Tuesday Evening

Not much Baton Rouge news. Still tons of people without power (including us). Most of the people are being nice to each other. Lots of peopl eselling ice and generators.

Cell phones have about a 50/50 success rate. Due to our work with all ofthe wireless vendors, I called some of the folks at Verizon Wireless to find out why things weren't working so well. They build the switching stations like military bunkers. The main switch that handles the 504 and 985 area codes (New Orleans and the North Shore) is running like a champ. The problem is that cell towers use wires to communicate with the main switch. These lines are either physically cut or under so much water that they are not functioning. All of the cellular vendors have towers that are down, the big problem is that they have no idea of knowing how many. They are setting up microwave dishes on the towers to get them funtioning again. They also can not get to or are not allowed to get to every tower due to the damage. The system was designed for towers to go offline, but not entire grids. If you call our cell phones you get through sometimes, you get a message that the number has been disconnected the others. No one can retrieve voice mail.

The ham radio is proving to be the most valuable tool. It works 100% of the time. There is a statewide network that the OEP and Red Cross are monitoring. Ham radio is the only method to communicate with several ofthe Parishes that are heavily flooded. I can hear the events before they happen but more importantly, I actually hear about them. The media has not been allowed into the heavily damaged areas and real news is sparse.

We had one of Rochelle's Aunts that we couldn't get in touch with. A ham from Chicago called to let us know she was OK. Her son is a ham but the repeater I can normally get him on is physically down and I couldn't get a message to him. Somehow he got a message to the Red Cross and it made it through the traffic net and got to us. We still have one close friend in St. Bernard Parish that we have been unable to find. St.Bernard has about 12' of water over most of the parish.

I'm not trying to be the doom and gloom person but I believe the death toll from this will be large. I don't have any credible accounts of numbers yet but I do know there are lots of bodies floating that the media is not reporting yet. One Parish, Plaquemine, has 80% of it covered with water. I'm waiting from some satelite photos but it appears that the Mississippi River has consumed about 20 miles of land. As many of you know, we have many friends and customers in law enforcement. I can't get in touch with any of them in Orleans, Jefferson or Plaquemines parishes.

I mentioned a town called Fouchon (foo-shon). We spoke to a person who works for BP who flew over Fouchon and several of their rigs in the gulf. Fouchon is completely gone. No buildings just water. This is significant for everyone. The US gets about 10% of all of its oilunloaded from tankers through Fouchon. You think gas was expensive? You just cut out 10% of the refining capacity for the entire US. The people we know that work for oil companies are concerned. It looks like atleast 7 rigs are floating around the gulf.

More updates later. I'll be unavailable most of Wed so don't worry ifthere aren't any updates.