Tuesday Morning

We abdicated to Butch's (Rochelle's brother) house. He never lost electricity so we took advantage of the air conditioning.

We rode our bikes around the neighborhood yesterday. Lots of downed trees and some siding and shingle damage. On the drive to Butch's house, we realized that Baton Rouge was worse of than we thought. Notone light on the entire drive. Latest estimates are 90,000 without electicity just in Baton Rouge. People are starting to get power on but they expect a week in some cases. Rough estimates are half of the area has no electricity.

When we arrived at Butch's we started to get the idea of the magitude of the problem. Rochelle's family is from New Orleans. Rochelle's parents have 3 families at their house and Butch has 1. We offered our room but people opted for the houses with electricity over the ones without.

Rochelle's aunt and uncle have at least 3 feet of water in their house. One family is in the area where the TV keeps showing houses up to theroof with water. Rochelle's cousin Monica found out their house did not flood but they can't get into New Orleans. Obviously there is no power for anyone.

Between my fire and police contacts as well as some of the people here, this what we have found out:
No hospitals in the entire New Orleans area have power
Many hospitals have 3-5 feet of water on the first floor and are evacuating critical care patients to Baton Rouge
Current estimates are residents won't be allowed back until Moday
Kenner (where the airport is) is 90% flooded
Metarie (where cousin Marc lives) has 3-5 feet of water in parts; We don't know about Marc's house yet
The French Quarter actually faired pretty well - no significant flooding
The Super Dome pictures they keep showing are sigificant - The roof litterally pealed off layers during the wind. If you see the Hyatt with all the widows broken, it is the debris from the Super Dome that broke all the windows.
There is no word on the southern coastal Parishes (counties for youYankees). If you look at a map, there is much of Louisiana south of New Orleans. Plaquemines, Terrebonne and a few others are a combination of fishing communities and camps. I don't know the exact population but there are at least a few hundred thousand people. Most evacuated but some did not. We have a few scetchy reports that some of the most southern portion (part of the barrier islands) are no longer there(Venice, Fouchon). My concern is most of the people I am friends with are the people who would have to stay (Sheriff's etc.) There is a bridge known as the twin span the separates New Orleans from Slidel. Pieces of it are missing. This will not help with getting emergency vehicles and citizen back into the city.

A point of clarification that the media keeps getting wrong. You hear stories of people trapped in their attic and using an axe to cut theirway to the roof. These are true, but let me give you a piece of history. When Betsy hit in 1965, many people died trapped in their attic. Since then, emergency preparations in New Orleans area consist of having an axe in your attic. If you start to get flooded, you go into your attic (remember, it is raining and debris is flying around at 100 miles an hour so the roof isn't a good place to be). If the water gets into the attic, you are supposed to axe your way to the roof and stay put. In Betsy and Camile, many of the people on the roof were bit by snakes. To summarize, best option in a hurricane is to leave, next best is to make sure in addition to food and water that there is an axe inyour attic. When you see the media ragging the people who cut holes in the attic, they were actually reasonably prepared and doing what the emergency people told them to. By the end of this, there will be thousands of people who did just this and saved their lives.

I'll send more as I get it.