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Last night at the convention center a women went into labor with no medical attention.... sadly the baby didin't make it..
that made me cry.
Last night at the convention center a women went into labor with no medical attention.... sadly the baby didin't make it.
that made me cry.
cops riding around with guns drawn in daylight
buidlings burning
looting, trucks with food and supplies coming in to help.
WTF is this, Bosnia?!?!?
There might be some interest in how communications are working (or not).
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/tech...lecom-HK3.html
September 2, 2005
Katrina Rescuers Improvise Communications
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:08 a.m. ET
When the phones don't work, improvise. That's what emergency responders and civilians were forced to do in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which trashed the telephone system on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi.
Police in New Orleans, their main communications system knocked out, have been taking turns talking on a single radio channel with their walkie talkies. The Mississippi National Guard even resorted to ancient battlefield tactics, sending runners back and forth among commanders with information.
And a local sheriff, Sid Hebert of Iberia Parish, helped keep an ambulance company handling medical evacuations across southern Louisiana running by loaning it a portable command center.
''He personally drove it to (our headquarters). He got us back on the air,'' said Richard Zuschlag, chief executive of Acadian Ambulance Service Inc.
By Thursday, nearly 10,000 satellite-based wireless phones had poured into the hurricane zone to coordinate relief efforts by federal disaster personnel and Red Cross workers, said service providers Globalstar LLC and Iridium Satellite LLC.
But satellite phones were spread far more thinly among the ranks of local public safety personnel and emergency responders.
Before the storm, a few thousand satellite phones at most were in use across the three-state region hit by the hurricane, and perhaps only a few hundred of those were in the hands of local authorities, including at least four Louisiana Parishes.
Though government officials have never before had to contemplate a communciations breakdown of this magnitude, it was not immediately clear -- with $8.6 billion in federal money handed out to states since September 11 for emergency preparedness -- why more satellite communciations systems were not in place.
Without such handsets, the most drenched and devastated areas of the Gulf Coast were cut off from the outside world in more ways than one.
The grim TV footage showing a collapsed bridge that once crossed Lake Pontchartrain, one of the main roadways into New Orleans, make it clear why evacuations have been so difficult. That bridge also happened to hold the fiber-optic cables that transported calls and Internet traffic to and from the city as well.
While every major phone company has been scrambling to patch its way into the city and other hard-hit areas using alternate routes and backup equipment, it could be some time before many local phone and Internet lines are back in service to receive calls and data.
BellSouth Corp., the local phone provider for much of the region, said about 1.6 million customers could be without phone service in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. The company said it was able to restore service for about 150,000 customers between Wednesday and Thursday.
In the meantime, emergency personnel were often struggling to communicate as they dealt with desperate cir stances.
In New Orleans, police officers crowded a single frequency on their patrol radios.
''That has posed some problems with people talking over each other,'' said Warren Riley, the deputy police chief. ''We probably have 20 agencies on one channel right now.''
Worse, with little power to recharge their batteries, some of those radios were running out of juice. Riley said the police were setting up a new communication system next to the Superdome and waiting for a generator to fire it up later Thursday.
In storm-ravaged southern Mississippi, the national guard was doing things the old-fashioned way.
''We've got runners running from commander to commander,'' said Maj. Gen. Harold Cross of the Mississippi National Guard. ''In other words, we're going to the sound of gunfire, as we used to say during the Revolutionary War.''
Restoring phone service isn't merely a matter of waiting for the flood waters to recede and restoring power. While many cables may be salvageable, the electronics that pass the signals across those lines will need to be replaced.
''It's essentially analogous to putting a PC in your bathtub. It's not going to work once it dries,'' said Jim Gerace, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless.
Diddy, Jay-Z Step Up with $1M
NEW YORK -- Two big names in hip-hop want to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Diddy and Jay-Z have pledged $1 million to the American Red Cross.
And they hope others, especially black Americans, will give, too. Jay-Z told The Associated Press he's called NBA star LeBron James and fellow rapper Kanye West, seeking donations.
Jay-Z told the AP that when he watches coverage of the disaster, he sees "a lot of black people on the streets" and reminds people that victims of the storm "have been hit hard."
Pop star Celine Dion has also stepped up, also donating $1 million to the Red Cross.
Stars Step Up Hurricane Relief
by Josh Grossberg
Sep 1, 2005, 5:15 PM PT
back to story
With the Gulf Coast in a near apocalyptic state Thursday, Hollywood continued to put its charity efforts in overdrive.
Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, who owns a residence in the Mississippi Delta that escaped damage from Hurricane Katrina, is helping organize an online auction to raise money for victims of the disaster.
The auction, on CharityFolks.com, will feature such items as VIP tickets to The Jimmy Kimmel Show, a visit to the set of That '70s Show and a signed script from the cast, and a chance to attend the premiere of Freeman's latest flick, An Unfinished Life, with Robert Redford and Jennifer Lopez.
All proceeds will go to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, which has as of press time collected $21 million, $15 million coming from online donations via its Website.
"Now, charity begins at home, so we call on anybody who has even the thought [of giving] to get beyond the thought and help these people," the 68-year-old actor told the Associated Press in an interview.
Also heeding the call were Jay-Z, Diddy and Celine Dion, each of whom pledged $1 million to the organization. The two rappers jointly announced their donation and called on other African-American stars to lend a hand.
"This is our community," Jay-Z told AP. "When I turn on CNN, I see a lot of black people on the streets. I know it's other people too, but those projects have been hit hard."
Added Combs: "We are all descendants from each other's families. When you hear black people say 'brothers' and 'sisters,' it's really true. These are all people that I know I'm related to somehow, some way--the human race family."
Legendary comedian Jerry Lewis announced Thursday that his annual Labor Day Telethon benefiting the Muscular Dystrophy Association will also reach out and solicit funds for Katrina relief efforts.
"While the needs of 'my kids' are with us all year round, Hurricane Katrina is a national disaster on a scale that's difficult to comprehend,"Lewis said in a statement. "We simply couldn't ignore the need to help. We already have the infrastructure in place."
Additionally, Lewis confirmed that the MDA has pledged $1 million of its funds to aid those in the stricken states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
In the wake of the calamity, several media conglomerates announced telethons across the dial.
NBC, MSNBC and CNBC will jointly air an hour-long special Friday at 8 p.m. dubbed A Concert for Hurricane Relief. An updated list of performers include New Orleans natives Harry Connick Jr., Aaron Neville and Wynton Marsalis, along with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. Also appearing on the broadcast to solicit donations: Leonardo DiCaprio, Hilary Swank, Lindsay Lohan, John Goodman, Claire Danes, and Mike Myers.
"jay-z"
Viacom also confirmed it will simulcast a multi-artist, multi-city concert special on Sept. 10 on MTV, VH1 and CMT that will benefit the American Red Cross and other relief efforts and feature artists such as Ludacris, Green Day, Gretchen Wilson, Usher, Alicia Keys, John Mellencamp and Rob Thomas. Also on the bill is the Dave Matthews Band, which separately announced it was planning a Sept. 12 benefit concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver.
Viacom-owned BET, which announced Wednesday that it would host its own telethon with the National Urban League and the American Red Cross on Sept. 9, offered more details Thursday at a press conference in New York attended by Russell Simmons of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, Jay-Z and Chris Rock.
"It's the worst disaster we'll ever see," Rock said. "I'm here to use whatever celebrity I have to help bring attention."
Among the recording artists expected to participate in the two-and-a-half-hour special are Jay-Z, Diddy, New Orleans hip-hopsters Master P and Juvenile, both of whom lost homes, Mississippi rapper David Banner and Wynton Marsalis. Additional performers will be announced in the coming days.
Meanwhile, CBS, ABC and Fox are prepping a one-hour commercial-free telethon similar to the post 9-11 celeb-filled Tribute to Heroes special. Ellen DeGeneres, who was born in New Orleans and whose 82-year-old managed to survive the carnage, is reportedly in talks to host, but there's been no official word. The networks are aiming to have the lineup set and ready to go next Tuesday or Wednesday at 8 p.m. and will offer the telethon to other broadcast and cable outlets, including NBC, UPN and the WB.
"ellen"
However, according to Daily Variety, what should have been simply a charitable endeavor has been marred by some behind-the-scenes bad feelings after NBC jumped the gun and announced its own benefit.
Rival network executives expressed concern that with so many relief drives underway, there wouldn't be enough talent available to attract an audience.
An unnamed NBC source told the trade that the company felt compelled to do its own event after Connick called NBC Universal TV honcho Jeff Zucker and pleaded for a fundraiser.
"This is not about compe ion. This is about raising money for those in need," a network rep told Variety. "We're interested in helping out the victims of the hurricane. We can't raise enough money." To that end NBC says it will make its Friday broadcast available to other networks.
Here's a look at some of the other hurricane-related news from the entertainment world:
* The Tonight Show with Jay Leno announced it will have celebrity guests autograph a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to auction off on eBay later this month to raise relief funds. The John Han s will start being collected next week and potentially include Samuel L. Jackson, Denis Leary, Jennifer Garner, Dolly Parton and Bon Jovi.
* Comedian Eddie Griffin plans to donate his fee from two Friday performances at the Delta Downs Race Track Casino & Hotel in Vinton, Louisiana, to relief efforts. "Performing so close to New Orleans (230 miles away), my first thought was, 'How could I not help these unfortunate people?' " Griffin said. "I ask everyone to reach into their pockets and do the same to help these people."
* Jane Kaczmarek and Bradley Whitford's fourth annual Clothes Off Our Backs Primetime Emmy Auction will donate its proceeds from the sale of celebrity clothing and accessories to the American Red Cross.
* 3 Doors Down is encouraging concertgoers to bring canned food, clothing and other supplies to donate to the Red Cross. "Everything you can think of having is gone," bassist Todd Harrell, whose family in Biloxi, Mississippi, lost its home and business in the hurricane, told E! Online. "I imagine that there's still a lot going on right now but we'll do quite a few things to help those guys down there that lost so much."
* Tim Farris of INXS announced on Wednesday night's Rock Star: INXS that the band had made a donation to the Red Cross to aid victims of the hurricane. "New Orleans is one of our favorite cities and the people there have always treated us well," Farris said.
* On her Website, Britney Spears, who was born in Kentwood, Louisiana, writes, "My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and any other states that might be affected by Hurricane Katrina. All of my family members there are safe and thank you to all my fans for your concern."
* Patricia Clarkson told reporters at the Venice Film Festival where she's promoting her new film, Good Night, and Good Luck, that her mom, Jackie, a New Orleans city councilwoman, has been by the side of mayor Ray Nagin throughout the ordeal. "She's all right. Otherwise I wouldn't be here," Clarkson said.
* Boogie-woogie piano maestro Fats Domino, who had been initially listed as missing, was safely pulled from the floodwaters.
* Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner and Simpsons star Harry Shearer both said they were awaiting news on whether their homes in New Orleans survived the deluge.
* Finally, the producers of American Idol announced Thursday that the show auditions scheduled for Monday in Memphis have been canceled "due to the extensive relief efforts currently being coordinated in that city." Thousands of displaced persons from the Gulf Coast have fled to the city.
Military Convoy of FOOD, WATER & SUPPLIES has just pulled into NO between the Superdome and Convention Center!!!
.
although they are having a hard time finding a plac to park with all the water......
ALSO-
Convoy of Buses coming into NO. Looks to be more than 50 ..... alot more than 50.
washingtonpost.com
After the Deluge, New Orleans's Mayor Nagin Stands His Ground
By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 2, 2005; C01
His city is under water. There's no electricity, no water to drink. Broken gas lines cause flames to erupt from filthy floodwaters. Mobs loot stores and exchange shots with police. Hungry people fight over food. Dead bodies float through the streets while the living huddle on rooftops, awaiting rescue.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin stares at the apocalyptic wreckage of his city from a window in his makeshift command post in the Hyatt hotel, which sits across a flooded street from City Hall. His wife and three children have been evacuated. He has sent most of his staff to higher ground in Baton Rouge. But he remains behind, like a captain determined to stay with his sinking ship.
"He's gonna be there until this thing turns around," says Don Hutchinson, the mayor's director of economic development, speaking on a cell phone from Baton Rouge. "He's showing the leadership a mayor should show."
He's not a politician, not really. Nagin, 49, was a cable TV executive at Cox Communications, a man with no previous political experience, when he beat out 14 candidates to win election as mayor in 2002. Back then, he was a fresh face in New Orleans politics, a young guy with a shaved head who promised to clean up a corrupt city.
"Ninety-five percent of the time, it's the greatest job in the world," he told New Orleans magazine in 2004, "and 5 percent, it's the highest pain you could ever imagine."
Back then, he could not possibly have imagined the pain he is witnessing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history.
"My heart is heavy tonight," he said Monday, sitting in the studio of WWL-TV in New Orleans. Dressed in a white T-shirt topped with what looked like an unbuttoned police or firefighter's shirt, he ticked off a list of problems in his slow Nawlins drawl -- "80 percent of the city is under water . . . we have an oil tanker that has run aground that is leaking oil . . . you see flames sparking up from the water . . . we have buildings that look like a bazooka was shot through them."
With the TV lights gleaming off his head, he summed up the scene: "It's really kind of a surreal situation, like a nightmare that I hope we'll wake up from."
That was Monday night. Since then, things have only gotten worse. Yesterday at the New Orleans Convention Center, where more than 15,000 people have taken refuge, corpses lay out in the open and mobs angered by a lack of food and water battled with police.
"This is a desperate SOS," Nagin said in a statement released to the media. "Currently, the Convention Center is unsanitary and unsafe and we are running out of supplies for 15,000 or 20,000 people."
In the halls of the Hyatt yesterday morning, the mayor was mobbed by citizens demanding to know when they could go home, when normal life would resume.
"You need to listen very carefully," Nagin told them, according to the Associated Press. "For the next two or three months, in this area, there will not be any commerce, at all. No electricity, no restaurants. This is the real deal. It's not living conditions."
Somehow, as his city collapses around him, he remains calm.
"The mayor is a very confident, very levelheaded person," says Hutchinson. "He's not one to react on a personal level. He's not panicky."
"He stays very calm under fire, and he stays very focused," City Council member Jackie Clarkson, mother of actress Patricia Clarkson, told the AP. "Through all the demands coming at him from different directions, he's stayed very focused on human life."
Nagin was born in 1956 in New Orleans's Charity Hospital, one of the hospitals that have now run out of food and water and been besieged by looters. His mother worked at a lunch counter in a Kmart. His father worked two jobs -- a fabric cutter in a clothing factory by day, a custodian at City Hall at night.
A hotshot pitcher in high school, Nagin went to Tuskegee University on a scholarship, graduating in 1978 with an accounting degree. He worked for General Motors in Detroit, then for financial services companies in Los Angeles and Dallas. In 1982 he married a childhood friend, Seletha Smith. Three years later, Nagin was hired by Cox and he and Seletha returned to New Orleans, where they raised two sons, Jeremy and Jarin, and a daughter, Tianna. He was making about $400,000 a year when he was elected mayor, a job that paid $110,000.
"I'm going to need your help," he told his supporters the night he won the election. "I don't have a Superman undershirt on underneath this coat."
He promised to take on the city's entrenched culture of corruption and kick-start the economy. Flood prevention was not a major issue in the election, although it must have been on the new mayor's mind: In 2004, he told New Orleans magazine that his favorite book about the city was John Barry's "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America."
Yesterday, Nagin had more important things to do than talk about his personal reactions to the destruction of his home town. But Pat Owens, a 64-year-old woman living in Ocala, Fla., thought she knew what was going through Nagin's mind. Owens was the mayor of Grand Forks, N.D., in 1997, when the city of 50,000 was wiped out by the flooding of the Red River.
"It's like a nightmare," she says. "You're torn in so many different directions. You have to make decisions and you can't wait. You have to act immediately. . . . It's hard. You really feel like you're all alone."
She dealt with looting, angry citizens and an evacuation that was, she says, the biggest in U.S. history since the Civil War.
"I worked on adrenaline for months," she says, "because I didn't sleep. My staff and I worked 20 hours a day for weeks."
Dealing with the floodwater was tough enough, she says, but dealing with citizens was tougher.
"They were very testy because they couldn't go back to their homes," she says. "They blame the city officials for the flood. You are blamed for water coming in."
And then, when federal money finally arrives, she says, "people get so angry because somebody got more dollars than them."
Three years after her flood, Owens ran for reelection. She lost by about 300 votes.
"They just looked upon me as the flood mayor," she says, "and they think that if you're gone, the flood will be gone, too. I was very, very hurt."
Yesterday, she had a bit of hard-earned advice for Mayor Nagin: "You just have to do what you think is right, because you're not going to please everybody."
Adam Nossiter of the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Thank God for the Marine Corps. Things are looking up.
Now hopefully people can separate their political views from this news thread so that I don't have to spend 20 minutes splitting a 120 page thread.
Thanks.
YayI'm locking this thread and you guys can all go to the political forum. Thanks for ruining a thread that was for information and news, assholes.
Thanks LJ and Kori for letting us continue. Maybe people will now listen. I caught something on CNN briefly about an oil slick in Mississippi near the LA border...anyone heard anything about that.
I'm locking this thread and you guys can all go to the political forum. Thanks for ruining a thread that was for information and news, assholes.
Thanks, Kori.
The political stuff has been moved out of this thread (thanks to LJ). Keep posting in this thread but keep the Bush-love or Bush-hate out of it. I set up the Political Forum for a reason, use it.
Peace TPark.
This forum never cease to give me entertainment during the day. For that, I thank all of you.
This is all I have seen on CNN.com
AP: Huge oil spill spotted near storage tanks on Mississippi River downstream
from New Orleans, state officials say. Details soon.
I think Fox News said something about a Oil Tanker has sprung a leak and is now leaking 2 million gallons of oil.caught something on CNN briefly about an oil slick in Mississippi near the LA border...anyone heard anything about that.
yep...two storage tanks leaking...Tanks have about a two million barrel capacity but they don't know yet how full they actually are. IMHO it should be reasonably easy to contain/repair.
They are using LSU's basketball arena as a morgue.
Well if no one goes to the games, they can definitely say that the place is dead...no pun intended.
Senator David Vitter> The death toll in LA may reach 10 Thousand.
Evactuations for the Hospital that was suspended due to gunfire is ongoing. They've gotten a lot of the people out.
Didn't Kori shoot someone else the bird about 30 days ago? It must be that time of the month?: Originally Posted by Kori Ellis I'm locking this thread and you guys can all go to the political forum. Thanks for ruining a thread that was for information and news, assholes.
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