arminnie
<font color=blue>Tossed the butter kept the gin<br
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2003
- Messages
- 9,064
I just talked to one friend who stayed for the hurricane. Three adults in a home uptown. No problem with the storm - some shingles came off.
I don't think they were going to leave then, but a friend from Baton Rouge called at 11:30 pm (which means the phones were working) and told them that they might close the last bridge to get out.
So they packed up and left at 1 am, spent a couple of nights in Baton Rouge and then moved to another location.
Their house is okay. They will return when water and power return.
Another friend has a condo near city park - an area which had major flooding. She was on the second floor and a resident who stayed went in and checked, and said it was okay. Two people from the condo stayed. Looters tried to get in but they turned them back. There's a housing project about 2 blocks away.
An airboat came to get them and told them that they would not come back for them if they didn't leave then. They were taken to Baton Rouge and managed to get to other locations from there.
I found this report on the net:
"I received the following e-mail from a friend, a Garden District resident, who drove through the area on Friday. Here's the e-mail:
On Friday, I personally drove through parts of the city. They were dry
and the main roads were passable. Side streets were filled with branches. Homes did NOT appear to be looted. Mine was safe. They streets were:
River Road from Jefferson through New Orleans to the levee;
Magazine Street from the levee to Louisiana Avenue;
Louisiana Avenue from Tchoupitoulas to St. Charles;
St. Charles from Louisiana to Washington Avenue;
Chestnut street was blocked by a branch from the Magnolia tree in front of my builiding between 4th and Washington, but was otherwise undisturbed; Tchoupitoulas was clear from Louisiana through the elevated expressway (#90, Miss. Riv. Bridge).
I only caught a quick glance of the following businesses, but they looked
intact:
Whole Foods on Magazine Street looked intact without broken windows although the main front glass doors were open so obviously food had been taken. There was an orderly stack of cantaloupes piled in front of the window, however, so perhaps things were not thrown around.
Commander's Palace looked great!
Joey Bonhage's studio looked okay from the front with the boards in place.
Touro and Kindred Hospitals were okay and occuppied by the National Guard.
West Jefferson Hospital was fine. Bustling as a matter of fact.
The West Bank around W. Jeff Hospital looked wind-blown, but dried by now. Their flooding was, in places, fairly shallow and disappeared in a day, I was told by report at the W. Jeff hospital. Lots of people are driving in and out of the W. Bank as long as they have businesses or are doctors and come in the daylight and have some official business there. They can check on their homes and pick up possessions.
One person personally told me he went up through the northern part of the city around the lake and it was intact, but they definitely brought weapons to protect themselves. His boat business was intact.
My observation is that the west and southern part of the city (Uptown) is
windblown, but dry. Not too much damage by my eye (I only quickly glanced at the side streets as we rushed through by car). In fact, that part of the city was only affected by the hurricane so it is fine. It is not lawless there at all. The National Guard is there and our police are very tired, very hot, thirsty, but they are very relieved. The parts of the city that are flooded are a different different world. They are lawless. That is
where the lawlessness is. In the flooded portions of the city. So, my
observation is that the greatest damage to New Orleans has resulted from the flooding which in turn unleashed the lawlessness and, as such, makes this a man-made catastrophe.
One more thing:
Satellite phones do not work there. Neither the cops nor the reporter's sat phones worked. Cell phones did not work per se. Only text messaging between cell phones works. (Keep on your 504 area code cell phones even now because people can get through to you if you can receive those messages.) The lack of communication facilitated the devastation because it increased the confusion. People are in limbo because they cannot re-establish their comumunity without communication. Seeing the devastating impact of this lack of communication on our city and our region, I now see that OMMUNICATION IS A HOMELAND SECURITY ISSUE. This is one of the first major issues that the dis-organizedl homeland security department should be addresssing at a NATIONAL LEVEL.
The second major issue is power. Without it, the unrelieved darkness
facilitated the disorder. Especially in the flooded areas. One of my
refugee patients told me that in the flooded area of New Orleans East, the
night was so, so dark that they could not see even with the flashlights on.
It was as if the water absorbed the light and made it darker. Instead of
vision, what really became acute was his hearing. He could hear every drop of water, every splash. That is what guided him on those dark nights while he was waiting to be rescued. It was like "war of the Worlds", he told me. Well, that's the news. Please pass it on to a website so everyone knows what is real. It is not like it is on t.v. Take care or, "Be Safe", like we say in New Orleans. Now you know why we say it like that. "
I don't think they were going to leave then, but a friend from Baton Rouge called at 11:30 pm (which means the phones were working) and told them that they might close the last bridge to get out.
So they packed up and left at 1 am, spent a couple of nights in Baton Rouge and then moved to another location.
Their house is okay. They will return when water and power return.
Another friend has a condo near city park - an area which had major flooding. She was on the second floor and a resident who stayed went in and checked, and said it was okay. Two people from the condo stayed. Looters tried to get in but they turned them back. There's a housing project about 2 blocks away.
An airboat came to get them and told them that they would not come back for them if they didn't leave then. They were taken to Baton Rouge and managed to get to other locations from there.
I found this report on the net:
"I received the following e-mail from a friend, a Garden District resident, who drove through the area on Friday. Here's the e-mail:
On Friday, I personally drove through parts of the city. They were dry
and the main roads were passable. Side streets were filled with branches. Homes did NOT appear to be looted. Mine was safe. They streets were:
River Road from Jefferson through New Orleans to the levee;
Magazine Street from the levee to Louisiana Avenue;
Louisiana Avenue from Tchoupitoulas to St. Charles;
St. Charles from Louisiana to Washington Avenue;
Chestnut street was blocked by a branch from the Magnolia tree in front of my builiding between 4th and Washington, but was otherwise undisturbed; Tchoupitoulas was clear from Louisiana through the elevated expressway (#90, Miss. Riv. Bridge).
I only caught a quick glance of the following businesses, but they looked
intact:
Whole Foods on Magazine Street looked intact without broken windows although the main front glass doors were open so obviously food had been taken. There was an orderly stack of cantaloupes piled in front of the window, however, so perhaps things were not thrown around.
Commander's Palace looked great!
Joey Bonhage's studio looked okay from the front with the boards in place.
Touro and Kindred Hospitals were okay and occuppied by the National Guard.
West Jefferson Hospital was fine. Bustling as a matter of fact.
The West Bank around W. Jeff Hospital looked wind-blown, but dried by now. Their flooding was, in places, fairly shallow and disappeared in a day, I was told by report at the W. Jeff hospital. Lots of people are driving in and out of the W. Bank as long as they have businesses or are doctors and come in the daylight and have some official business there. They can check on their homes and pick up possessions.
One person personally told me he went up through the northern part of the city around the lake and it was intact, but they definitely brought weapons to protect themselves. His boat business was intact.
My observation is that the west and southern part of the city (Uptown) is
windblown, but dry. Not too much damage by my eye (I only quickly glanced at the side streets as we rushed through by car). In fact, that part of the city was only affected by the hurricane so it is fine. It is not lawless there at all. The National Guard is there and our police are very tired, very hot, thirsty, but they are very relieved. The parts of the city that are flooded are a different different world. They are lawless. That is
where the lawlessness is. In the flooded portions of the city. So, my
observation is that the greatest damage to New Orleans has resulted from the flooding which in turn unleashed the lawlessness and, as such, makes this a man-made catastrophe.
One more thing:
Satellite phones do not work there. Neither the cops nor the reporter's sat phones worked. Cell phones did not work per se. Only text messaging between cell phones works. (Keep on your 504 area code cell phones even now because people can get through to you if you can receive those messages.) The lack of communication facilitated the devastation because it increased the confusion. People are in limbo because they cannot re-establish their comumunity without communication. Seeing the devastating impact of this lack of communication on our city and our region, I now see that OMMUNICATION IS A HOMELAND SECURITY ISSUE. This is one of the first major issues that the dis-organizedl homeland security department should be addresssing at a NATIONAL LEVEL.
The second major issue is power. Without it, the unrelieved darkness
facilitated the disorder. Especially in the flooded areas. One of my
refugee patients told me that in the flooded area of New Orleans East, the
night was so, so dark that they could not see even with the flashlights on.
It was as if the water absorbed the light and made it darker. Instead of
vision, what really became acute was his hearing. He could hear every drop of water, every splash. That is what guided him on those dark nights while he was waiting to be rescued. It was like "war of the Worlds", he told me. Well, that's the news. Please pass it on to a website so everyone knows what is real. It is not like it is on t.v. Take care or, "Be Safe", like we say in New Orleans. Now you know why we say it like that. "
It gives a little hope. I wondered about City Park. The kids that I nannied for loved to go to the storyland there. It was an amazing place. Nice that it may still be in tact.
