It was inevitable. I knew this would happen once people started reporting on the more rural Parishes like Plaquemines and Cameron. Where are all the cows? The reports are coming in from Cameron Parish after Rita of the number of cow carcasses that are lying around. I have spoken with people who helped with the cleanup of Plaquemines Parish after Camile and Cameron Parish after Audrey. They all mention the cows. 1000s of them lying down, legs up, bodies swollen. They are all over Cameron Parish and there was a story today about a farmer with 350 head in Plaquemines who has been caring for about 60 on the levee. The 60 managed to swim there and have no place to go. Why no one chose to report on Plaquemines until after Rita is beyond me. I still think that the death toll will go up once they count everything in the rural Parishes where people able to leave stay out of tradition. There are many pictures of cows or horses on porches of houses surrounded by water. No one ever mentions dead horses, only cows. Sounds like the CIA must be involved.
In one of my earlier posts about St. Bernard, I wrote of a family who stayed and managed to get rescued by the skin of their teeth. The daughter went to release two of their horses that were tied up. I'm happy to report that both horses made it through the ordeal. When she went to untie them, she led them to the top of the levee as the water was rising. As she started to leave, they walked back down to the barn which had waste deep water. She figured she had done the best she could and began to leave when she ran into a vet who happened to have a horse trailer. Small wonders.
Since this post seems to have the animal theme, I thought I would share a story about the wild dogs. There have been reports that in the heavily flooded areas there are packs of wild dogs running rampant. I'm sure they are not truly wild but no one gets excited about a couple of hungry pets. Mostly the dogs are pets that are starving and have sought refuge out of the heat. One of our friends went to Chalmette which is in St. Bernard Parish to meet a FEMA agent and process his claim. When they went into the house it was quickly realized that it was a total loss. He wanted to go through the house to see if there was anything salvageable. When they went into the living room, he noticed tracks leading into the kitchen. He went to investigate but the FEMA agent grabbed him and said not to. He explained that nothing was salvageable and that people who had tried to help or get the dogs out had been attacked. I'm sure there is a bad horror movie in the making. If they had killer bees in the Superdome, they can have killer dogs in Chalmette.
Back to the cows... I spoke with someone who flew over Jefferson Davis and Cameron Parishes today. Complete devastation in the southern most areas. The islands (Pecan, Forked, etc.) and places like Holly Beach were flattened much like Buras and Empire were with Katrina. There are people in Cameron Parish that are on their roof tops - funny there aren't any pictures on the news that I have seen about these people. I guess the public is tired of people on their rooftops and wants to look at refineries instead. There are reports of some people waving off rescue attempts from boats or helicopters. Now that is dedication. You have to realize that these people either fish or farm and don't need the government to protect them. You can see how well it worked in New Orleans.
My brother in law has a FEMA pass to get into New Orleans since he is working for Intercosmos Media Group which owns the DirectNIC hosting and domain registration that had the cool web log that was up throughout Katrina on downtown Poydras. He went up to Canal this morning and said that when he got to the casino (which fared well - no looting) that the smell of the Aquarium was overwhelming. You may remember that while the zoo fared well (only 3 deaths) the Aquarium had its generators commandeered and had almost a total loss. As bad as a fridge with shrimp in it smells after 5 days, I can only imagine a shark tank after a month. You can not go down Canal to the Sheraton (where I was engaged) as it is FEMA central and makes downtown Baghdad look like a good neighborhood. Many of the bars on Decatur were looted as well.
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