Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Disaster Updates - Blogs & Resources

I'm getting flooded with hits from people seeking post Katrina info on Slidell and other parts of Southern Coastal Louisiana.

here is info for them & those seeking to help:



photo: An aerial view of New Orleans and its surrounding waterways before & after the the levees broke.
Images courtesy Jeff Schmaltz/NASA Earth Observatory















August 31st, 2005 07:08:06pm

Landsat_Gallery_411_1_full.jpg

Some recent & disturbing news off the N.O based cell phone updated mobile blog known as http://gulfsails.blogspot.com/

here's as breaking news page of NOLA.com and other resources posted below.

As of 11:45 pm NOLA time a large crowds of looters had formed outside the Children's Hospital and were trying to break into the facility. Police and National Guard have been unable to respond. Other Looters were reported earlier in the parking garage at Tulane Hospital.

Hwy 90 still impassable , as of 11:00 pm on Aug 30th some water had receded in Slidell, a town of 25,000 east of NOLA. At the height of the storm Monday, major flooding extended from Lake Pontchartrain Drive through Olde Towne and up to Fremaux Avenue. It has receded in some areas closest to the lake such as Oak Harbor and Eden Isles, with some areas still under 3 feet of water. I-12 is open for traffic as of 3:00 pm Aug 31, but all exits in St. Tammany Parish are blocked.

NEW: Parish access and road information

Find out which roads are out and which parishes are allowing residents to return.







Full WWL Story

WWL KATRINA BLOG: Click for the latest text updates on Katrina

Slidell Mayor Ben Morris estimated that 75 percent of homes in Slidell
sustained some kind of damage. He cautioned residents not to return to the city, saying many roads are still completely blocked off by fallen trees. All entrances to the city are being blocked off by state troopers, who are letting only residents enter the city. Looters have been chased off by armed neighbors in some areas.


Airplane pilots earlier in day on Aug 30 reported corpses floating "everywhere" in areas along the SOLA coast, Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parish . Sharks seen swimming along flooded I-10 roadway in Metairie.

Lower Plaquemines is engulfed in river water with most of the buildings destroyed. At the peak on Monday flood waters turned Chalmette and other towns around it into a continuous lake so deep that rescue boats narrowly passed under street lights...

Local Forums for finding survivors are at



NOLA.com's.
'Town Hall' Forums

Jefferson

Kenner

Orleans

River Parishes

St. Bernard
& Plaquemines

St. Tammany

Mandeville Town Hall

news on Tulane, and 400 students safely evacuated to Jackson State,

Stats: a 50 inch New Orleans city water main is severed as welll as a 200 yard stretch of the critical 17th Street levee. Water was reported up to 25 feet deep just outside the westernmost corner of the French Quarter. Water was rising on the afternoon of Aug 30th an inch every 5 minutes.

Reports have Westwego between 4th street and the Expressway are rather good - with no flooding, minimal wind damage. Westwego between the Expressway and Lapalco, on the other hand, is a different story. The levee back by Bayou Segnette was breached, so that side of Westwego was under water.


The
Louisiana Coastal Government website is inaccessible, but the governer is issuing regular reports out of Baton Rouge. The local news site there is http://www.2theadvocate.com/which includes video clips from WBRZ, such as this story from Slidell.

On Tuesday the N.O P.D were issued hoses to siphon gasoline for emergency vehicles as they run out of fuel.


A large ship loose from Bollinger shipyard sailed upriver & nailed a diesel tanker in Gretna causing 1000's gallons fuel dumping into Mississippi river.


One of the death's at The Superdome was reportedly suicide as a man threw himself over a 2nd floor balcony after warning the people below to "watch out" and then calmly leaping to his death.

Brian Oberkirch, a resident of Slidell, LA, has started a blog to collect information - updates, photos, anything at all - on what’s going on in the disaster zone. He received over 3000 hits on Aug 30th, and well over 10,000 by the next day.

Craigslisters Are Offering Help & Prayers to Katrina's Victims

Craigslist.org, the popular classifieds Web site, has turned into a place where people are offering help and prayers to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. here (a special New Orleans Craigslist page) for information, notices, ways you can help out, etc. as well as the "free" and "volunteer" sections of the Craigslist New Orleans site are filling up with postings like "Free housing for victims.Lost and found section Volunteer section Free section

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Chicago Bulls player Chris Duhon is calling for donations for his hometown of Slidell.

good luck y'all...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Here's another resource: http://connect.castpost.com. This is an easily searchable database of missing and safe persons.

Thanks for compiling the list.