God Hates Casinos

I just spoke with my friend at the Lake Charles Police Department. I have been trying to get in touch with him and some friends that work for the Sheriff's Office. Fortunately, it sounds like everyone is more or less OK.

Casinos - as I suspected some of the Casinos took a hard lick. The Casinos in Bilouxie were completely leveled and the one in New Orleans took some water damage (no looting). The ones in Lake Charles are located on the lake. At least one casino boat broke away from the building and is toast. Lots of water damage in the other buildings. One of the new ones is OK and the Police are using it as a place for their officers to sleep.

The pictures the media is showing from Lake Charles with with the flooded houses are from South Lake Charles. This is a low area, near the lake and closest to the Gulf. Much of Lake Charles is not flooded. The Police Department and our servers are fine. Unfortunately their air conditioning and internet connection are down so our servers are close to useless. We are rerouting all of our users to other available hubs. The phone company is out working on the lines and have extra generators at each Central Office (CO). The Sheriff's Office didn't do as well. Their main office and jail are near the Lake Charles Airport which was leveled. They are flooded and abandoned ship once the generator started taking in water. All are OK but this will be a mess.

Looting - yes, it is happening but on a much smaller scale than New Orleans. Police and Sheriff are out actively getting these people picked up. They put them in the cell with a bottle of water and an MRE and let them know they will be back in a few days to check on them. I wish people understood that Law Enforcement needs to be out rescuing people not arresting them. Most of Lake Charles evacuated and is not flooded so there is no need to break into buildings looking for food.

Idiots - yes, once again there are idiots. The best one is an 18-wheeler trucker with an empty load who decided to leave this morning. He made it to the top of the I-10 bridge over the lake and was blown over. No wreckers are available so the Police are doing the best they can without any. Again, you made it safely through the hurricane and think you know more than anyone else and can go about your business. Now resources are saving your ass instead of saving people who already needed the help. Additionally, you are blocking the Interstate for emergency vehicles.

Buildings - there is a decent amount of building damage. The larger ones have lots of broken windows. There are some older ones who are completely leveled. Again, like in New Orleans after Katrina, some are fine. The biggest problem is the lack of power and phone lines mixed with the downed trees.

Emergency Communications - Lake Charles Police kept their 911, Dispatch and other radio communications up and running 100% of the time. Their mobile data terminals in the cars are up as well. Somebody needs to see how a smaller PD is able to do this when the 3 largest agencies in the State can not. They have many downed phone lines so I don't know what the difference is here. Cell towers are hit and miss. Some are up, some are down.

Loss of life will be minimal since most people left. They too like Vermillion Parish received much of their flooding as a result of the rain passing through and everything having no where to drain.