Originally posted by: werk
Here's some pics of my family's neighborhood taken 5 days ago.
Damn! Still that much water up there?Originally posted by: werk
Here's some pics of my family's neighborhood taken 5 days ago.
Nope, that's Lakeview, the Harrison Ave area between West End Blvd and Marconi. Just about a mile from the 17th St Canal levee breach.Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: werk
Here's some pics of my family's neighborhood taken 5 days ago.
Was that East Slidell???
Originally posted by: werk
Nope, that's Lakeview, the Harrison Ave area between West End Blvd and Marconi. Just about a mile from the 17th St Canal levee breach.Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: werk
Here's some pics of my family's neighborhood taken 5 days ago.
Was that East Slidell???
:thumbsup:Originally posted by: GalvanizedYankee
I had WDSU on at 5am PST and there was no ecolie(sp) found at 17th St in NO. They are hosing down the street and the front of houses. That's good news.
Many of the lower floors in Venice,Italy are not habitable.
At this point(if i were only king), seeking advice and more from the Dutch would seem like a good idea. IIRC, they have had to deal with the North Atlantic a time or two
GY
Editor's Note: Government Executive reporter Chris Strohm is in New Orleans. This is one of several dispatches he will file this week on recovery efforts.
New Orleans - The carnage in the Gulf Coast region from Hurricane Katrina is taking a psychological toll on military troops, federal agents and emergency responders, prompting agencies to deploy counselors and trauma teams to the region to help rescue workers cope and to try to minimize incidents of suicide.
While death and destruction caused by the hurricane and flooding in New Orleans has created immense hardship for residents, many federal officials are also experiencing trauma, especially those who lost family members, friends and their homes. Others responding to the crisis have had to deal with seeing dead bodies, injured people and an unprecedented amount of destruction, particularly in New Orleans. Agencies expect more personnel to exhibit signs of trauma as the initial shock of the catastrophe wears off.
"I don't think the reality of the situation has really set in until these past few days," said Border Patrol Agent Jerry Martin, a field operations supervisor from San Diego with the agency's employee assistance program. He was sent to New Orleans to provide support to personnel with the Customs and Border Protection bureau.
National Guard Spc. Waldemar Rivera said he was shocked to see the New Orleans Convention Center, where thousands of residents were stranded for days without food, water and medical care. His unit, from Puerto Rico, was sent in to clean up a section of the building after the residents were evacuated. "There was a lot of sh_t, a lot of puke and a lot of blood," he said.
Staff Sgt. Rudolph Cicneros, with the Army's 82nd Airborne, was sent from Iraq to New Orleans. He was part of the initial invasion of Iraq and served in the Sunni Triangle, which includes Fallujah, where some of the fiercest fighting took place.
"I've been in the Army 14 years and I've never seen anything like this," he said while patrolling near the French Quarter. "This is never expected, not on U.S. soil. Iraq is at war, it's a whole different situation. Here, it's a city. It shouldn't be like this. This is horrible. To see things like this is horrible."
Federal agents and emergency responders worked extensive hours in the hurricane's wake, helping to rescue tens of thousands of people. Some personnel who were supposed to be evacuated with their families instead volunteered to stay in the region, even though they had lost almost everything. Other personnel came from outside the region and worked almost nonstop on response and recovery operations.
But agencies are concerned that some personnel are suppressing their trauma, either by not talking about it, or working long hours to keep their minds off of it. In some cases, agencies have forced personnel to meet with counselors or take time off.
"A lot of agents kind of have a tough persona, so they won't seek help in the presence of their co-workers," Martin said. "The bottom line is that these are law enforcement officers. They cannot be going out and patrolling the streets if they're not at the top of their game. They can hurt themselves or they can hurt somebody else."
Coast Guard counselor Mike Thomas was sent from North Carolina to Air Station New Orleans to help personnel cope. Search-and-rescue teams from the station were the first to go into the affected areas immediately after the hurricane hit.
Martin, who is a chief rescue swimmer and trained in critical incident stress management, said he was helping personnel deal with the fact that some people could not be saved.
"It's an emotional roller coaster," he said. "It's the greatest feeling in the world when you can save a life and it's the worst when you can't."
"The biggest thing is letting them know that what they're experiencing is a normal reaction to an abnormal experience," he added.
Coast Guard personnel said seeing victims fight with each other to be saved was also horrible.
"Everywhere you turned it was people, people, people. It was just horrendous," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Lawrence "Noodles" Nuttles. His job is a swimmer, which means he rappels from the helicopter to pick up victims. "I've seen the best of people turn horrible because of survival situations."
He worked himself to total exhaustion, stopping only when another swimmer finally forced him to rest. "The only thing I thought about in those first 48 hours was doing my job," he said.
When Nuttles finally did sleep, he dreamed of people on roofs screaming for help. After the fifth day of the hurricane response, he was ordered to go to Mobile, Ala., and receive critical incident stress management training. "I didn't want to leave," he said. "I felt like the biggest piece of crap for leaving my co-workers. But I didn't realize how important it was to get out of there."
NEW ORLEANS - In a big step toward restoring the pulse and soul of flood-battered New Orleans, the mayor announced plans Thursday to reopen over the next week and a half some of the Big Easy's most vibrant neighborhoods, including the once-rollicking French Quarter.
The move could bring back more than 180,000 of the city's original half-million residents and speed the revival of its economy, which relies heavily on the bawdy, Napoleonic-era neighborhood that is the home of Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras, jazz and piquant food.
"The city of New Orleans ... will start to breathe again," a beaming Mayor Ray Nagin said. "We will have life. We will have commerce. We will have people getting into their normal modes of operations and the normal rhythm of the city."
Nagin said the "re-population" would proceed ZIP code by ZIP code, starting Monday in the Algiers section, a Creole-influenced neighborhood across the Mississippi River from the French Quarter. The city's Uptown section, which includes the Garden District's leafy streets and antebellum mansions, will open in stages next Wednesday and Friday. The French Quarter will follow on Sept. 26.
"The French Quarter is high and dry, and we feel as though it has good electricity capabilities," the mayor said. "But since it's so historic, we want to double- and triple-check before we fire up all electricity in there to make sure that ... if a fire breaks out, we won't lose a significant amount of what we cherish in this city."
The announcement came a day after government tests showed that New Orleans' putrid air is safe to breathe, even if the receding floodwaters that still cover half the city remain dangerous from sewage and industrial chemicals.
While the areas set to be opened were never part of the 80 percent of New Orleans under water, they still suffered from the failure of services that left them prey to the looting that gripped this city after Hurricane Katrina hit on Aug. 29
Now, the designated neighborhoods have 70 percent to 90 percent of their electricity restored, and have water that will be good for flushing and firefighting, if not drinking. The sewer system works, trash removal is running, and at least two hospitals will be able to provide emergency care, authorities said.
And Nagin said the city's convention center, which became a symbol of the city's despair when thousands of weary refugees gathered amid filth and corpses, will now become a hub of the rebuilding effort. Three major retailers will set up there to sell lumber, food and other supplies.
Security will be tight in the reopened neighborhoods. Nagin said a dusk-to-dawn curfew will be enforced, and residents and business owners will be required to show ID to get back in.
If the initial resettlement goes smoothly, Nagin said other areas will slowly be brought back to join in what he called perhaps the biggest urban reconstruction project in U.S. history.
"My gut feeling right now is that we'll settle in at 250,000 people over the next three to six months, and then we'll start to ramp up over time to the half- million we had before, and maybe exceed" that, he said. "I imagine building a city so original, so unique that everybody's going to want to come."
President Bush planned to make a prime-time address from Jackson Square, in the heart of the French Quarter, on Thursday night, offering new federal spending to help victims of one of the deadliest natural disasters in the nation's history.
Across five Gulf Coast states, the death toll from Katrina stood at 710, led by 474 in Louisiana.
Despite the good news from the mayor, large sections of New Orleans remained accessible only by boat, and corpses could still be seen out in the open. In flooded streets near the University of New Orleans' campus along Lake Pontchartrain, two bodies were seen floating face down, and the decomposed corpse of one woman was sprawled on the top step of a church, her skin wrinkled and leathery, her cane lying beside her.
In the heavily flooded Ninth Ward, National Guard Col. Michael Thompson said his troops have seen the bodies of several people who had been murdered.
"I've got a lot of police officers on my staff and they recognize the signs of it. You'd see the entry wound of the bullet and the exit wound," Thompson said. "So it was obvious that something had taken place other than natural death."
The Army Corps of Engineers said it is getting water pumped out of eastern New Orleans and nearby parishes faster than expected, and most of the area should be dry by the end of this month, or about a week earlier than previously estimated.
Tourism brings $10 billion to New Orleans annually and accounts for about 15 percent of the city's jobs. The city relies heavily on the dollars tourists and conventioneers spend in the French Quarter's cafes, strip bars, jazz clubs, restaurants and stores. The dollars also feed the Quarter's cast of characters ? the street musicians, mime artists, palm readers, hot dog vendors, street artists.
Word of the reopening raised spirits in the neighborhood.
"There's no reason why this area shouldn't have been taken care of already ? it's where the money is," said Frank Redmond, who helps run a small French Quarter bar called Evelyn's Place. "If you want to get people back to work, get this area open, and the tourists, the curiosity-seekers, will want to come back and see what happened."
Around the French Quarter, slate roofs were ripped apart, towering oaks and magnolias were uprooted, and storefronts were left in tatters by high winds, and in some cases by looters. But many say the quarter often looks worse after a good Mardi Gras.
Along Chartres Street, Wes Warren was busy lining up dancers for the reopening of his two topless clubs.
"As soon as they allow me, I'll be opening the clubs up and trying to get all the soldiers to come ? take away some of the tension," he said.
Originally posted by: DaFinn
Finland is sending a large cruise ship to Louisiana State University Health Science Center in Baton Rouge. Their premises were destroyed by Katrina, and they needed to urgently accomodate the people and continue their work. This just in newspapers here today... couldn't find a link yet.
Here is a pic of the said ship.
It can accomodate 1800 people. Its 215 Meters long and 25,4 meters wide. It has a maximum speed of 30,5 knots, making it one of the fastest cruiseships in the world!
Not looking bad for the NOLA area....SE TX, however....Originally posted by: Chaotic42
The return to NOLA has been halted due to the tropical storm in the Gulf.
If anyone here is thinking about going into St Bernard Parish, don't.
Originally posted by: Chaotic42
The return to NOLA has been halted due to the tropical storm in the Gulf.
If anyone here is thinking about going into St Bernard Parish, don't.
Originally posted by: cthulhu
Originally posted by: Chaotic42
The return to NOLA has been halted due to the tropical storm in the Gulf.
If anyone here is thinking about going into St Bernard Parish, don't.
From what I hear, there is not much left of St. Bernard Parish and there are no liveable houses. They are saying on the radio that only 3 inches of rainwater would be trouble for New Orleans.
Originally posted by: Chaotic42
According to the emails I keep getting from the area director, there's a threat that there could be enough storm surge to do damage to NOLA.
I don't know if that's true though.
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: jndietz
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Local News video of where water breached the 9th ward area east of the Industrial canal again.
They just dried out and it is now flooding back up to the roof lines.
The Lake level has been rising. The Industrial canal is same level as the lake.
Just another foot and New Orleans will go under water again.
They are evacuating where I am here, lake is starting to come inland up here on the North Shore.
how are you on the internet?!??!
I am in a fortress 7 stories above street level.
Remember that building seen in the Helicopter evacuations you saw on TV? That building.
Automatic fill is not working on generator so have to manually go outside every 1 1/2 to fill the tank.
Storm surge is already at least 6 feet here, New Orleans is re-flooding.
I have some pics and Video and will try uploading in a bit.
Oh, yeah, it's hitting the fan. I've got WWL on TV now.Originally posted by: conjur
Originally posted by: Chaotic42
According to the emails I keep getting from the area director, there's a threat that there could be enough storm surge to do damage to NOLA.
I don't know if that's true though.
Well...check out this post from Dave in the Rita thread: