Katrina bites

When the tsunami hit Southeast Asia last year, people around the world struggled to understand the magnitude of the disaster. I may have had a little better understanding of the situation, as I had two good friends who were working in Indonesia at the time; they flew from their island to Banda Aceh to assist the local officials, and sent updates back to their friends stateside. Still, it was still next-to-impossible to wrap my brain around the idea that hundreds of thousands of people were killed and millions of lives permanently altered in a heartbeat.

I have the same feeling tonight as I read news and blog coverage from Hurricane Katrina. Eighty percent of New Orleans is under water, and in some places the water is as much as 20 feet — 14 feet over my head! — deep. The stories of people holed up in their attics or sitting out on their roofs in the midst of 100 mph winds were almost impossible to comprehend.

WWL television's website has a load of information, including aerial video shots of the devastation. This interview with Mayor Ray Nagin is amazing for the laundry list of horror. Even though I don't know what squat about New Orleans, I know it's bad when Nagin says the Twin Span bridges are completely destroyed. Or when he calls for all residents on the east bank of Orleans and Jefferson (the combined population of which is roughly a million souls, according to Wizbang blog) to evacuate because sandbagging efforts at a major levee break have ended, the pumps at the levee will fail within hours, and another nine feet of water will pour into the area.

(Another source [see the 8:47 entry, which was two hours after Nagin's evacation notice] says crews are still trying to fix the levee; I hope they're right and the mayor is wrong.)

Rescue crews are ignoring the dead bodies in the water in order to reach survivors. How do I process that? The death toll is likely higher than anyone realizes right now — based on what I'm reading, I'm guessing it may reach quadruple-digits throughout the south — but the fact that there are survivors is encouraging. I have to hold onto the positive in such a devastating situation.

For a local angle, read this email sent from Oregonian Editor Sandy Rowe to the O's employees about their sister paper in NO. It was posted tonight in the comments of PDX Media Insider; the emphasis is mine:

I talked to Jim Amoss, editor of the NO Times Picayune, several hours ago when he reached Houma, La., newsroom. From there the editing crew was going to Baton Rouge, where they will continue to publish online, mostly via sending stories to Newhouse News Service by e-mail.

He said that the national media wasn't even coming close to grasping the scope of the story. The city is utterly, utterly devastated and uninhabitable.

They evacuated the newspaper building late this morning loading about 300 employees into delivery trucks and heading southwest. Most of those employees do not know if their homes survived, and Jim said many certainly did not. He assumes his is among those. As you have heard, to add to the pain, the looting in the city in increasing.

When the newspaper employees left the city, they were told it might be several weeks before they could return. Meanwhile, the journalists staying in NO are trying to do their jobs without the ability to move around much and with intermittent and difficult communications.

It's horrifying and humbling thinking of what so many communities and individuals, including our colleagues, are going through now and will have to endure in the weeks ahead. We have offered our help and resources to assist at any time and in any way, but right now there is nothing we can do from here. That will change as they get a better handle on the scope of this and have greater ability to move. It could be days or weeks before they can publish on newsprint or deliver -- and at least that long before people are back in the city.

Keep them in your thoughts.

The Times-Picayune, the staff of which evacuated its offices in NO just hours before escape would have been impossible and moved to Baton Rouge in an attempt to continue publishing, has dozens of powerful photos here.

Another good read is Josh Britton, a Louisiana State University student (I think) who has the Baton Rouge angle covered. He's the one who is linked in the previous paragraph.

For bad news that falls into the Human Failings category (i.e. looting, prison riots, and more looting), Michelle Malkin is all over it. Her entries, however, were too heart-breaking; I had to stop reading.

Also, check out Wizbang's early Wednesday morning entry advising a few bloggers to chill out about pointing fingers. A sample:

Think about it for a second from my chair... (I'm not whining but) I'm almost 40 years old.... Here is the sum total of all my worldly possessions: 4 pairs of shorts, 5 shirts, 2 pairs of shoes, 4 pairs of underwear, 1 pair of blue jeans, a box of family pictures, 2 flashlights, a piece of trench art my grandfather brought back from WWI and my father's hammer. (Hey, it means a lot to me!) That's it. Everything else is gone. And BTW, I'm unemployed.

I tell you that not to whine but to let you see the tree thru the forest. Multiply my situation by about a million. Stop and think about that... A million people homeless and unemployed.

If you're a blogger then (by near definition) you're a self proclaimed talented person. Prove it. They'll be plenty of time for punditry and pontification next month... In the mean time there is work to be done. Figure out how to help the victims.

Please (for the sake of all of us who actually understand the situation) please stop whining about the evacuation. It was a stunning success. Please stop saying that the levee at 17th street and Canal St. broke... There's no such place. (and no, FOXNews, even if there was such a place, I assure you, it would be on the south side of the lake and not the north side of the lake where you showed it on your map)

So here it is in a nutshell... Let's get some work done and play Monday morning quarterback sometime in early 2006. There's about million or so of us who would prefer it that way.

If you're looking to help, Glenn at Instapundit has a list of potential sources that could use a donation. Locally, go to the Oregon Trail Chapter of the American Red Cross.

And keep praying.