Hurricane Katrina

The Road Trip blog in St. Augustine reports that several gas stations in the area ran out of fuel this weekend: ... both gas stations in my neighborhood were out of fuel today. One (a Chevron affiliate) was completely out and another (a BP outlet) was out of regular. In fact, half the gas stations between here and Jacksonville on US 1 were dry Saturday night. I haven't seen this myself, paying around $3 per gallon when I fueled up on Thursday. The Florida Times-Union reports current prices in ... (read more)

Katrina.Com Owner Responds to Storm

A web designer whose personal site has been published for years at katrina.com has turned it into a Hurricane Katrina relief site in response to the huge traffic from victims, their loved ones, and others seeking information on the disaster. Katrina Blankenship told ComputerWorld that the site has received 400,000 hits the past week, a twenty-fold increase on the normal monthly traffic. ... it wasn't until Monday morning -- when she saw her e-mail in-box full of messages -- that Blankenship ... (read more)

New Homes for New Orleans

Habitat for Humanity is beginning a home in a box program to quickly assemble, ship, and build new housing for victims of Hurricane Katrina: Habitat's plan is to assemble the materials needed to build a house -- either purchased or donated -- and then, working with affiliates, churches, corporations and others in communities all over the country, volunteers, working with building specialists, will "pre-build" the frame of a home over a few days. The house will be tacked together to ensure a ... (read more)

'Abandoned By Our Own Country'

The president of Jefferson Parish in Louisiana, Aaron Broussard, appeared on Meet the Press this morning in an interview you can watch on Crooks and Liars. Broussard reported FEMA officials who refused entry to shipments of water, turned back diesel fuel, and cut emergency phone lines: We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast. But the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the ... (read more)Broadcasting live from the New Orleans Convention Center on Hannity and Colmes last night, Fox News anchor Geraldo Rivera cried, holding a 10-month-old child as he discussed the extremely inhumane conditions 15,000 evacuees have been forced to live under. Outside, a visibly despondent Shepard Smith pointed out locked exit doors on the center and road checkpoints that prevented the exit of people housed for six days without food, shelter, sanitation, and medicine. "Let them go," Rivera begged. ... (read more)

Pastor: God Destroyed New Orleans

Agape Press, the publishing division of the American Family Association, issued a press release Friday quoting a New Orleans pastor who celebrates the devastation in New Orleans for wiping out "much of the rampant sin common to the city." Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans in Metairie, said that he warned for years God would pass judgment on the city: New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern ... (read more)Kaye Trammell, an assistant professor of communication at LSU, began a Hurricane Katrina weblog as she rode out the approaching storm last weekend in Baton Rouge. She writes in this morning's Washington Post about the experience: We on-the-scene citizens don't mean to replace journalism. We don't have the resources. But we can provide first-person accounts in our own voices of what is happening. Because blogs are so easy to create, they will only grow in number, and many will be covering crises ... (read more)

Dying of Thirst in New Orleans

As thousands of evacuees languished in the New Orleans Convention Center for four days, only one authority came to reassure them, according to NBC photographer Tony Zumbado: I went back with Harry Connick Jr. He spoke to them and told them he would do anything he can to help them. They seemed to appreciate that. He's the only person of authority -- believe it or not, a musician -- to go in there and tell them that things are going to be ok. Connick's upholding a fine tradition of entertainers ... (read more)I'm getting hammered by some people for my proposal that liberals and conservatives stage comparable relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina victims. One of the conservative bloggers I approached with this idea sent an e-mail that's still cooling off: You're sick ... trying to make a competition out of other's suffering. You should be ashamed of yourself. As I told him, competing to outraise another group is a routine charity practice. Look at all the weblogs in competition on TLB's Blog for ... (read more)

Go to the Back of the Bus Line

Today at the Superdome: Friday's evacuations began at about 9 a.m., halted for about an hour and then resumed two hours later. At midday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses rolled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the line to be evacuated -- much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the stinking Superdome since Sunday. "How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed ... (read more)