Katrina Morning Line

Just heard from my college buddy who had just recently moved to Baton Rouge. He and his family is fine. They don't have any power, but are staying with a colleague who had power restored.

He's volunteering to assist in the recovery efforts by helping out at the River Center in Baton Rouge. It's basically a huge refugee camp.

I wish him well. Those people are going to need all kinds of help.

This post will be updated throughout the day.

UPDATE:
Good news for college students who were supposed to start school in one of the affected areas. Rutgers University has announced that those students can take classes at the Rutgers schools and their course work will transfer over.

Displaced students will be accepted at Rutgers as "visiting students." They can take classes on Rutgers' campuses until their Gulf Coast schools are reopened.

The credits that visiting students gain at Rutgers should be able to transfer back to their home institutions, university officials said. Gulf State students must pay Rutgers' in-state tuition and fees, but school officials will allow them to delay paying, if needed.

Expect many other schools to do the same. Many other colleges in the Southeast are being used as essentially refugee camps, as some are taking in students stranded by the storm.

Mike Kelly looks at the uncomfortable facts of what would happen to Atlantic City if a hurricane hit with a significant storm surge. The results would likely mirror what happened in Biloxi, which was Mississippi's cash cow, pumping $500,000 daily into the tax coffers. AC pumps $1 million a day into New Jersey's coffers, but each year delivers more than a billion in revenues to secondary businesses. It would be a monumental hit. And these are things that planners must address.

UPDATE II:
To bring the point home, the town of Gulfport, Mississippi was essentially wiped off the map. Nothing remains.

As the powerful hurricane pummeled the coastline with winds approaching 145 mph, piers and boats evaporated in Gulfport, a city of 75,000. Piles of shipping containers were tossed far inland, and houses that had stood for decades splintered apart under the onslaught.

The entire shoreline between Texas and Florida was caught in a 200 mile wide blender on puree. Everything was pummelled. Oil rigs from deep in the Gulf of Mexico was thrown onto shore. Bridges were ripped from their foundations.

Homes along the shore never had a chance.

Neither did many of the people who stayed behind for whatever reason. The 20+ foot storm surge wreaked havoc for miles in every direction.

Brendan Loy remains indispensible, and includes a posting about the conditions in the town of Metairie (town is adjacent to New Orleans to the West). It essentially states that it looks like a nuclear bomb went off.

The people were glad to get the water and had no idea how bad the situation was because of the news blackout around there.

Today's reporting from Pascagoula, Miss., comments on how there is little trace of many homes other than the concrete foundations. The waterfront homes were simply washed away and debris was everywhere.

That is the kind of damage report we'll be hearing about for weeks to come.

Meanwhile, President Bush urges zero-tolerance in dealing with looters. The New Orleans police department is being tasked to deal with looters instead of assisting with the relief efforts and restoring order. Those relief efforts are being handled by arriving National Guard, Coast Guard, and Army, Navy, and Marine personnel arriving on station. More than 40,000 people are estimated to still be within the confines of New Orleans.*

* I know what I said about blogging on New Orleans, but the fact that men and material are being diverted to protect against looting means that recovery efforts elsewhere in the vicinity are slowed because manpower has to be tasked to deal with looting instead of helping victims.

Elsewhere, Vodkapundit notices the same Fineman article in Newsweek and gives it the Vodka Flamee treatment. Good for Stephen. One of his readers further notes the following:

They're deploying 20,000 National Guard troops across the whole disaster area.
The largest deployment in history.

If they decide to double that (not likely), it's be up to 40,000.

Which means that they will have deployed about one-seventh of the National Guard soldiers left in the US after Iraq deployments.

One further point, which I hope some of the milbloggers could comment upon, is the kind of national guard mobilization we are seeing. It doesn't make sense to have tank units deploy, but rather military police, logisticial supply units, food services, etc., which are needed to restore basic services. Are those units going to be overextended because of potential needs elsewhere in the world?

Also - for all those anti-war nuts who were protesting in front of recruitment centers against the war - this is one of the many ways in which our military services assists and defends the United States. Don't forget that. Every time you spit in the direction of the military or seek to disrupt recruitment efforts, you potentially harm fellow citizens who might need the humanitarian aid that the military can bring to bear during natural disasters. Just like now.***

*** fixed typos in above paragraph.

UPDATE:
While the toll is unimaginable and more than we can possibly bear, there are always stories that come to symbolize the horrors of any natural disaster. Countless other people have been killed due to the flooding in New Orleans, but word has come in that Fats Domino, a legendary rock musician, and his wife are missing. They had decided to ride out the storm in his home. Another notable musician is also missing, Irma Thomas, who was the original singer of what became the Rolling Stones’ hit, “Time is On My Side."

The loss of cultural treasures throughout the Gulf Coast is irreplacable.

UPDATE III:
The situation in Slidell, LA is dire. Bodies are being recovered from the area. People are wondering where is the help?

The water was mostly gone from this New Orleans suburb Wednesday, but organized relief still hadn't found many residents, and questions about what comes next after Hurricane Katrina had only begun.

Slidell, a city of 26,000, remained close to terra incognita. Police and government employees were moving about, but the city had no power, no phone service, no running water, no gasoline, and apparently no relief stations for the many people who chose not to flee from the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain.

This part is especially telling about the early statements about how the region fared well:

"We thought it was all over," said Bobby Quick, who stayed in his home one street over from Olive Street with his wife and two children. "I was starting to smile pretty good."

Then the water rushed up out of the swollen lake, rising so high that it flowed into chest-high windows miles from the shore.

"We saw it coming and all we could do was run inside and save all we could," Morgan said.

"It took 17 minutes," Quick said of the water's rise.

Water was still more than 2 feet deep in places around Slidell and the Eden Isles' main entrance. Most of the houses are still standing, but have taken serious damage from the flooding and other wind damage. Some residents have decided this was too much to bear and are heading out of the region, some with an air of finality.

UPDATE IV:
Former Duke point guard Chris Duhon, a native of Slidell, La., and an NBA player, has gotten together a relief effort for Slidell.

UPDATE V:
USS Harry S. Truman is heading to the region. The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and its battle group are headed to the Gulf Coast to provide assistance. The Truman will be the command ship for the navy's response to the hurricane. The USS Whidbey Island has special capabilities, including providing a mobile causeway, which will assist in bringing heavy equipment ashore.

Marine Corps spokeswoman Capt. Gabrielle Chapin said the Marine Corps Air Station at New River, N.C., had dispatched six CH-53 and two CH-46 transport helicopters to the Gulf Coast, although she did not have more details. At least 120 Marines were headed to the area from New River, Chapin said.

Also, Lt. Col. Bob Thompson, spokesman for Air Force Reserve Command, said volunteer pilots and crews were flying C-130 transports and HH-60 helicopters from Reserve bases in Florida, Alabama and Texas to ferry medical supplies and bring in para-rescue airmen for search and rescue missions in the stricken region.

The military's plans to assist with recovery efforts don't involve a large-scale shifting of U.S. troops from Afghanistan or Iraq, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said Thursday.

But the Pentagon is looking at ways to bring home from the war zones individual service members whose families suffered from the hurricane and need their help, said Lt. Col. Trey Cate, based in Qatar.

Further Katrina information from the US Navy.

UPDATE VI:
Town of Waveland, Miss. has been completely obliterated.

The storm virtually took Waveland out, prompting state officials to say it took a harder hit from the wind and water than any other town along the coast.

Rescue workers there Wednesday found shell-shocked survivors scavenging what they could from homes and businesses that were completely washed away. The air smelled of natural gas, lumber and rotting flesh.

Every home within a half mile of the shore is gone.

The town of 7,000 about 35 miles east of New Orleans has been partially cut off because the U.S. 90 bridge over the Bay of St. Louis was destroyed. There is no power, no phones, no way out -- and nowhere to go.

At least 50 deaths are officially tallied for this town.

UPDATE VII:
A reader had come to my site from this one, and the photos they had posted are pretty incredible. However, what really caught my attention was the discussion about the people in the pictures. Other commenters realized that the pictures were of family members, and thankfully reported that they were safely rescued by helicopter. Amazing stuff from the Parish.