Tuesday, August 30, 2005

It'll Always Be New Orleans ...

From the Times-Picayune Breaking News Weblog:
Two men surviving on generator power in the Lake Terrace neighborhood near the Lake Pontchartrain levee still had a dry house, but they were eyeing the rising water in the yard nervously. They were planning to head back out to the levee to retrieve a vast stash of beer, champagne and hard liquor they found washed onto the levee.
Still no word from anyone back home; I kept getting "all circuits busy" or "your call could not get through" messages last night. Hopefully some of the phonelines/cellsites will be back up today. I'm sure everyone is okay, but it be nice to hear something.

[ASIDE: One thing I hadn't really thought about: A lot of friends and family have moved away from South Louisiana, but still have 985 or 504 area code cell phones. While those phones could connect to local cell sites in Phoenix, Atlanta, or wherever, calls placed to them had to be routed through storm-damaged areas ... and thus couldn't get through.]

I talked to my brother in Atlanta last night, and he and his family were in the basement waiting out a tornado warning. They were getting some pretty good activity from the far bands of Katrina. I think we're supposed to get some activity later today, although the bulk of things should be well to the west of D.C.

4 comments:

marchenland said...

Gah... best of luck to your family. I'd been focusing on my own family down there, but today, as I looked at photos of Chalmette, I started thinking of everyone else I know who has family in the area.

All of my relations who were in NOLA got safely to my mother's place in Carencro, but with the latest developments with the levee, and what I've seen of the photos, I suspect they are now homeless.

Additionally, I still have friends from whom I'm waiting to hear.

It's heartbreaking, looking at the photos and the videos. Completely surreal.

Anonymous said...

Hey Carter. I have been thinking about you guys today. I hope that your family is safe and sound. We're still waiting word on a friend who is also MIA. Such a horrible thing to happen.

Anonymous said...

I hope you hear from your family soon. My family was also able to flee safely, however they probably don't have a home to come back to. I have family both in Kenner and in NO.

There is a local NO station that is still streaming live online.
www.wwltv.com They have great coverage, much better IMO then the national coverage. I will be thinking of your family and hope they are safe!

T. Carter said...

Thanks, y'all. I hope everyone else is starting to get news from friends and family.

Mad, surreal just doesn't cover it. I mean, intellectually, I knew this could happen, and the idea of the city flooding has always been a cool dystopian image, but now that its happened it's not funny, it's not ironic, it sucks. I'm having a lot of trouble just wrapping my mind around it all.