Last week of August

Below is a compilation of what I'm reading and seeing from "The Big Easy" from here in Atlanta. Lots of my friends have family down there. Shawn's mother's family safely evacuated to Birmingham; they don't know what the status of their home in Metairie is. They are some of the lucky ones.

It struck me this morning - we are [temporarily] abandoning an entire American city. I don't know that that has ever happened; not following the San Francisco earthquake[s], not following Pearl Harbor, not after Hurricanes Camille or Hugo, not after 9/11.

That really strikes me hard.

Lots of folks are coming to Atlanta. Fortunately, there are lots of folks to help them. A crew from my office/shop is leaving today to help get a water bottling plant north of New Orleans back on it's feet. I'm helping load a truck with supplies bound for N.O. this weekend. We will probably host one of the inevitable fund-raisers.

---

"New Orleans, a city of 500,000, mostly below sea level and reliant on levees along the Mississippi River running south of it and Lake Pontchartrain to the north, was a nightmarish waterworld that Mr. Nagin said would have to be abandoned while the levees were repaired and the city drained."

"...between 50,000 and 60,000 people were seeking evacuation [from New Orleans]."

"Electricity was out for more than 2.3 million people in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida."

"News of disruptions in the gas supply sparked runs on stations and a sharp spike in prices, with some drivers in Atlanta, Georgia, facing prices above $5 a gallon [from $2.89 the day before]."

"An estimated 80 percent of New Orleans is under water, up to 20 feet deep in places. Water is still rising..."

"The mayor said the hurricane probably killed thousands of people in New Orleans -- an estimate that, if accurate, would make the storm the nation's deadliest natural disaster since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. "

"Sections of Interstate 10, the only major freeway leading into New Orleans from the east, are destroyed"

"Across the nation, people are offering up their homes as temporary shelters to the storm's refugees. On the Web site craigslist.org, hundreds of people -- some from as far as Oregon and New Hampshire -- are eagerly offering free or extremely cheap room and board for victims, even knowing those strangers may stay for months."

---cnn.com

"...by evening, both major gasoline pipelines to Atlanta were pumping again. Alpharetta-based Colonial Pipeline Co. was pumping at 25 percent to 35 percent of capacity. Plantation Pipe Line Co. also started pumping at 25 percent."

---ajc.com

President Bush pledged vast assistance but acknowledged, "This recovery will take years."

"With the level of Lake Pontchartrain down several feet, the lake and its feeder canals had reached a point of equilibrium with the water in the city."

---nyt.com