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This may be meanspirited of me, but I hope that Rita spares Texas in favor of New Orleans. There is potential for another major city to be devastated, which I think is worse than the same city getting hit twice. Obviously the best case scenario is that a miracle happens and Rita veers somewhere away from land. Maybe my thoughts are misguided, but it's just my opinion.
 
randhail said:
This may be meanspirited of me, but I hope that Rita spares Texas in favor of New Orleans. There is potential for another major city to be devastated, which I think is worse than the same city getting hit twice. Obviously the best case scenario is that a miracle happens and Rita veers somewhere away from land. Maybe my thoughts are misguided, but it's just my opinion.

:huh:

The same city being hit twice??!! By two major hurricanes??!!

:hmm:

I am sure that the people from New Orleans that still cannot go back home do not necessarily agree with you. It also depends on size, New Orleans was a large city and Galveston, which now seems to be the most affected town by Rita, is smaller, so let's hope that damage is more controlled. Houston seems to indirectly affected as well, but there the damage will not be as bad.
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
I can't believe there's another one :sigh:

My heart is breaking for the people who will be affected by Rita. And that might be ALL of us who drive in the U.S., if it damages the oil rigs off the coast of Texas. Top your tank RIGHT NOW if you want to pay the cheapest prices we're likely to see for a while...

I'm listening to streaming audio from a Houston news station (my TV is broken) and people who are trying to evaculate are in the World's Largest Parking Lot right now...traffic is not moving because so many people are on the road, trying to leave.

God, take care of them...

P.S. A radio announcer has just said that a shift in the track of the storm might make it more likely to affect New Orleans.
 
Now they're saying it shifted to the right and Houston and Glaveston are going to lilely escape a direct hit. Um, NO escaped a direct hit too (Biloxi and Mibile got the direct it, and it was also a "shift to the right" from the major city.

At this time (24-36 hrs) before Katrina hit, it was a 145-150 too, down from a 175 to 160. It is shrinking in exact speed and proportion as Katrina. Even if it loses 20=30 MPH before Sat it'll still wreak horrendous property damage hell. There will be a low death toll, but how many will be homeless?

For any Texans on here, hugs...
 
Teta040 said:
Now they're saying it shifted to the right and Houston and Glaveston are going to lilely escape a direct hit. Um, NO escaped a direct hit too (Biloxi and Mibile got the direct it, and it was also a "shift to the right" from the major city.

At this time (24-36 hrs) before Katrina hit, it was a 145-150 too, down from a 175 to 160. It is shrinking in exact speed and proportion as Katrina. Even if it loses 20=30 MPH before Sat it'll still wreak horrendous property damage hell. There will be a low death toll, but how many will be homeless?

For any Texans on here, hugs...

I guess the Coldplay concert for this Saturday near Houston is going to be cancelled if it has not been already. How far inland does the evacuation extend?
 
Up to 20 Dead in Fire Aboard Evacuees' Bus
Sep 23 8:45 AM US/Eastern


WILMER, Texas

A bus carrying elderly evacuees from Hurricane Rita caught fire early Friday on a gridlocked highway near Dallas, killing as many as 20 people, authorities said.

"We believe it's going to be closer to 20 fatalities," Dallas County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Don Peritz said.

NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 9:11 a.m. ET Sept. 23, 2005

DALLAS - A bus filled with 45 elderly Hurricane Rita evacuees from the Houston area caught fire early Friday on gridlocked Interstate 45, leaving at least 24 dead, according to local officials.

"There were 45 souls on the bus ... at this point we believe we have about half accounted for," Dallas County Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Don Peritz. He said early indications were that a mechanical problem caused the blaze and that passengers' oxygen tanks caught fire.

Separately, the Dallas County Fire Marshal's office told NBC News that 24 were killed in the tragedy.

Engulfed
The bus was engulfed with flames, causing a 17-mile backup on a freeway that was already heavily congested with evacuees from the Gulf Coast.

By early Friday morning, the bus was reduced to a blackened, burned-out shell, surrounded by numerous police cars and ambulances.

"The early indications are this is a mechanical issue," Peritz said. "The driver did survive the accident. It's my understanding he went back onto the bus several times to try to evacuate people."
 
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CNN just reported possible levee breach in New Orleans, 9th ward area.:ohmy:

And now they are concerned with people being stranded on highways when the hurricane hits.
 
Yep, I've heard about all that this morning, too.

I believe this would be hell personified, if hell did indeed exist. Can't these people catch any sort of a break?

I really hope that those who are still on the road will be able to find a place to go as soon as possible. Also, may all those who died in that bus fire rest in peace-condolances to their families and friends :(.
 
This is so bad. :(

I have some family in Houston.. cousins... please keep them in your thoughts.

Good Morning. Well, we are hunkered down and ready for Rita. Our yard is bare of anything that could fly, except for the trees. Windows have been taped, water stored in containers and candles ready. They are expecting the high winds this afternoon and then the rains tonight and throughout the morning. We will probably loose electricity as soon as trees start falling over power lines. Amy and the girls went north to Texarcanna. Gregg, Eric will be together, Liz it at Elizabeths, Phil and Deb are at home and we have mom with us here, Danny and Pam are home. Our big worry is the trees and how much damage they could do. We will have one land line phone connected and then our cell phones. Depending on the wrath of the storm, we could be without power for several days. Will let you know how we faired when it's all over. Love to you all. Kathy & Robb
 
Praying for all those affected in Texas.

My sister-in-law was just discharged from the hospital following knee replacement surgery. Two days ago, they started calling hotels in case they left Houston. The nearest available space is near Dallas. I don't think she would survive the car ride.
 
:(

I had no idea knee replacements were that dangerous. Is she on drugs with serious side effects, or is it just that the leg can't tolerate motion?
 
yolland said:
:(

I had no idea knee replacements were that dangerous. Is she on drugs with serious side effects, or is it just that the leg can't tolerate motion?

Confinement in a car would be intollerable. I didn't mean it to sound life threatening.
 
Moonlit_Angel said:
Well, hopefully she can manage to find a way to get someplace safe, nb. Good luck to her, too :hug:.

Angela

Luckily for them, my father-in-law is visiting them. Even at age 73, if something needed to be done, he can find a way to do it.
 
Good luck to your sister in law nbc

:(

Man Who Fled Katrina Shot Dead in Tenn.

By BILL POOVEY, Associated Press Writer

A man who sought safety from Hurricane Katrina in Tennessee was gunned down in the street and died, possibly during a robbery of his Red Cross relief money.

Don Maurice Airline, 24, of Metairie, La., was found on a secluded road with five gunshots to his head. Days before he was killed last week, the Red Cross gave him a debit card worth several hundred dollars.

Detective R. Kenneth Freeman said he knew of no other such killings of Katrina refugees and was sorry the shooting happened in Chattanooga, where the Red Cross, churches and social agencies are helping hundreds who fled Katrina.

Investigators found five handgun shell casings with Airline's body, less than a mile from a Red Cross shelter where he had stayed. Police were investigating whether robbery was the motive; no one has been charged.

Airline's mother, Sheila Airline, described the death as "just senseless."

"For someone to take my child's life, they robbed him. I know they robbed him because the Red Cross gave him money and the detective can't find it," she said Thursday in a telephone interview from Kenner, La.

Her son had left a Chattanooga nightclub with at least two men and a woman hours before his body was spotted early Saturday on a weedy roadside in south Chattanooga, Freeman said.

Sheila Airline, 41, said she went to stay with relatives in Louisiana when she evacuated Aug. 28, while he first went to Houston with some cousins.

"I told him to be careful," his mother said. "I told him, 'You're going to Houston and that's a strange city and you don't know what to expect. You be careful until you get home again."
 
I am sorry to say this, but after Katrina, when all these gov't officials started falling all over themselves to pat each other on the back the day after, about how good a job they did, and then the story changed only after the actual reporters on the street brought us live footage to challenge the official line, I willnever again belewive what ANYBODY says unless I have the visual footage to back it up. And it doesn't matter who is in power.

Yesterday Texas officials said that they were able to safely evacuate all those stranded on highway north of Houston to safety. This was at 6 PM. They said the traffic jams heading east towards Baton Rouge has eased, and I believed that, b/c most people weren't going to La, they were headed north.

Now you tell me...the cars were backed up 100 miles north of the city, (8 lanes wide, remember) and the Pentagon had to fly in gas. This was as of Thurs night, 11 PM, I heard the report. Now you tel me...let's assume a rescue mission had been under way, and they had managed to get 90 miles worth of cars evacuated out of 100. That's still ten miles of cars left by Fri morning. And overnight, let's remember. And remember that the only roads out were the roads leading out from the exits, which would be taken up by rescue personnel. The traffic jam leaving the highway would be as great as that on the highway itself. that would, of course, leave open the only option left: a massive airlift of thousands of people in 24 hrs or less...(assuming each car was filled with families.) How many hundreds or thousands of cars is that? We are talking about a MASSIVE airlift of people. And say there was no need for an airlift. They's all be safely in shelters.

One thing I noticed greatly between Thurs and Fri. The actual location of the live reports. In contrast to Katrina, there were NO reports coming directly from Houston...(mayve a couple), no LIVE pictures/flyovers of the highway taken Friday. And we do not knoe exactly where the shlters are--or if we do, there have been few if any actual intervoews/.reports with evacuees, or from shelters, in contrast to La, where people were talking to people allover the place, and this on Monday, BEFORE the crap began.

Of course the last time I saw the news was last night. I haven't yet today....so by now I've been proved wrong. Maybe we do have live interviews from shelters and live flyovers of the former evacuation route, proving that the cars are empty. Where are the interviews and footage of crowds of people being rescued from their cars? Great stories there. I'd believe it if it were seen--live, AS it happens, and not after, when selecctive footage could be weeded out for public consumption, when it could be the exception rather than the rule.

I'm sure the lessons were learned, and we got the proper response this time. But when you hear officials telling us BEFORE the storm hits saying they were able to get everyone out, I am NEVER trusting them again. I'm not believing one thing they say until a week from now at least. Oh and BTW..I notice the news mentions sick people (almost all of whom are seen white), nursing homes, etc. How come nobody is asking how they got the people who didn't own cars out of Houston? Surely the light rail system wasn't all set aside for the drug dealers, welfare queens and potential looters? I've noticed the only prominent (repeated) feature with a black person in it is a) the lady carrying her dog in a white box and b) a man walking away from a man saying "we've kkown each other too long for you to leave." (I would guess they didn;t know each other very well, from the way the guy waved him off. A black man who loked poor walking away from rescue by a man who sounded white.)

Sorry... I am STILL angry over last month and I haven't forgotten. Excuse my rant..I didn't name names.
 
finally a GOOD story..

Katrina evacuee hits jackpot
After winning $1.6 million, New Orleanean wants a new house

(CNN) -- Jacquelyn Sherman had not had much luck since Hurricane Katrina sent her fleeing from her New Orleans home.

That changed on Tuesday, when the money flooded in.

The 57-year-old retired librarian won $1.6 million playing the slot machine at Evangeline Downs in Opelousas, Louisiana.

When asked how she'd spend the money, Sherman replied, "First of all, I would like to find somewhere to live because my house was destroyed in Katrina."

Sherman has been staying in her sister's three-bedroom home in Opelousas with about 26 other people since Katrina flooded 80 percent of New Orleans and left her homeless.

With $20 in hand, Sherman was en route with her sister to do some shopping when, on a whim, she decided to try her luck at the slots.

"I was on the road to Kmart and decided to stop at the casino," which is around the corner from her sister's home, she told CNN

Seventeen quarters and $4.25 later, she was a millionaire.

"When you first see it happen, you just go dunce," said Sherman, still appearing somewhat dazed by her good fortune.

"You just don't realize what done happened until the person next to you hits you and says, 'Well, you done did it.'"
 
I am happy she won the money.

But I fear the example it sets for others on "their last $20". The allure of instant riches is powerful and destructive.
 
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