God I hope this story is overblown right now!!!

[BERIGAN]

Was just checking out Lucianne.com and saw 2 screaming headlines...

OFFICIALS CONFIRM THREE BREECHES IN VITAL LEVEES HOLDING BACK LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN FROM NEW ORLEANS

Story just breaking....link to follow

Mayor: Major Breach Flooding and Destroying New Orleans

Breaking news.....very scary

So, I put on WWL (870 on A.M. dial) and no mention of it...then a mention that there was a few minor breaches, and water levels were rising....this story below almost looks like a cruel fake story, I really hope it is..

Author: Steve Sabludowsky | 8/30/2005 Home : Business

Also By this Reporter: New Orleans Needs A Miracle

Mayor: Major Breach Flooding and Destroying New Orleans

Hurricane Katrina Refugees Want Information

New Orleans And Louisiana Does Katrina Swamp

House Energy Barton Writes Bush About Strategic Petroleum Reserve

New Orleans, Louisiana Area: Katrina Caused Incredible Damage

The City of New Orleans Is Devastated. Those were the words of Mayor C. Ray Nagin and based upon a major breach of a levee system, water is flowing into New Orleans flooding it beyond recognition and could very well destroy New Orleans, Jefferson and the surrounding areas.

In a most frightening interview with WWL TV, Mayor C. Ray Nagin gave the worse-case scenario of events that anyone could possibly imagine. In the beginning of the interview, he stated that New Orleans is devastated.

Of most importance is the breach of the levee between Jefferson and Orleans Parish.

“We probably have 80 percent of our city under water with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet”.

Both airports are underwater

The twin spans are destroyed.

The Yacht club is burned and destroyed.

Mayor Nagin also stated he was not sure of the structural soundness of the highrise. He stated that it is possible that the highrise bridge in east New Orleans could be unstable.

The Mayor also stated that all of Slidell (a city which he has no jurisdiction) is under water. Nagin also stated that there was no clear path in and out of New Orleans, that I-10 is underwater.

Nagin stated that FEMA is coming into town tomorrow and that New Orleans will need to obtain major federal help to rebuild the city of New Orleans.

As corroboration, a spokesperson from Tulane University said that they were about to move all of the patients from the hospital due to rising water at one inch every five minutes. She said white water was pouring down Canal Street (which would be from Lake Ponchatrain-related to the breach in the levee) from the canal separating the two parishes.

New Orleans Needs A Miracle - Broken levee might be death knell

http://www.bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=4864

[BERIGAN]

CNN has a story now....

» How Hurricanes Form | Deadliest Storms | Tips

New Orleans levee breaks

Katrina's death toll at 54

Tuesday, August 30, 2005 Posted: 1022 GMT (1822 HKT)

? NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- As the death toll from Hurricane Katrina reached at least 54, a levee holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain sustained a breach two blocks long overnight in the Lakefront area of New Orleans.

The breach triggered rapidly rising floodwaters in the city's downtown and prompted at least one hospital to evacuate patients by air.

The death toll was expected to climb from one of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in half a century. Fifty of the deaths occurred in one county in Mississippi, CNN confirmed.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin confirmed the breach in a local TV interview. City fire officials said the break was about 200 feet long in the levee surrounding the 17th Street Canal.

"My heart is heavy tonight," Nagin said in the interview on WWL-TV. "I don't have any good news to share.

"The city of New Orleans is in a state of devastation. We probably have 80 percent of our city underwater. With some sections of our city, the water is as deep as 20 feet."

The state Department of Emergency Preparedness said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was holding a meeting on the breach.

Karen Troyer Caraway, vice president of Tulane University Hospital, told CNN earlier that Louisiana State Police had confirmed the breach to her.

A hospital across from Tulane, Charity Hospital, was evacuating its 90 patients by air, she said. The hospitals are in the city's central business district.

Water at Tulane's hospital had been rising at the rate of a foot an hour, Caraway said, and had reached the top of the first floor.

"It's dumping all the lake water in Orleans Parish," she said. "It's essentially running down Canal Street. We have whitecaps on Canal Street.

"We now are completely surrounded by 6 feet of water and are about to get on the phone with Federal Emergency Management Agency to start talking about evacuation plans," Caraway said.

"The water is rising so fast, I can't even begin to describe how fast it is rising."

She did not know whether any pumps had been turned on to pump the water but said, "They're not going to be able to compete with Lake Pontchartrain."

A system of levees and pumping stations usually protects the city, most of which sits below sea level.

Tulane hospital had moved its emergency room to the second floor, she said. It has been on emergency generator power for the past 24 hours, but she said if water continued rising rapidly, it would swamp the power source and electricity would be lost.

"We have patients on respirators," she said. There are more than 1,000 people in the hospital, and most of the patients are critically ill, meaning they would have to be evacuated by air, she said.

Tulane hospital's command center later reported the rate of rising water had slowed to about an inch an hour, and an official there said evacuations at the hospital had been postponed.

In the city's eastern portion, emergency workers were using boats to rescue people from the 9th Ward neighborhood, which was largely submerged after water topped a levee.

A state official said at least 50 people had been rescued. Some residents said water rose so quickly they did not have time to grab their shoes before climbing to safety. (Watch video of a helicopter rescue)

"We've got a massive search-and-rescue operation going on," Louisiana, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said. "I believe that we're going to pull out hundreds of people."

Katrina left at least 54 people dead when it slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday, about 50 of them in one Mississippi county, CNN confirmed.

Thirty of the confirmed deaths in Harrison County were at the St. Charles apartment complex, near the beach in the casino resort town of Biloxi, said Kelly Jakubic with the county's Emergency Operations Center.

Separately, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency in Jackson confirmed four Katrina-related deaths -- one each in Warren, Leake, Pearl River and Hinds counties, a spokeswoman said.

The Associated Press reported two people lost their lives in storm-related traffic accidents in Alabama.

The storm's daylong rampage claimed lives and ravaged property in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, where coastal areas remained under several feet of water. (Watch aerial video of New Orleans flooding)

Blanco said there was no official death tally in Louisiana. But she told CNN she expected that to change.

"We believe we've lost some lives," she said. "We're hearing isolated reports here and there."

Many were feared dead in flooded neighborhoods still under as much as 20 feet of water.

The storm's survivors face months of displacement.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing to house "at least tens of thousands of victims ... for literally months on end," the agency's director, Michael Brown, said Monday night.

Lakes and rivers were still spilling over levees late Monday, and "it's going to get worse before it gets better," Brown said.

Veteran FEMA staffers who have surveyed the destruction are reporting some of the worst damage they have ever seen, he said.

The American Red Cross said it is launching the largest relief operation in its history. (Read about the relief effort)

More than 75,000 people are being housed in nearly 240 shelters across the region, and Red Cross President Marty Evans told CNN, "We expect that to grow" as people who can't return home seek somewhere to stay.

More than 1.3 million homes and businesses in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were without electricity, according to utility companies serving the region.

Officials warned Louisiana evacuees to stay away for at least a week to avoid "a wilderness" without utilities that will be infested with poisonous snakes and fire ants.

"We would really encourage people not to come back [to New Orleans] for at least a week," said Ivor van Heerden, director of the Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes in Baton Rouge.

"If your house is gone, it's gone," he said. "If you come back in a day or a week, it's not going to make any difference." (Full story)

Blanco said she had ordered state police to block re-entry routes to all but emergency workers. She said preliminary reports indicate Katrina "devastated" parts of at least six parishes in Louisiana.

In Mississippi, streets and homes were flooded as far as 6 miles inland, and the eastbound lanes of Interstate 10 between Gulfport and Biloxi were impassable because of storm debris.

Hotel worker Suzanne Rodgers returned to her beachfront home near Biloxi but, she told CNN, "there is nothing there. There's debris hanging from trees." (Read Rodgers' harrowing account)

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour called Katrina's aftermath "catastrophic."

Both states experienced looting.

A crowd of about 50 to 75 people swarmed through a supermarket in New Orleans, taking out shopping carts full of goods before police arrived.

Looting was reported by police in Gulfport, where the storm surge left downtown streets under 10 feet of water. (See video of Katrina gouging Mississippi)

As of 5 a.m. ET Tuesday, Katrina was about 35 miles northeast of Tupelo, Mississippi, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The storm was headed north Monday night through Mississippi toward Tennessee and the Ohio River Valley. But even as a tropical storm, Katrina was still causing plenty of trouble.

Katrina's outer bands spawned tornados in Georgia Monday evening. Three twisters were reported in Georgia, one in central Peach County and two in the northwest counties of Carroll and Paulding. One person in Carroll County was critically injured.

After topping levees in New Orleans, Katrina inundated the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts with a 20-foot storm surge.

In Mobile, Alabama, the storm pushed water from Mobile Bay into downtown, submerging large sections of the city, and officials imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

An oil drilling platform broke away from its moorings and lodged under a bridge that carries U.S. Highway 98 over the Mobile River.

The Alabama National Guard activated 450 troops to secure Mobile. Two other Alabama battalions, or about 800 troops, were activated to assist in Mississippi.

The storm came ashore Monday morning just east of New Orleans, with 140 mph winds turning street signs, tree branches and roof debris into projectiles. (See video of near whiteout conditions and debris-filled winds)

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/30/katrina/index.html

Edited August 30, 2005 by BERIGAN

[BERIGAN]

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/t-p/katrina....tastrophic.html

[Rosco]

Just saw this on the BBC website:

'Dozens killed' in US hurricane

More than 50 people have been killed as Hurricane Katrina lashed the US Gulf coast, emergency officials have said.

Most of the deaths took place in just one Mississippi county, according to an official quoted by AP news agency.

The Mississippi coastal towns of Biloxi and Gulfport bore the brunt of Katrina as it spun away from New Orleans in Louisiana, causing massive flooding.

The storm is one of the strongest to have hit the US, causing up to $25bn (£14bn) of damage, correspondents say.

Helicopters and boats were used to rescue hundreds of people stranded on the roofs of their homes.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour told reporters his worst fear was "that there are a lot of dead people out there".

Jim Pollard, spokesman for the Harrison County emergency operations centre, told AP that 30 people were killed at an apartment complex in Biloxi.

Three other people were killed by falling trees in Mississippi, and in Alabama two people died in a road accident.

New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin told a local TV station several "bodies are floating in the water".

"I've never encountered anything like it in my life. It just kept rising and rising," said one resident, Byran Vernon, telling AP he spent three hours on his roof waiting to be rescued.

Flooding

The storm swept ashore on Monday after moving across the Gulf of Mexico.

At least two oil rigs were set adrift. A rig in Mobile Bay, Alabama, broke free of its moorings and struck a bridge.

Flood waters submerged much of New Orleans and part of the roof of the Superdome stadium, where 10,000 people had sought refuge, was torn off.

More than a million people were evacuated from the New Orleans area as the hurricane approached.

Power lines were cut, palm trees felled, shops wrecked and cars hurled across streets strewn with shattered glass.

Hours after the worst of the storm, more flood waters surged across the western part of the city after a vital flood defence gave way.

Much worse damage had been feared as the city lies some 6ft (2m) below sea level and is protected by a series of barriers and pumps.

But the storm weakened after making landfall and turned eastward, sparing New Orleans a direct hit, despite frightening predictions.

However, people are being urged not to move around the city for a few days.

"There is high water covering the roads, still a lot of currents and moving water that makes it dangerous," Lieutenant Kevin Cowan, from Louisiana's Department of Emergency Preparedness, told the BBC.

"There's even power lines that are still down on the roads and even in the water that could cause electrocution."

The hurricane brought 105mph (170km/h) winds to Mississippi, where Governor Barbour told reporters it came in "like a ton of bricks".

Katrina was later downgraded to a tropical storm as it passed through the eastern part of the state, with wind speeds of 60mph (97km/h).

Forecasters have warned of heavy rain and as the storm heads north towards Tennessee and Ohio. Tornado warnings are in force in parts of the region.

[BERIGAN]

The Mayor of New Orleans on WWL

http://www.wwltv.com/perl/common/video/wmP...082905mayor.wmv

[JSngry]

Sirs -

It is obvious that this is an "act of god". Therefore, we can only conclude that god holds weapons of mass destruction, that he himself is a terrorist, and that, in order to protect future generations from similar acts of terror, his kingdom must be invaded and overthrown. It is time for the American government to devote its full resouces to such an end, and to not stop until permanent and lasting change has been effected.

Yours truly,

Lucifer B. Elzebub

[jazzbo]

Georgewelbub!

Or is that Georgewelbubba?

[Rooster_Ties]

[Rooster_Ties]

Recent recap of the current situation from the mayor of New Orleans: CLICK HERE.

In a nutshell, the mayor says...

"We have 80 percent of our city underwater. In some parts of the city, the water is as deep as twenty feet.

"We have people still trapped on their roofs.

"We have an incredible amount of water in the city. Both airports are underwater.

"The twin spans in New Orleans East are destroyed. They're gone.

"We have three huge boats that have run aground. We have an oil tanker that is also run aground. And leaking oil.

"We have a serious levee break at 17th Canal. It's causing waters to continue to rise in certain sections of the city.

"We have houses that have literally been picked up off of their foundations and moved.

"The yacht club on the lake has burned and is destroyed.

"I must tell people who are driving around that if you drive on the highrise, we're not sure about the structural soundness of the high-rise, because it appears that a barge has hit one of the main structures of the high-rise.

"This is a briefing that I got from FEMA.

"All of Slidell is under water.

"We have gas leaks that have sprout out, and even when they are under water, you will see a flame shooting out of the water. It's not a pretty picture.

[ghost of miles]

God, it's horrible. I think there was a sense of relief in the rest of the country yesterday afternoon that had no relation to reality--and that certainly had no relation to this aftermath.

Katrina May Have Killed 80 in Miss. County By HOLBROOK MOHR, Associated Press Writer

GULFPORT, Miss. - Rescuers in boats and helicopters searched for survivors of Hurricane Katrina and brought victims, wet and bedraggled, to shelters Tuesday as the extent of the damage across the Gulf Coast became ever clearer. The governor said the death toll in one Mississippi county alone could be as high as 80.

"The devastation down there is just enormous," Gov. Haley Barbour said on NBC's "Today" show, the morning after Katrina howled ashore with winds of 145 mph and engulfed thousands of homes in one of the most punishing storms on record in the United States.

In New Orleans, meanwhile, water began rising in the streets Tuesday morning, apparently because of a break on a levee along a canal leading to Lake Pontchartrain. New Orleans lies mostly below sea level and is protected by a network of pumps, canals and levees. Many of the pumps were not working Tuesday morning.

Officials planned to use helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach.

Barbour said there were unconfirmed reports of up to 80 deaths in Harrison County — which includes devastated Gulfport and Biloxi — and the number was likely to rise. At least five other deaths across the Gulf Coast were blamed on Katrina.

"We know that there is a lot of the coast that we have not been able to get to," the governor said. "I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a very bad disaster in terms of human life."

Along the Gulf Coast, tree trunks, downed power lines and trees, and chunks of broken concrete in the streets prevented rescuers from reaching victims. Swirling water in many areas contained hidden dangers. Crews worked to clear highways. Along one Mississippi highway, motorists themselves used chainsaws to remove trees blocking the road.

Officials said it could be a week or more before many of the evacuees are allowed back. They warned people against trying to return to their homes, saying their presence would only interfere with the rescue and recovery efforts.

"What we're doing is trying to make the best of a bad situation, and we need people to cooperate," New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass said.

More than 1,600 Mississippi National Guardsmen were activated to help with the recovery, and the Alabama Guard planned to send two battalions to Mississippi.

In New Orleans, a city of 480,000 that was mostly evacuated over the weekend as Katrina closed in, those who stayed behind faced another, delayed threat: rising water. Failed pumps and levees apparently sent water from Lake Pontchartrain coursing through the streets.

The rising water forced one New Orleans hospital to move patients to the Louisiana Superdome, where some 10,000 people had taken shelter, authorities said.

In downtown New Orleans, streets that were relatively clear in the hours after the storm were filled with 1 to 1 1/2 feet of water Tuesday morning. Water was knee-deep around the Superdome. Canal Street was literally a canal. Water lapped at the edge of the French Quarter.

Little islands of red ants floated in the gasoline-fouled waters through downtown. The Hyatt Hotel and other high-rise around the Superdome had rows and rows of shattered windows.

"We know that last night we had over 300 folks that we could confirm were on tops of roofs and waiting for our assistance. We pushed hard all throughout the night. We hoisted over 100 folks last night just in the Mississippi area. Our crews over New Orleans probably did twice that," Capt. Dave Callahan of the Coast Guard Aviation Training Center in Mississippi said on ABC.

National Guardsmen brought in people from outlying areas to the Superdome in the backs of big 2 1/2-ton Army trucks. Louisiana's wildlife enforcement department also brought people in on the backs of their pickups. Some were wet, some were in wheelchairs, some were holding babies and nothing else.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said on ABC: "The biggest concern is that this whole situation is totally overwhelming. I know the desperation of all of the folks who had evacuated. I know they desperately want to get in. In most cases, it is totally impossible for them to get in. The streets are inundated with water. The devastation is vast. And there's really — there's nothing they can do."

Late Monday, Harrison County emergency operations center spokesman Jim Pollard said about 50 people had died in the county, with some 30 of the dead at a beach-side apartment complex in Biloxi. Three other people were killed by falling trees in Mississippi and two died in a traffic accident in Alabama, authorities said.

In Louisiana, Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' homeland security chief, said bodies were seen floating in the floodwaters in the hardest-hit areas. He could not give an estimate of deaths as of Tuesday morning, but said he believed the death toll would not be as great as some of the images of devastation would suggest.

The death toll does not include 11 deaths in South Florida when a much-weaker Katrina first hit land last week.

"This is our tsunami," Mayor A. J. Holloway of Biloxi, Miss., told The Biloxi Sun Herald.

Teresa Kavanagh, 35, of Biloxi, shook her head is disbelief as she took photographs of the damage in her hometown.

"Total devastation. Apartment complexes are wiped clean. We're going to rebuild, but it's going to take long time. Houses that withstood Camille are nothing but slab now," she said. Hurricane Camille killed 256 people in Louisiana and Mississippi in 1969.

In Biloxi mayor's office said the storm's surge put at least five casinos out of commission. The Hard Rock Cafe and Beau Rivage were severely damaged. The bottom floors of a condominium were all but washed away. All that remained of one hotel was the toilets.

Katrina's surge also demolished major bridges along the coast. The storm swept sailboats onto city streets in Gulfport and obliterated hundreds of waterfront homes, businesses, community landmarks and condominiums.

A foot of water swamped the emergency operations center at the Hancock County courthouse — which sits 30 feet above sea level. The back of the courthouse collapsed under the onslaught.

The hurricane knocked out power to more than 1 million people from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, and authorities said it could be two months before electricity is restored to everyone. Katrina also disrupted petroleum output in the very center of the U.S. oil refining industry and rattled energy markets.

By midday Tuesday, Katrina was downgraded to a tropical depression, with winds around 35 mph. It was moving northeast through Tennessee at around 21 mph.

Forecasters said that as the storm moves north over the next few days, it could swamp the Tennessee and Ohio valleys with a potentially ruinous 8 inches or more of rain. On Monday, Katrina's remnants spun off tornadoes and other storms in Georgia that smashed dozens of buildings and were blamed for at least one death.

According to preliminary assessments by AIR Worldwide Corp., a risk assessment company, the insurance industry faces as much as $26 billion in claims from Katrina. That would make Katrina more expensive than the previous record-setting storm, Hurricane Andrew, which caused some $21 billion in insured losses in 1992 to property in Florida and along the Gulf Coast.

Michael Brown, director of the    Federal Emergency Management Agency, said on CBS that it will be "quite awhile" before those displaced by the hurricane can return, particularly in areas close to downtown New Orleans. In some places, "it's going to be weeks at least before people can get back."

And once the floodwaters go down, "it's going to be incredibly dangerous" because of structural damage to homes, diseases from animal carcasses and chemicals in homes, Brown said.

At the Superdome, where power was lost early Monday, thousands spent a second night in the dark bleachers. With the air conditioning off, the carpets were soggy, the bricks were slick with condensation and anxiety was rising.

"Everybody wants to go see their house. We want to know what's happened to us. It's hot, it's miserable and, on top of that, you're worried about your house," said Rosetta Junne, 37.

Mike Spencer of Gulfport made the mistake of trying to ride out the storm in his house. He told NBC that he used his grandson's little surfboard to make his way around the house as the water rose around him.

Finally, he said, "as the house just filled up with water, it forced me into the attic, and then I ended up kicking out the wall and climbing up to a tree because the houses around me were just disappearing."

He said he wrapped himself around a tree branch and waited four or five hours.

Anne Anderson said she lost her family home in Gulfport.

"My family's an old Mississippi family. I had antiques, 150 years old or more, they're all gone. We have just basically a slab," she told NBC. She added: "Behind us we have a beautiful sunrise and sunset, and that is going to be what I'm going to miss the most, sitting on the porch watching those."

___

Associated Press reporters Mary Foster, Allen G. Breed, Brett Martel, Adam Nossiter and Jay Reeves contributed to this report.

___

[ghost of miles]

Photo of a former apartment complex in Biloxi:

[ghost of miles]

More Katrinas likely, according to scientists:

Brace for more Katrinas, say experts

PARIS (AFP) - For all its numbing ferocity, Hurricane Katrina will not be a unique event, say scientists, who say that global warming appears to be pumping up the power of big Atlantic storms.

2005 is on track to be the worst-ever year for hurricanes, according to experts measuring ocean temperatures and trade winds -- the two big factors that breed these storms in the Caribbean and tropical North Atlantic.

Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Risk, a London-based consortium of experts, predicted that the region would see 22 tropical storms during the six-month June-November season, the most ever recorded and more than twice the average annual tally since records began in 1851.

Seven of these storms would strike the United States, of which three would be hurricanes, it said.

Already, 2004 and 2003 were exceptional years: they marked the highest two-year totals ever recorded for overall hurricane activity in the North Atlantic.

This increase has also coincided with a big rise in Earth's surface temperature in recent years, driven by greenhouse gases that cause the Sun's heat to be stored in the sea, land and air rather than radiate back out to space.

But experts are cautious, also noting that hurricane numbers seem to undergo swings, over decades.

About 90 tropical storms -- a term that includes hurricanes and their Asian counterparts, typhoons -- occur each year.

The global total seems to be stable, although regional tallies vary a lot, and in particular seem to be influenced by the El Nino weather pattern in the Western Pacific.

"(Atlantic) cyclones have been increasing in numbers since 1995, but one can't say with certainty that there is a link to global warming," says Patrick Galois with the French weather service Meteo-France.

"There have been other high-frequency periods for storms, such as in the 1950s and 60s, and it could be that what we are seeing now is simply part of a cycle, with highs and lows."

On the other hand, more and more scientists estimate that global warming, while not necessarily making hurricanes more frequent or likelier to make landfall, is making them more vicious.

Hurricanes derive from clusters of thunderstorms over tropical waters that are warmer than 27.2 C (81 C).

A key factor in ferocity is the temperature differential between the sea surface and the air above the storm. The warmer the sea, the bigger the differential and the bigger the potential to "pump up" the storm.

Just a tiny increase in surface temperature can have an extraordinary effect, says researcher Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In a study published in Nature in July, Emanuel found that the destructive power of North Atlantic storms had doubled over the past 30 years, during which the sea-surface temperature rose by only 0.5 C (0.9 F).

Emanuel's yardstick is storm duration and windpower: hurricanes lasted longer and packed higher windspeeds than before.

Another factor in destructiveness is flooding. Kevin Trenberth of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research suggests that hurricanes are dumping more rainfall as warmer seas suck more moisture into the air, swelling the stormclouds.

The indirect evidence for this is that water vapour over oceans worldwide has increased by about two percent since 1988. But data is sketchy for precipitation dropped by recent hurricanes.

"The intensity of and rainfalls from hurricanes are probably increasing, even if this increase cannot yet be proven with a formal statistical test," Trenberth wrote in the US journal Science in June. He said computer models "suggest a shift" toward the extreme in in hurricane intensities.

[Soul Stream]

This is the stuff the national guard was really meant and needed for. Hope we have enough of them left to do what's needed in LA.

[Joe G]

I had the same thought.

[BERIGAN]

August 30, 2005

Storms Vary With Cycles, Experts Say

By KENNETH CHANG

Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming.

But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught "is very much natural," said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season.

From 1970 to 1994, the Atlantic was relatively quiet, with no more than three major hurricanes in any year and none at all in three of those years. Cooler water in the North Atlantic strengthened wind shear, which tends to tear storms apart before they turn into hurricanes.

In 1995, hurricane patterns reverted to the active mode of the 1950's and 60's. From 1995 to 2003, 32 major hurricanes, with sustained winds of 111 miles per hour or greater, stormed across the Atlantic. It was chance, Dr. Gray said, that only three of them struck the United States at full strength.

Historically, the rate has been 1 in 3.

Then last year, three major hurricanes, half of the six that formed during the season, hit the United States. A fourth, Frances, weakened before striking Florida.

"We were very lucky in that eight-year period, and the luck just ran out," Dr. Gray said.

Global warming may eventually intensify hurricanes somewhat, though different climate models disagree.

In an article this month in the journal Nature, Kerry A. Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote that global warming might have already had some effect. The total power dissipated by tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic and North Pacific increased 70 to 80 percent in the last 30 years, he wrote.

But even that seemingly large jump is not what has been pushing the hurricanes of the last two years, Dr. Emanuel said, adding, "What we see in the Atlantic is mostly the natural swing."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/30/national...agewanted=print

[BERIGAN]

This region is going to need help from everyone. Financial, and otherwise. How many people no longer have a way to earn money? How many people who made it out of town are going to max out their credit cards, and not be able to pay for hotels, gas, or meals? How many poor people are there who stayed in N.O. who can't get diapers, food, medicine or clean clothes? Can you even imagine how bad the mosquitoes problem is going to be? West Nile Virus? Dead bodies rotting in the water?

It's supposed to be in the mid 90's the rest of the week, no air. Imagine how horrible it feels inside the Superdome right now. Imagine trying to sleep in a plastic chair for days, weeks.

The mayor in the clip above even mentioned how people with drug addictions were breaking into stores to steal whatever they could to get a fix...so many problems right now. How do you rebuild in a timely manner, the number of homes that will need to be rebuilt? Tent cities everywhere?

[sheldonm]

This is certainly a disaster.....I hope the people that bitched about the U.S. not helping in some recent events are lining up to lend a hand.

m~

[Joe G]

Any links for sending aid should be posted here.

[7/4]

I have friends missing in NO.

[Joe G]

That's worrisome, to say the least. I hope you hear from them soon.

[vajerzy]

Wishing good thoughts for those people in the affected area.........

I hope the Big Dawgs who run our country can divert a few billion from activities overseas and actually spend it on our citizens who really need it.

This is the time when it's reallly needed.

[7/4]

That's worrisome, to say the least. I hope you hear from them soon.

←

Thanks. Time will tell.

They moved down there to get out of the NYC grind a few years ago.

[ghost of miles]

7/4, thoughts and prayers to your friends.

In response to some earlier comments about the Guard:

Strained US National Guard has hurricane relief role

By Will Dunham

59 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - National Guard troops played a leading role responding to Hurricane Katrina's destruction along the U.S. Gulf Coast on Tuesday, but thousands more who might have been part of the effort are deployed in    Iraq.

About 7,500 National Guard soldiers and airmen have been mobilized by state governors for disaster relief in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida,    Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

They were assisting in law enforcement, helping at shelters and in medical efforts, removing debris, providing power generation and other missions.

The Pentagon has sent about 40 percent of Mississippi's National Guard force to Iraq and 35 percent of Louisiana's -- a combined total of about 6,000 troops. But officials maintained this had not hurt the relief effort in those states, hardest hit by the hurricane.

The Army National Guard was formed as a part-time force, with its members living civilian lives while doing periodic military training. But the Pentagon has relied heavily on these troops in combat roles in Iraq.

Unlike soldiers in the part-time Army Reserve, made up of federal troops, those in the National Guard serve under the control of state governors usually for roles like disaster relief in their home states. They can be summoned to active-duty Army service in times of national need.

Some state governors have worried that the Pentagon's deployment of so many Guard troops has eroded their states' abilities to respond to disasters like wildfires and hurricanes. The Pentagon has promised never to deploy more than half of a state's guard force at any given time.

"It certainly means that they (the states) don't have the level of personnel that they might desire to handle some of these situations. They're doing with the minimum, not what might be optimal," said Cato Institute defense analyst Ted Carpenter.

The Pentagon said 78,000 of the roughly 440,000 National Guard troops nationwide are deployed overseas. Some troops and families have complained about the overseas combat duty and the Army National Guard is poised to miss its recruiting goals for a third straight year.

Two other states affected by the hurricane also have large numbers of their National Guard troops overseas; 23 percent of Alabama's and 26 percent of Florida's are deployed.

"None of the states impacted are stretched thin at all," said Jack Harrison, a National Guard Bureau spokesman at the Pentagon, noting there are about 31,500 guardsmen either activated or available to be activated in the four states.

Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said an interstate agreement allows states voluntarily to provide personnel and equipment to neighboring states in emergencies.

For example, the Arkansas National Guard has activated 350 troops to assist in Mississippi.

A number of Western states that rely on the National Guard to fight forest fires and handle other disasters have expressed concern about the impact of having a large number of those troops in Iraq.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, has criticized the Bush administration's reliance on the National Guard, saying 44 percent of his state's guard was mobilized in Iraq, far above the 21 percent national average.

"The state of Montana does not have that many assets outside the National Guard," he said earlier this month.

[trane_fanatic]

80% of the N.O. is underwater right now. That alone scares me.

[ghost of miles]

How to Help

Are they truly talking about evacuating the Superdome?