I Wish You All the Best. (Off-topic)

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse

Ouch. Where was that taken, SpaceMouse?

uspscsx

[claycts]

Our company is sending our car carrier full of botteled water to LA, if it can bet there, if not we will make the drop at the closest relief center. (28ft carrier holds 350 cases of water all donated).
God speed to all in the area.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dthurman

I just spoke to a friend in Shreves Port, they are far enough away that they didn't get any damage, though he said that their DSL is out, since it comes out of New Orleans. Which is odd??

Not really -- DSL lines usually feed to a central PoP (Point of presence), which is their actual connection to the internet backbone. New Orleans has a couple of PoPs, and with the power and phones down, the PoPs are down.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jsalemi

QUOTE: Originally posted by dthurman

I just spoke to a friend in Shreves Port, they are far enough away that they didn't get any damage, though he said that their DSL is out, since it comes out of New Orleans. Which is odd??

Not really -- DSL lines usually feed to a central PoP (Point of presence), which is their actually connection to the internet backbone. New Orleans has a couple of PoPs, and with the power and phones down, the PoPs are down.

I realize the POP coming out of New Orleans, just odd that their ISP in Shreves Port which I think is a few hundred miles away wouldn't have a redundant line or POP from another area, though when I had a hosting company, 2 of our POPs were in Chicago, I dropped one and went with a company having a St Loius POP, just for that sort of problem.

Is all phone service also out in New Orleans?

[SpaceMouse]

QUOTE: Originally posted by uspscsx

QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse

Ouch. Where was that taken, SpaceMouse?

uspscsx

Miami.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse

QUOTE: Originally posted by uspscsx

QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse

Ouch. Where was that taken, SpaceMouse?

uspscsx

Miami.

Miami, as in back when she was only a Category 1 or 2? Holy COW! There must have been a big gust, I've never seen a 1 or 2 do that before! Nice pic.


uspscsx

[UPJohn]

My prayers go out to all who had to suffer through this hurricane. It is devastating to lose everything like thousands of people have now. I heard there is only one way in to New Orleans now and the water's rising.

[Anonymous]

If I'm not mistaken, I just went to CNN, Buloxi is harder hit as from what a friend told me today, huricanes turn in a counter clockwise manner, so normally the east side of the huricane is the strongest (I don't know this as fact) and that Mississippi was hit hardest from all this. Reading some of the stories it is gut wrenching. Wow. [:(]

I will also add you folks into my prayers. God Bless...

[dave9999]

David,
You are exactly right... in most cases. This one was no different. The north-east corner of
a hurricane is usually the worst. That is why Pensacola was "spared" during Dennis. The
storm took a quick turn to the east, hitting just to the east of town. We had a lot of damage,
but not as much as if it had hit to the west of town.

As for Biloxi, they are in pretty bad shape. We go over often for the weekend. I guess we won't
be going for awhile. The new Hard Rock Hotel and Casino was set to open next week... now
they have to totally rebuild. And the residents, a good many of them, are employed by the casinos.

A hurricane can damage more than property. They can change your entire way of life. The people
of New Orleans won't have a normal life for years to come. Kinda sad when you think about it.
Good luck to everyone who wasn't as lucky as some of us were. Dave

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dthurman
I realize the POP coming out of New Orleans, just odd that their ISP in Shreves Port which I think is a few hundred miles away wouldn't have a redundant line or POP from another area, though when I had a hosting company, 2 of our POPs were in Chicago, I dropped one and went with a company having a St Loius POP, just for that sort of problem.

Is all phone service also out in New Orleans?

Not really -- when I first hooked up with Speakeasy a couple of years back, my POP was 400 miles away in NYC. They only put up their DC POP about 3 years ago.

And from the latest reports, it looks like phones, power, pretty much everything will be out in NO for quite some time. Now they're talking about forced evacuation of the whole city. It's our favorite vacation spot, and it's really heartbreaking to see what's going on down there. I fear the death toll is going to be VERY high.[:(] And its going to take years for the city and its people to recover from this.

[rexhea]

Finally got power back. 26 hour outage wasn't bad considering all the downed lines in West Alabama (62,000 households still without power in this area alone). Amazing how so dependent we are on electricity. We have a lot of trees down all over Tuscaloosa and to the West and they don't expect to get our area completely restored until the weekend.

I know we didn't catch half of what the coast did, but fellows, it still was really rough. I have tree limbs down all over the yard as big around as your leg. Some hit the house and the depot, but I don't think it hurt the roofing.

My Brother-in-law is a Deputy Sheriff in Biloxi and we still haven't been able to contact him or his family. He lives about 5 miles from the water.

Screw political correctness: Lets all pray for those that have suffered so greatly.

REX

[selector]

A terrible event to live through. I can remember my Grandma telling me of the great New Liskeard fire when she was a teenager (1920's, northern Ontario). hundresd of square miles of forest burned, and she and her sisters had to huddle in a lake with wet blankets over their heads for several long hours.

Anyway, I agree that New Orleans and environs will not return to normal, perhaps ever. People will adapt to a new way of doing things to some extent.

I was dismayed to see all the looting. If one is afraid and fears starving, or has no water, I could see taking what I needed. But the looting in the French Quarter with all of the 'high-end' stuff being ripped off is simply opportunism with its best foot forward.

I hope the Red Cross gets what it needs in the way of resources.

[Anonymous]

Yea, the looting is nuts -- what are they going to do with TVs and stereos? And what's even more nuts is the attempted car-jackings -- where the h$$l do they think they're going to go in the car? It's a shame that in times of extreme adversity, a small minority of folks just become no better than animals, making us forget all the good people risking life and limb to save and help out others.

[jacon12]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rexhea

Finally got power back. 26 hour outage wasn't bad considering all the downed lines in West Alabama (62,000 households still without power in this area alone). Amazing how so dependent we are on electricity. We have a lot of trees down all over Tuscaloosa and to the West and they don't expect to get our area completely restored until the weekend.

I know we didn't catch half of what the coast did, but fellows, it still was really rough. I have tree limbs down all over the yard as big around as your leg. Some hit the house and the depot, but I don't think it hurt the roofing.

My Brother-in-law is a Deputy Sheriff in Biloxi and we still haven't been able to contact him or his family. He lives about 5 miles from the water.

Screw political correctness: Lets all pray for those that have suffered so greatly.

REX

Rex, glad to see you made it through ok. When I saw it was still a hurricane even after it got a piece inland I figured you were going to really catch it. Even this far to the east (middle Georgia), we had tornados. Two touched down about 15 miles to my west and several storms came through with tremendous straight line winds. I can't EVEN imagine riding out a Cat 5 hurricane. Don't even want to go there!
Jarrell

[dave9999]

After watching the fly over video of Biloxi, we were in disbelief. The is a town that we have
visited so many times... In the video we could see so many things that we reconized, destroyed.
The footage of Casino Magic on the opposite side of the street was amazing. This storm
moved the entire casino more than 200 yards.

And the houses that we had driven by were just piles of lumber and glass. The lady who had
returned to her apartment building only to find it leveled was sad. To make things worse, she
had left her dog a home. It's the personal stories that I hear that really make this a tragedy.
One young girl, I think she was 20, said she was so concerned with saving her expensive
posessions(tv, dvd player) but now she just wished she had saved her photographs.

The people digging through the rubble just trying to find any of their personal belongings really
hit home. Where are the people of Biloxi and New Orleans going to go? I know that there is
already a housing shortage here in Pensacola. And citys like Mobile Al and Jackson Ms can't
hold them all. I mean, they are evacuating the ENTIRE city of New Orleans... These folks have
to go somewhere. It was also surprising how many people chose to stay in the city. Now they
have to get them out.

Did anyone see the Nightline special last night... sad. Good luck, Dave

[Anonymous]

Not to change the subject matter but I hope our government and other disater agencies can learn from this and have some better plans in place for the terrible and unforseen future that could be in store for some of us in the US and even British cities from all the potential terrorism attacks that could end up being equal to the scale of New Orleans, Biloxi and surrounding areas.

I don't watch TV but do listen to the radio and grab news off the Internet, but just seeing those pictures and descriptions of the damage is tremendous [:(]

[SpaceMouse]

On a simi-related topic--not to downplay the devistation--but gas prices at my corner gas station were $2.49 on Sunday, $2.61 on Tuesday, and $2.91 this morning. CNN market analysts expect this to be a short term trend that our rising encomomy can weather.

[grandeman]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rexhea

Screw political correctness: Lets all pray for those that have suffered so greatly.

Well said, Rex. I'll second that.

Glad to hear your home wasn't damaged. We came thru ok, just strewn debris and power outage.

Hopefully the folks in the costal towns can put their lives back together once again. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse

On a simi-related topic--not to downplay the devistation--but gas prices at my corner gas station were $2.49 on Sunday, $2.61 on Tuesday, and $2.91 this morning. CNN market analysts expect this to be a short term trend that our rising encomomy can weather.

Chip

Our local talk radio show stated 2.94, I saw a 30¢ jump yesterday morning, I left at 8 Am to take some train pictures figuring I would gas up after taking shots, and on my return to the same gas station it went from 2.53 to 2.85, in a matter of 40 minutes :( I was a little miffed at myself for not fueling up then.

[Anonymous]

I saw a site to make donations for the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, and wanted to pass this along.
Over on Fark.com, one of the regular members has a website up to collect Paypal donations for Americares Domestic Relief fund. Every cent goes to this relief fund and Americares has stated that everything from this site will be going to the Huricane Katrina relief effort. They raised over $9000 for the tsunami relief fund.
If you want to donate, that's great. If you don't want to, that's fine.

http://writerscafe.net/donations.html

If you want to read the comments about this site, go to Fark's page
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1645834

Kevin

[Anonymous]

My brother in law was injured Monday night helping his emergency response team pack up to head to the Gulf coast. He fell off a packing crate and may need knee surgery but I know he is more upset that he will not be going with his unit.

On September 12, 2001 they flew to New York and stayed until after Thanksgiving and they went back a month later when the airplane crashed in New Jersey. You never heard them mentioned on any news broadcast but you may have seen them working in the background.

I am proud of him and his unit, they are doing a needed job that I never could. Here is a link to the groups web page. http://www.dmort.org/. My brother-in law is pictured several times on the site but I am not joint to single him out, the whole group deserves thanks.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by bukwrm

My brother in law was injured Monday night helping his emergency response team pack up to head to the Gulf coast. He fell off a packing crate and may need knee surgery but I know he is more upset that he will not be going with his unit.

On September 12, 2001 they flew to New York and stayed until after Thanksgiving and they went back a month later when the airplane crashed in New Jersey. You never heard them mentioned on any news broadcast but you may have seen them working in the background.

I am proud of him and his unit, they are doing a needed job that I never could. Here is a link to the groups web page. http://www.dmort.org/. My brother-in law is pictured several times on the site but I am not joint to single him out, the how group deserves thanks.

[wow], I could never do a job as hard as that, he must have a pretty strong resolve to be able to face what he sees on assignments like that, dealing with the families etc. [wow][wow][wow][angel][bow]

[Anonymous]

I heard that people were shooting at helicopters trying to transport people out of the Superdome. Amazing how idiotic some people are.

uspscsx

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by uspscsx

I heard that people were shooting at helicopters trying to transport people out of the Superdome. Amazing how idiotic some people are.

uspscsx

I didn't hear that one [V], I did hear that FEMA and maybe the Red Cross pulled out of some areas because of shooting, I think it had something to do with food deliveries, I mean what is wrong with some of these people, I understand the desperation, but I think some have crossed over to the dark side, this almost sounds like "BlackHawk Down" in the beginning of the movie, or worse yet, some really bad scary movie... It's only a matter of time and we will be hearing about Nat. Guard units getting into some scrapes, and if these are any of the returning Iraq troops, I feel sorry for the looters [:D]

Sorry for digressing, just amazes me when people are in a bad spot how some will take advantage of the situation.

[SpaceMouse]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dthurman

QUOTE: Originally posted by uspscsx

I heard that people were shooting at helicopters trying to transport people out of the Superdome. Amazing how idiotic some people are.

uspscsx

I didn't hear that one [V], I did hear that FEMA and maybe the Red Cross pulled out of some areas because of shooting, I think it had something to do with food deliveries, I mean what is wrong with some of these people, I understand the desperation, but I think some have crossed over to the dark side, this almost sounds like "BlackHawk Down" in the beginning of the movie, or worse yet, some really bad scary movie... It's only a matter of time and we will be hearing about Nat. Guard units getting into some scrapes, and if these are any of the returning Iraq troops, I feel sorry for the looters [:D]

Sorry for digressing, just amazes me when people are in a bad spot how some will take advantage of the situation.

It has come close. One guy opened fire on the National Guard as they were trying get to the Convention Center and they were ready to return fire but could not get a bead on the guy. When they got inside, people were shooting through the windows. It's just a matter of time.

[randyaj]

I heard a commentary today on a local radio station (Des Moines), where the commentator called these folks "terrorists". His reasoning was that the only way that these people could keep their power (looting and such) was to keep others in fear of them. I would have to agree with him. If one ever wonders if there is a dark side to the human equation, this would remove the doubt. To shoot at helicopters that are there for humanitarian relief, rescuing people, delivering food and water is evil. Are people desperate, hungry, dirty, some without hope, sure but that is no justification for shooting at the rescuers. I know that it is easy to sit at a computer with power, food to eat and water to drink, and a dry bed to sleep in, but this is how I see it.
just my two cents
Randy Johnson

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by randyaj

I heard a commentary today on a local radio station (Des Moines), where the commentator called these folks "terrorists". His reasoning was that the only way that these people could keep their power (looting and such) was to keep others in fear of them. I would have to agree with him. If one ever wonders if there is a dark side to the human equation, this would remove the doubt. To shoot at helicopters that are there for humanitarian relief, rescuing people, delivering food and water is evil. Are people desperate, hungry, dirty, some without hope, sure but that is no justification for shooting at the rescuers. I know that it is easy to sit at a computer with power, food to eat and water to drink, and a dry bed to sleep in, but this is how I see it.
just my two cents
Randy Johnson

I agree with you Randy. It is terrible that the relief workers, our troops, and the truly needing are in harms way. I wasn't aware of some of the sick things these people are now doing. I for one say materialistic looter, should be shot on site. A women takes diapers, I say she has a first class ticket out for her and her child, but TV's and such. Drop them where they stand. Let's hope that a gator or snake will start getting some of the bad ones. Bad thing to think, but sometimes mothernature helps also even things out. I am worried that these people shoting may start attacking those trying to survive by taking their water/food/clothing for them selves. I am sure these types are already selling any food type items to the needy. This is almost like waterworld the movie [V]

[Anonymous]

They'er some ‘sad’ folks (the gunmen). I'm not going to wish death on them, I just wi***hey would get caught.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by verse2damax

They'er some ‘sad’ folks (the gunmen). I'm not going to wish death on them, I just wi***hey would get caught.

I think if they want to live by the sword, they should die by the sword. Do you think they wouldn't shot you or me if they saw a gain in it? I think the animal instinct is coming out in some of these looters. It is anarchy day for them. They feel rules and laws are not applied to them. Arrest them? I can see it now, some attorney will use a defense of temp insanity or some other worthless defense and turn the blame back on us. Sorry but this is were we start to see some people (looters) for who they truly are.

[SpaceMouse]

I have no doubt drugs are involved.