I do however, take issue with having a hysterical mayor on the radio crying about the Storm of the Century being 900 miles wide when that simply NEVER HAPPENED. I don’t need to be frightened in to having common sense, especially by such an award winning idiot.

I also am not fond of Warren Riley announcing that if I stay in town and go out of my house I “will be arrested.” Not detained or asked for ID or questioned, mind you.
ARRESTED.
This serves as a defacto order to all NOPD to arrest anyone & everyone without probable cause, dialouge, etc. It also means that any questioning of this treatment constitutes Resisting Arrest, and carries penalties and a permanent criminal record for say, taking some water to the old lady next door.

Sorry, Warren, but that’s not only fucking wrong, it’s unconstitutional. We have enough problems with the thug mentality of our local cops without a license to arrest everybody they see. Just look at the ‘checkpoint’ fiasco, stopping people on the parish line like a Smokey and the Bandit movie, even though it’s in the middle of a fucking freeway, with nowhere to turn around.

Then there’s the No Return bullshit. What was I supposed to do Out There with no money or gas? My house is fine, the power is on, and I’m one of those people who restores houses and stuff. Maybe if I strap an award top the hood of the truck….

Evacuating those who need it is great. Well done. Lying to us about the size of the storm makes Clarence R. Nagin look more like chicken little, but that’s fine, too. Arresting me for taking care of myself and not trusting City Hall is both wrong & illegal. Keeping me from my home is criminal.
Listening to C. Ray Nagin pat himnself on the back and talk about what a great job he did, when THERE ARE STILL PEOPLE OUT THERE FROM KATRINA, well, I got sick in a bag, and I’m sending it to City Hall, labeled Nagin’s Award.

As for the million some odd folks who spent many hours cooking in the heat on the side of a freeway with no water or bathrooms for miles and miles, and those who were evacuated by the city and still can’t get home, my heart goes out to you. I will not do this again.

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2008/08/nagins_mother_of_all_storms.html

If he was shown the same storm surge model map I was shown today, his words were too weak. I would have borrowed a line that former Gov. Kathleen Blanco used in the run-up to Hurricane Rita’s landfall: If you don’t plan on leaving, please write your Social Security number on your arm in indelible ink so we can identify your body.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4479

As of September 2nd, it was reported that “Entergy’s Waterford 3 nuclear plant shut Sunday night; River Bend nuclear plant powered down to 75 percent due to lower electricity demand.”

BTW, do you realize that we have several thousand LA evacuees still stuck in MS because of no money to get home on or disabled vehicles? The reports yesterday said they can’t return the bussed evacuees home until the Mayor lifts the curfew. I have no idea what that’s all about (something legal, no doubt) but meanwhile, they’re stuck and the busses are needed for whatever their usual service is. I can’t imagine what will happen when they do send them home and don’t have the use of school busses to get them there.

A few items of note from the rumour-mill. If anyone can confirm these, it would be appreciated.

La Donna tells me that FEMA will only pay for hotel stays only from the time you apply for relief, and that FEMA would pay the hotels directly for your stay. This means that those of you who waited until the storm passed, or until you returned to apply are S.O.L for whatever bills you accrued on your evac.

Also, there is report of a Louisiana State Senator or Congressman chiding evacuees for expecting FEMA to foot the hotel bills. He reportedly said that evacuees had a choice of hotels or shelters and if they decided against the latter then the Feds should not be held accountable for the bills of the former. I can’t find this on Google.

Last Item: The NOPD was hanging out in Jefferson Parish on I-10 checking ID’s before letting anyone in to New Orleans. Anyone trying to cross the GNO twin spans was turned away by these thugs. JP Sheriff Newell Normand was on the scene in no time. It seems these idiots were not informed that Ray Nagin decided to disband checkpoints early and allow all residents to return. No one has been able to explain what the NOPD was doing in Jefferson Parish.

Well, I know what they were doing. They were being assholes. Instead of putting the checkpoint at the City Park exit, where people could turn around under the bridge, they sat at the parish line and simply caused a massive traffic jam. They get paid for working, and they don’t have to check any ID’s because traffic isn’t moving. According to sources, Normand met with Orleans Councilman Arnie Fielkow on the side of the interstate and got everything cleared up, then disbanded the checkpoints in Jefferson Parish.

I believe that people like my wife and I, who have kids, are morally obligated to leave when there is a threat like this — even an iffy one. When you have kids the decision is pretty much made for you.

However, it would ne nice not to be lied to, and even nicer to be able to come home immediately after the threat has passed.

An evacuation, the way I understand it, is the act of removing a large group of people from the path of a coming danger. It’s not about locking people out of their homes after the danger has passed.

We are not children. We are seasoned veterans. We know how to deal with power outages, water outages, lack of grocery stores, lack of everything. This is minor league stuff when you’ve lived through the 2005 ringer.

http://louismaistros.livejournal.com/

also, don’t forget it was the National Weather God’s - who on Saturday evening said that Gustav was going to build up to a 4 or 5 cat. 150 miles away. what did eveyone expect the officials to do… nothing??? tell the people to chill and lets wait till it’s 50 miles away to decide to leave or not??

*and for the record, this isn’t a political opinion. as i gag at the thought of most of our officials.

losing everything in a disaster will change you forever.

Nagin is an idiot - don’t listen to anything he says - and there are people who stayed behind and fared just fine. The last time, thousands drowned. When are we going to come to terms with the fact that there is no predicting the future when it comes to hurricanes and floods, and that situations like this, even when “prepared,” will always be gigantic rodeos of clusterfucks? We, i.e humans, are not invincible.

Anyway, I thought it kicked ass and summed up exactly how I felt.