Katrina Update
Ultra Laser just called to check in from Baton Rouge, where he and 60,000 others are without power. He was looking for news about New Orleans, since he has only a crappy radio and second hand stories from people in his hotel. He's heard that his suburban neighborhood could be uninhabitable for a good while. I can't imagine that. He's taking it better than I would.
The news I've seen has focused on New Orleans East being underwater. All they're saying about downtown is a maddeningly vague phrase: "total structural failure." I-10 is underwater in places (that happens during bad rain storms, let alone hurricanes). The Superdome lost some of it's roof. Lakeside neighborhoods are underwater.
It's uncomfortably surreal to be typing this as the rain comes down hard here in RI. I can't imagine what it must be like down on the Gulf coast.
August 30th, 2005 at 6:29 pm
yeah, so i reluctantly evacuated on sunday afternoon and spent the subsequent 8 hours driving 70 miles to baton rouge from new orleans. when i woke up on monday morning, we didn’t have power and up until 1 hour ago (about 5:00p on tuesday) we still didn’t have power. 90+ degrees with 90% humidity, pitch black, and my two labs (about 200 pounds worth) and mrs. ultra laser’s infinitely more annoying chihuahua (linus).
i had planned on socially engineering my way back into the city this morning, but got sidetracked and decided to wait until tomorrow or the next day (especially now that there is power again). they are saying it will be weeks or months before it is inhabitable again.
i wasn’t too pleased to hear on the radio the reports of a gang of “at least 100 people” who had stolen limousines and hearses and then broken into a pawn shop and stolen all the guns and knives, then proceeded to loot and rob everyone and everything in sight. that is definitely what i would expect out of new orleans, but i was kind of hoping to be blissfully ignorant of such goings on. additionally, some of the 4000 inmates at orleans parish prison (o.p.p., central lockup) have evidently escaped and are holding everyone inside hostage.
lastly, they have just declared martial law in my parish (that’s basically a county for you heathens), which while promisingly giving people the authority to “shoot to kill” looters, is none too comforting.
well, i’m off to finish “the tibetan book of the dead”, i’ll check in later.
August 31st, 2005 at 4:21 pm
Looting in the face of dire emergency (necessity of food, clothing, etc) is addressed in common law — yeah, hey, I saw Les Miserables — and I can even understand grabbing a long gun to protect the wife and kids.
But you lose me when you filch the big screen and laptop…
August 31st, 2005 at 5:15 pm
I am going to go so far as to guarantee you that the Wal-Mart that just had its gun department cleaned out did not go to protect wives and kids. It’s already been said better than I could say it, so i’ll leave with with some quotes from the news:
“Amid the chaos Wednesday, thieves commandeered a forklift and used it to push up the storm shutters and break the glass of a pharmacy. The crowd stormed the store…”
” …thieves got into the parking garage at one hospital and were stealing car batteries and stereos.”
“New Orleans’ homeland security chief, Terry Ebbert, said looters were breaking into stores all over town and stealing guns. He said there are gangs of armed men moving around the city. At one point, officers stranded on the roof of a hotel were fired at by criminals on the street.”
Folks, there is no excuse for this. These are the kind of animals that should be exterminated from the face of the earth. I too can understand taking food and water, who wouldn’t in that situation. The most frustrating part is that the media is straight out lying to the public about what is going on. They don’t want everyone to get pissed and try and get back into the city to take the law into their own hands and now that Bush is to the rescue, the misinformation can only get worse.
I went out to a bar in Baton Rouge last night and made friends with some NOPD officers who had just arrived from new orleans with their families. They said that they were told to do nothing about the looters because they (the police) were hopelessly outnumbered and that the city was a complete write off anyway. They also told me not to consider going back in on Monday unarmed.
This morning I went to the Academy Sports and a Wal-Mart to look at shotguns, but they have frozen the sale of firearms in Louisiana. I had a conversation with an interesting guy at a pawn shop about how they are letting people (although “people” is not the racial qualifier he used, which wasn’t even accurate because everyone knows it’s the smelly canadians doing all the looting) pilfer guns, but you can’t legitimately buy one. Once again, the criminals are the only ones armed. I was able to legally purchase a Mossberg Persuader pistol grip 12 gauge from Academy after driving three hours out to Beaumont, Texas, and now plan on returning on Monday morning to reclaim my house and to protect my belongings that I work every day of my life to afford.
August 31st, 2005 at 8:58 pm
ps to the national guard and people that don’t know me, i’m just kidding.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:14 pm
Oooh, Ultra Laser, you’re so manly. Kill dem looters.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:37 pm
Had a great beginning of a movie going there, UL…
August 31st, 2005 at 9:56 pm
i was just talking to some people and trying to figure out what’s going to happen when everyone comes home on monday…i mean, we’re talking about “hundreds upon hundreds” of armed people roaming the streets? you think they’re just going to stop when everyone comes into town? yeah right! and everything above was true except for the fact that i’m not going back to town and taking the law into my own hands.
September 1st, 2005 at 1:05 am
I don’t know where you think you’re going on Monday. New Orleans is closed to everyone for at least a month. I saw a satellite pic that showed Metairie looking a little better thank nola, thanks to the Lake Ave canal walls, but I don’t know what a suburb is supposed to do without its city.
I can’t believe how bad it’s getting. Worse every day.
September 1st, 2005 at 10:36 am
Does one of the .com mapping services have up to date pictures? If so, couldn’t someone check to see if their house was aok?