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[wombat]

To me, strangely, the predominant thought is "Am I going to have to cross New Orleans off my Eventually Someday Road Trip?" The thought that New Orleans may just not be there anymore in its classic form boggles me.

Yeah, as the hurricane approached I thought, damn, I really should have tried harder to get there before it got wiped off the map...  But I once visited a historic district in a city in Poland that was completely levelled in WWII and was rebuilt identically. It's amazing what people can do.  And it's not us tourists who are going to want it back the worst, you know?

[AlohaDawg]

No. it's the people who want our Yankee Tourist Dollars who will want it back the most.

[AlohaDawg]

The people of LA may not have had a hurricane of this magnitude ever, or at least not in the course of their lifetimes, and thus are spared being thought of as fuck*ng idiots.

1 million + people
12 feet below sea level
Between a huge lake and a huge river

The first ones there who thought it was a good place for a city WERE fuck*ng idiots.

At this point, everyone should be well understanding that living there is basically a year-to-year dice roll on losing everything. The dice have rolled well for a long time, so the next 10-15 years could be pretty rough.

[pmcd9]

First off, to all the people concerned they missed their chance to see New Orleans.  Forget that, NO is gonna be just fine.  This storm has beat the hell out of them, but give 'em a little time and they'll be back on their feet.  NO isn't buildings it's people.

V, I read your message at 5 am this morning just before leaving for work and it hurt my feelings.  I've been posting on this board for nearly two years and you should know by now that i'm nothing if not compasionate.  I feel for the people of Louisiana and Mississippi and everywhere that Katrina has torn hell out of.  Shreveport (the town of my birth) isn't the only town dealing with refugees.  We got a whole mess of cajuns crowding our hotels, rest stops and anywhere they can find.  We've got 25 thousand being brought in to the Astrodome right now.  Answering a call for volunteers I went there straight from work, but in typical Houston style, they already had more helping hands than they could use so they turned me away.    When I finally got home my inbox was flooded (pun intended) with e-mails from a family friend trying desperatly to find shelter for cousins in Louisiana who have lost everything, a home, and business, it's terrible.  I have offered to put them up in my house.  They will be here tomorrow.  So no, i'm not taking this lightly.

My original post was a comment on the unmitigated audacity of thinking you can hold back the ocean.  I first heard about the levees in NO a couple of years ago in a nature program about natural disasters.  After seeing what they were doing, I just shook my head and said that ain't gonna work.  I guess I was right sad to say.  As for the people dying, well I gotta tell you I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them.  It's like the Darwin Awards Olympics.  I heard someone on the radio saying "it's our tsunami."  No, it's not.  The tsunami was unexpected and sudden.  Hurrican Katrina was forcast for weeks.  Hey, there's a hurricane coming.  GET THE FUCK OUT!!!  I realize that some people have mobility issues, but you don't have to stay in your  2 bedroom wood frame house.  GO TO THE SHELTER!!!  I imagine some of those dead folks were listening to that silly c&w song about having hurricane parties everytime it blows right up until their house (with them in it) was being busted into toothpicks.

Give to the red cross, I did.

~Paul

[CortJstr]

We finally heard from a doctor deal with at work. Being a doctor he couldn't evactuate early. He and his family are fine but all they have left are the clothes they were wearing and their cell phones. We now have to call a bunch of hospitals to let them know that he had some breast ultrasound and mammography films of theirs that are, needless to say, lost. Luckily everybody seems to be pretty understanding.

[Oz!]

The images from the news have left me in disbelief and sadness. As this is the closest connection I have to the events, I wish anyone affected the best.

Incidentally, does anyone know if a hurricane is just a cyclone by another name? Is there any metereological difference between the two?

cheers,
-OZ

[CortJstr]

Incidentally, does anyone know if a hurricane is just a cyclone by another name? Is there any metereological difference between the two?

I believe cyclone is more a synonym for tornado.
...
and Merriam-Webster confirms this.

[Oz!]

Man, but tornados are the extremely local weather event right? Like a big spout of air maybe on the order of 10m across? What we call a cyclone here, at least, seems to be exactly what is termed a hurricane elsewhere. Regional meterological linguistic variation?

[Lister]

Well, at least according to this faqs.org FAQ, the proper scientific name for a hurricane is a "tropical cyclone."

So not only are they indeed the same meterological events, your name for them is actually more correct than ours.

e d u c a t i o n ;

[V-Adore]

Wow, who knew? I think I've just been educated.

[AlohaDawg]

I thought that in the southern hemisphere a hurricane is called a typhoon...is a typhoon something else?

[CortJstr]

I thought that in the southern hemisphere a hurricane is called a typhoon...is a typhoon something else?

I think so:

Main Entry: ty·phoon
Pronunciation: tI-'fün
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration (influenced by Chinese -- Guangdong -- daaih-fùng, from daaih big + fùng wind) of earlier touffon, from Arabic tufAn hurricane, from Greek typhOn violent storm
1 : a tropical cyclone occurring in the region of the Philippines or the China sea

[Limmo]

Fats Domino lives!  Woo-hoo!

[Lister]

I'm afraid that New Orleans is in danger of slipping into anarchy.  Unless basic services are restored soon or EVERYONE is relocated, it's just going to get worse.

The people that are stuck in New Orleans right now have no hope for normalcy -- and people without hope can turn violent quite easily.  I entertained very real thoughts of harming people and stealing from them when I was stuck in Orlando without power, gas, or food... and that was only after three days.  I was hungry, hot, thirsty, and had nothing to fill my time with but waiting and envy.  I was rapidly losing sight of the big picture.

I wasn't really bad off at all, yet I felt angry.  I ended up finding a hotel room and taking a cab there until power came back.  It was really nothing, but until I was fed, clean, and cool I was filled with this inexplicable rage at everyone who had those things.

And again, my situation was ten times better than many people in that area, and a hundred times better than most in New Orleans.  I had my (intact) home, my possessions, and the means to remove myself from the area.  My part of town wasn't hit that hard; services began to be available again after 36 hours or so.  My power was back in under a week, and I luckily spied a gas station as its fuel delivery truck pulled in and was able to fill up.

If my home was destroyed with all of my possessions including my only means of transportation...

If there simply was no shelter to go to and no food available...

If I didn't know whether my friends, family, and neighbors were even alive...

If I didn't have the cash to get out of the area...

If I didn't know whether I would have a way to make a living any more...

I don't know.  I just don't know.

Sometimes I feel like the best answer is to move everyone out of the area, because that many people who've been through that much tragedy and are under that much hardship... things could get very bad.

[pmcd9]

Many have tried to lay blame for the problems in NO at the feet of the President.  And I think... they are correct to do so.

~Paul