Category / Katrina

by Edward Champion

Katrina Headlines XIV

by Edward Champion

Katrina Headlines XIII

by Edward Champion

Katrina Headlines XII

  • Big Three automakers allow for deferred car loans.
  • Video link: Mayor describes status of New Orleans.
  • WWL blog now reports that widespread looting is going down, people grabbing racks of clothes, electronics, whatever they can.
  • Another resource from Michelle (if I haven’t mentioned it already): Eyes on Katrina.
  • The figure now for people in the Superdome is 20,000.
  • From Joshua Marshall: “Jeff Parish President. Residents will probably be allowed back in town in a week, with identification only, but only to get essentials and clothing. You will then be asked to leave and not come back for one month.”
  • What’s the airport situation? According to the Times-Picayune, it’s only open for emergency power and rescue-related efforts. And even this may stop. Also, as widely reported, the Times-Picayune Building has been evacuated.
by Edward Champion

Katrina Headlines XI

by Edward Champion

Post-Katrina Update

I didn’t realize that the fantastic Susannah Breslin had moved to New Orleans, but I’m thankful to learn from Xeni Jardin that she’s safe. As suggested here repeatedly, donating to the Red Cross is among the best things you can do right now to help out.

At the present time, the French Quarter is battered but not broken. But as Rory notes, one of BT’s friend has reported that a levee has burst and water from Lake Pontchartrain is causing the flooding to rise. With the machinery to pump out this water now out of commission, it appears that what we all feared is now, in fact, happening. CNN reports that 80% of the city is flooded and some areas are now under 20 feet of water — much higher than the initial Katrina strike. Not good at all.

[UPDATE: Kathryn Cramer has several before-and-after photos up.]

by Edward Champion

The Last on Katrina

So all things considered, it turned out much better than projected. Katrina is now a Category 3 storm. New Orleans will survive. The loss of life appears to be minimal. There are floods, corrupted water mains and reconstruction will be a bitch and a half (and then some). But New Orleans will survive in some form. And this is the important thing.

With this in mind, we return to the quotidian, our hearts extended to a beautiful city and its population. We never got a chance to visit but we will someday.

by Edward Champion

New Orleans — Flood Status

Current report from Jon Donley: “Dispatchers questioning officers on the scene, trying to determine if there is a break in the river levee, or if water is pouring over the top. Independently, NOLA has received a flooding alert for the French Market area. Fairly heavy street flooding in front and behind the Times-Picayune . . . water appears about knee deep, whipped by the steady wind into whitecaps and breakers. Water is hubcap deep on the furthest vehicles in the employee parking lot, and rising quickly.”

by Edward Champion

Katrina Headlines X

  • Storm surge from broken levee? At present, inconclusive. NPR reports that the streets are not yet flooded.
  • Local coverage: 125 mph winds, some first-person accounts suggest that the streets of New Orleans are not flooded, but these assessments come from hazy views from high-rise hotels.
  • Metafilter down.
  • FEMA enters disaster mode.
  • There are at least two major holes in Superdome’s roof.
  • CNN reports one of local districts is six feet underwater.
  • National Weather Service reports “total structural failure.”
  • Oil now over $70/barrel.
  • I will report here later in a couple of hours, when I have more reliable information to go by.
by Edward Champion

Katrina Headlines V

  • CNN: “We need to recognize we may be about to experience our equivalent of the Asian tsunami, in terms of the damage and the numbers of people that can be killed.”
  • Katrina hits land with 145 mph winds. Electrical power at Superdome failed at 5:02 AM EST.
  • From Jon Donley: High rise windows blowing out, building collapses perhaps with people inside, somehow still power to blog from Times-Picayune building.
  • Louisiana Governor Blanco: Too early to assess damage, casualties.
  • Newspaper account from inside the Superdome.
  • Building codes in New Orleans not up to snuff.
  • Katrina so powerful that Florida panhandle hit with 46 mph winds.
  • Couple spends thousands on limo to get out of town.
  • Beyond money, Red Cross needs phone volunteers.
  • CNN IS NOW REPORTING THAT A PORTION OF THE SUPERDOME IS STARTING TO PEEL AWAY. (However, Superdome was constructed with multiple layers.)
  • Jeff offers his rememberances.
by Edward Champion

Katrina Headlines IV

  • Major spike in water level at Lake Pontchartian.
  • Instapundit uses the hurricane footage as an excuse to get into a personal pissing match. Classy, Reynolds.
  • Local coverage: 15,000 people are trapped on I-10 behind an accident.
  • More great coverage at Storm Digest and Brendan Loy.
  • Endless tales of people stubbornly staying at the French Quarter.
  • More live blogging.
  • KHOU: If the eye passes over the high-rise buildings, the windows will blow. Regardless of this, the buildings will sway. People secured in central ballrooms, often on third floors. All gabled roofs will fail.
  • More resources from About Last Night.
  • Also of note: Times-Picayune reporter Jon Donley, trapped in the Hurricane Bunker.
by Edward Champion

Katrina Headlines III

  • New Orleans price gouging going on. (Interestingly enough, in light of recent Alabaman law.)
  • KHOU: Damage now in Grand Isle. Wind gusts 80 mph. No electricity.
  • Another perspective on the Superdome.
  • Wikipedia entry now up.
  • KHOU: Hotels are not honoring reservations throughout state. Apparently, lots of hucksters trying to take advantage of emergency.
  • Functional webcam with live wet image of Bourbon Street. Here’s another one left on.
by Edward Champion

Katrina Headlines I

  • According to this live feed from WDSU, 10,000 people are at the Superdome with the National Guard and meals to spare. The Superdome management, which states that the walls will withstand 200 mph winds, claims that the Superdome will stand up. Others are not so sure.
  • A first-person account from a local from Pat O’s.
  • Dr. Jeff Masters: “This is an incredibly large eye for a storm with a pressure this low, and makes me very uncertain about what intensity fluctuations Katrina may undergo in the next few hours before landfall. I see nothing to change the label of “catastrophic” for Katrina at landfall.”
  • Katrina has potential to leave 1 million homeless.
  • Oil now shooting past $70 a barrel. Area that Katrina hits crucial to U.S. energy infrastructure.
  • When Cafe Lafitte closes, “you KNOW its bad.”
  • Phone post from LiveJournal user ZeldaKitty.
by DrMabuse

Shorties

And the Whitbread goes to Mark Haddon’s The Very, Very Curious Incident of the Dog Who Was Let Out by the Baja Men in the Morning, Afternoon and Night Shortly After He Was Fed His Meal, which I’ve been meaning to read. Except I can never remember the exact title.

David Mamet is insane.

I didn’t realize the Alexander McCall Smith/Irvine Welsh thing had legs, but even in Scotland, they need their “bag of bones”/”entertainment not literature” Vidal/Mailer in-fights.

Andy Hamilton won’t write for BBC1. Hamilton claims that Auntie Beeb has pressured a writer to remove lesbian characters from a script to “incorporate the conservative tastes of focus groups.”

Modern Humorist: “Where are all the R’s? Is it a typographical error? Does the writer simply not like R’s? Or are there mysterious deeds at play, and are the R’s somewhow involved?”

Birnbaum talks with Jonathan Lethem. Birnbaum even gets Lethem to fess that Laura Miller is “making a contribution to literary journalism.” Birnbaum also shoots the goofy gale with Neal Pollack. Among the revelations: “[Eggers] said he didn’t want me along because my stuff was much more confrontational and in your face and aggressive and loud and profane. He wanted to take McSweeney’s in a more respectable direction. And then one day I woke up and my link was off the site. And I wasn’t a McSweeney’s guy anymore. Overnight. My main conduit for communicating over the Internet had been removed, so I had to start my own site.”

And The Chronicle has apparently reached a settlement with Henry Norr.

[1/23/06 UPDATE: It is quite likely that the Henry Norr story will be slipped under the rug. But I think it stands as a remarkable testament as to how a journalist’s outside activities are controlled to a great extent by his employer. As the newspapers continue to cut the coverage and eventually begin to drop, I am wondering if they’ll become even more controlling. Henry Norr, happily, is still writing — largely for online outlets. He can be found contributing reports for Macintouch and is still actively filing no-bullshit Macworld reports from the front lines.]