled.
 
I'm at a lost for words. It's bring back horrible memories of the aftermath of Andrew. I've lived through this and its something we as Americans just aren't used to, which is part of the problem.

The National Guard really has to step it up. They didn't show up in South Miami for a couple of weeks and basically we all lived by our wits, without electricity or water for 4 weeks. Luckily in our community everyone tried to work together, went looking for water in shifts to share, shared whatever canned food there was. We were also lucky my house wasn't flattened, there were plenty of people around us who didn't even have shelter left.

The problem I see in this situation is that the water hasn't receeded, and it seems to have hit the poorer communities the worst, which makes it different and worse than Andrew.

It makes me really sad to see this.:(
 
It may not be in the scale of the tsunami, but it is an immediate danger to survival for thousands. Perspective can wait 'til the recovery.
 
what makes New Orleans different is that the city is the shape of a bowl, and most of it is under sea level. So when the water breaches the levees its like filling a bowl with water, and there is to room for it to drain. that is why a Hurricane to New Orleans was listed as the third biggest disaster that could happen to the United States.

and now there's more bad news:

Water rising at 17th St. canal

Tuesday, 6:30 p.m.

Mayor Ray Nagin has announced that the attempt to plug a breach in the 17th Street canal at the Hammond Highway bridge has failed and the rising water is about to overwhelm the pumps on that canal. The result is that water will begin rising rapidly again, and could reach as high as 3 feet above sea level. In New Orleans and Jefferson Parish, that means floodwaters could rise as high as 15 feet in the next few hours. Nagin urged residents to try to find higher ground as soon as possible.
 
kellyahern said:


Have they said how they're going to transport the people?
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yeah im not sure. i do know they are bringing in the national guard to help with the evacuations, so i guess theyll load them up into their big trucks...
 
kellyahern said:
Oh great, msnbc is now saying there might be a prison riot in New Orleans :no:.
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i have a bad feeling their could be more riots. there has been looting of sporting good stores with lots of ammo missing. a cop has already been shot, they are bringing in the national guard to confront the looters. this has the making of a bad situation.

this is really the kind of stuff you thought youd only see in a cheesy movie, but now its reality, and it seems like hell down there.
 
kellyahern said:
They said on MSNBC that they're probably going to evacuate all the people who went to the Superdome, and maybe the entire city of New Orleans. Where are they all going to go? :yikes:
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I haven't seen the news in a few hours (working) but will try to catch it at the top of the hour. I did hear they were going to have to evacuate the Superdome due to the damage there. So hundreds of thousands of people (in all areas) are not only displaced for who knows how long, they have nowhere to go, no home to go back to when and if the time comes. The news here, at least CNN has been constant coverage. I cannot even fathom the damage & destruction, even watching it on the news. Can you imagine sitting at your computer or in your house somewhere and within a short period of time, it's filled to the top with water? And not to mention the sewage plants, the animals (snakes, alligators...) that may be around, if they survived. It's utter chaos. The death toll will not be like the tsunami, but the destruction is devastating. Mind boggling. :sad:

and Chizip - you mentioned them setting up camps. Is there any land dry enough for them to do so, or do they have to keep going north or west to do so? I still cannot fathom the depths of this :(
 
>
BREAKING NEWS

Reports of shootings, carjackings and looting in the area near the Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, a policeman tells CNN. More soon.

Jesus christ...this just keeps getting worse and worse. Usually I'm able to be pretty stoic despite the fact that a lot of bad stuff is happening when there's a major natural disaster, but honestly, today I've felt more than once like just crying. It's like a feeling of hopelessness at seeing an entire city being slowly ripped apart, and helplessness of knowing that I'm up here in Canada, perfectly safe in bed, and not being able to do anything.

:sad:
 
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