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Mayor Orders Mandatory Evacuation of New Orleans
Pickens writes "City officials ordered everyone to leave New Orleans beginning Sunday morning — the first mandatory evacuation since Hurricane Katrina flooded the city three years ago — as Hurricane Gustav grew into what the city's mayor called 'the storm of the century' and moved toward the Louisiana coast. 'This is the real deal. This is not a test. For everyone thinking they can ride this storm out, I have news for you: that will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life,' said New Orleans mayor, C. Ray Nagin. Already, hundreds of thousands of residents had begun streaming north from New Orleans and other Gulf Coast areas stretching from the Florida Panhandle to Houston. Bush administration officials took pains not to be caught as flatfooted as they were in Hurricane Katrina, announcing that President Bush had called governors in the region to assure them of assistance and that top federal emergency officials were in the region to guide the response. 'We could see flooding that is worse than what we saw with Katrina,' said Louisiana Governor Jindal."
The US Geological Survey will be running a real-time "Map of Hydrologic Impacts" to monitor flood levels, and the National Weather Service has charted direction and wind-speed probabilities. Reader technix4beos points out the need for IRC transcription of FEMA and NOAA feeds.
How about this. Instead of rebuilding their houses every two or three years, they make their hosues out of legos, and just put them back together after each horribly devestating yet completley unexpected hurricane.
The whole 'why don't they abandon New Orleans' thread here is both incredibly silly and rather offensive. It is worth keeping in mind that N.O, was the site of a revolutionary war with the Brits, back in the day. This is evidence of the importance of the place, both then and now. Nobody ever seems to suggest that San Francisco should be abandoned, due to earthquake potential. Also, New York is hit by hurricanes too, but nobody suggests abandoning it either.
People also forget that what happened to N.O. in 2005 had far less to do with Katrina than it had to do with faulty levees. When Katrina hit N.O. back then, it was effectively a category 1, not more. The claims from the Corps of Engineers about cat 3 protection were just wrong.
My guess is that the 'abandon New Orleans' crew are just ignorant of the facts, or politically motivated. In 2005, we heard such comments from a n umber of politicians, mostly Republicans. For those of us who live in Louisiana and who know and visit N.O.on a regular basis, we know that it is a wonderful, vibrant and unique city. Yes, 2005 was a huge trauma, but as a tee-shirt that produced at the time said the city was 'bent, but not broken'.
So, rather than carping about things which seem to be poorly understood, why not do something useful? For instance, I will be riding out the storm up the road in Lafayette. The two TV stations KATC and KLFY will be broadcasting live to the web. As we have generators, we should be able to see what is going on by watching these feeds. However, guess what, we cannot see the KATC feed (generally, the better of the two, especially for weather) due to the fact that they have decided to go the Silverlight route and this is a Linux only household. If people want to do something useful, please take a moment and e-mail them a complaint at webteam@katc.com. This would be much more useful than carping on about New Orleans, when the whole issue about that place is so poorly understood.
Grammar alert:
1. It should start out as "Is the mayor," or possibly, "Are the mayors".
2. "Where" should be were".
3. I believe there should be 2 "there"'s but I not sure.
4. It seems funny to read but I think it is right; "are not" could be "aren't".
5. I made several errors my self so you don't need to correct them.
Such as periods inside the quotes instead of outside them.
Maybe the semicolon as well.
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?