John, still down in New Orleans, gets a Wi-Fi connection long enough to post some night photos:
We joined the National Guard for its patrol in the Firth District on Tuesday night, a week after the levee was breeched. Watching soldiers in a pitch black American city patrol with night vision and automatic weapons, fully ready to engage, was something I never thought I would experience.
This page lets you see just how bad the New Orleans flooding was by letting you superimpose a map of the New Orleans flood zone on a map of Boston. Imagine if we were flooded from the harbor to Sudbury.
B.K. is reporting from Camp Edwards, where he's a volunteer:
These were people who JUST left their homes yesterday. Some looked pretty bad but many had been cleaned up well in the shelter. Was told, however, that the shelter they came from had dead bodies intermixed with the live folks. Still nasty. And people had no clue where they were going until after they got off the plane. They were told nothing. Despite setting up more permanant homes via base housing, many were just expecting to get in and get out. ...
While everybody else is leaving the city, John is now in New Orleans (with no doubt a good story as to why):
... Accounts from the scene may sound overblown but they're not. Conditions are just as bad as witnesses report, almost surreally so. Being in some parts of New Orleans is like stepping into a real world horror movie. ...
Give the Herald props - you e-mail them a letter to the editor and they'll print it right up. But with a few modifications, as Bri learns when his somewhat lengthy screed about how Howie Carr, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove suck is turned into a short plea to rich people to donate more to Katrina victims. Oh, and the Herald called him a Boston resident, which he isn't.
B.K. and a friend were just about to leave for Camp Edwards when they got word that FEMA put the kibosh on New Orleans evacuees coming up here. Given all the work Massachusetts (and Boston) did to get ready, he wonders if politics is at work, since Camp Edwards is on the same military reservation as the slated-to-be-shut Otis Air National Guard base:
Bri ponders after reading Carr's column (you have to pay to read) complaining that Ted Kennedy and John Kerry didn't open their homes to survivors:
Just because I have the mind of a sieve doesn't mean you do, too, but just in case: If you make any Katrina donations, you might want to check with your HR department to see if your employer does matching contributions (fortunately in my case, our HR people sent out a memo about it today).
Jeff reports:
A very eerie, but wonderful thing happened today, which is that my grandfather, after missing for over a week, was found safe in Houston. Like a five year old I quickly hopped to my computer and phone and sent out 30-40 of the happiest messages I could ever send. ...
UPDATE: This may all be moot since evacuees don't seem to want to spend the winter on a frozen Cape 1,500 miles from home.
UPDATE UPDATE: Some of them came after all.
Where they'll be staying: Some of the barracks at Camp Edwards (image via MassGIS OLIVER).
Jay approves of the plan to bring Katrina victims to Camp Edwards instead of the South Boston convention center:
... Moving people from the Superdome to the Astrodome to the Convention Center would have merely compounded the initial mistake of putting people in one mass room. ... This is Mitt's moment -- and he seems almost itching to replicate his 2000 Winter Olympics success. I'm pretty confident he'll handle it well -- as will the people of Massachusetts.
Also see Jay's five-point synopsis of the Katrina Blame Game.
Kate wanted to do something for Katrina victims. She has no emergency skills, but she can sew. So she's now in the middle of a 72-hour quilting blitz:
... I cannot think of a better way to spend a three-day weekend than getting bedding to those who need it. ...
As we turned onto Austin Street in Hyde Park this afternoon, a well dressed woman tried to wave us down. She was holding a small cardboard sign reading "Veggies for Katrina." When I waved and shook my head no as we drove by, she jumped into the street and started angrily waving her arms and yelling at us.
Lady, maybe you might want to consider whether people driving by you have already decided how to contribute to Katrina relief and don't need veggies.
There's a meeting tomorrow (Sunday) to discuss long-term housing for Katrina victims in the Northeast:
On Thursday, Jody posted how she wished she could make backpacks filled with good stuff for New Orleans kids.
Today, she posts:
Mary wanted to do something for Katrina victims. So she organized a bake sale 9-5 today (Saturday) at Mass. Ave. and Pleasant Street in Arlington Center:
A lot of us have something to say about Katrina, but three local bloggers stand out:
Dave, who normally writes about homeland security, has been ripping Bush and his feds a new one, in great detail, for belated, unorganized relief efforts:
...So why couldn't FEMA prepare for both disasters -- natural and terrorist? Silly me -- I forgot that funding was needed in Iraq -- and Bush was programmed today (the Stepford President??) to say that we still need to waste our money over there.
What if we got hit by a category-4 or category-5 hurricane? It happened in 1938; so it's not out of the question:
Several survivors along the coast of Rhode Island, stated that at the height of the hurricane, they saw a 40-foot fog bank rolling toward the beach, when the bank got closer, they realized it wasn't fog - it was water.
To be sure, Boston is not a bowl below sea level, good parts of the city and surrounding area consist of hills (I'm typing this on Grew Hill in Roslindale, high up in the clouds at 200 or so feet above sea level) and, overall, there are more escape routes out of Boston than New Orleans. But what would happen to waterfront areas (from the North End to East Boston to South Boston)? The areas along the Charles River Basin? Take a look at this relief map from the US Geological Survey's National Map:
Imagine a 20-foot wall of water hitting that. And while the city as a whole is not underground, key parts of our lives are: Remember how long the Kenmore stop on the Green Line was out of commission when the Muddy River flooded a few years back. Now multiply that by all the subway stops and tunnels downtown (well, except for Charles/MGH). The Big Dig. Basements, parking garages, utility conduits, you name it.
Perhaps equally important, what would happen to our social fabric? Would our police maintain order instead of rushing into the Wal-Mart to pick up some DVDs? (John: At least we know that there won't be a Wal-Mart downtown to loot). Would administrators at Children's Hospital be forced to take up arms?
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