How are all the members in the Southern States.

[FluffyMcDeath]

Everyone safe?

[blobrana]

i guess they`re all going to be off line for a few months...

[adz]

I know Red is still actively posting on whyzzat.com along with Wayne and Itstanfo, not sure about anybody else. Don't seem to recall anybody from New Orleans, however I could be wrong.

[Tigger]

adz wrote:
I know Red is still actively posting on whyzzat.com along with Wayne and Itstanfo, not sure about anybody else. Don't seem to recall anybody from New Orleans, however I could be wrong.

Some large limbs down, about 25% of Huntsville lost power at some point, two houses took damage from trees on my street alone, but we were lucky compared to the coast.  Looks like my folks place after Charlie last year for much of the MS coast, and seeing NO get wetter each day is no fun.  It'll be repaired and it will be rebuilt better and stronger, its a 300 year old city, its survived storms before, it will survive Katrina.
     -Tig

[Plaz]

We near Atlanta got lots of rain and several tornados.
Some areas have a lot of damage, but nothing compared to
Louisiana and Missisippi. Red Cross shelters are filling
in our area with refugees and gas is empty in some places.
It's going to be a long painful clean up after this one.
I work for a hospital, and we've basically been 'on alert'
since tuesday eve. New Orleans hospitals are being
evacuated spreading patients to other hospitals through out
the south. We've been contacted to take some on,
though we're at capacity now with normal patients.
Good news is we're nearing completion of expansions of
two of the Hospitals in our organization, bad news, they
won't be done in time to make any difference in this case.
I've heard reports of "premies" (critical babies) dying
during the evacuations. I don't know if those stories have
been confirmed, but tragic if true. My own daugher was
a similar premie 9 years ago.

:rant on::admonish:
I've been close to the news, and I have to say the
management on the releif has been pitiful. Resources
should have been moving before the rain even started
to fall. I'm just an ignorant nobody and I could tell
sunday night this was going to be hell. The national
gaurd is finally being activated 3 days later. Duh.
FEMA should have new management after this. FEMA and
W. Bush should have learned better lessons after
Hurricane Andrew and the way it made a fool of FEMA
and Bush Sr. Simple things, like having extra fuel
tankers topped off and ready to roll in to evacuation
areas before hand. How can you evacuate 400,000 people
with out gas for the transportation? And to assume
just because you told everyone to get out, that they
are all able too? How about the sick, elderly, mentally
challenged, and very poor? Try putting your 95 year old
wheelchair bound grandmother in a hot car on a highway
going nowhere because of empty gas tanks and see how
fast you kill her. Of course they're going to sit home
and try to ride out the storm instead... again... DUH.
Ok, sorry.
:rank off:

Plaz

[Darrin]

I'm OK and thanks for asking.  I'm away on a business trip to West Africa so I missed the storm.  My house is around 2 hours away from New Orleans and wasn't affected by the winds.  My wife, however, is an Registered Nurse and is now working overtime to look after the influx of extrz patients that have been evacuated to safer areas.  She's also had to do a bus trip to another city close to New Orleans to collect some more seriously ill people to bring back to her Hospital.

I'm sure most of you have seen the pictures of New Orleans and Biloxi, but I've been emailed quite a few pictures taken by helicopter pilots checking on the oil rigs of towns further South.  Places like Venice and Fourchon in Louisiana have been virtually wiped out.  It's going to take years to sort out the damage as the affected area is greater than the size of the UK.  You can throw as much money as you like at the reconstruction, but there is only a finite number of trained construction workers and equipment.  There are apparently homes in Florida that still haven't been repaired from LAST YEAR'S storms.