Those of you that were chomping at the bit to see what there was to see, the lovely folks at Timorous Me have taken my overly large source video and smashed it down a bit into Quicktime format, and graciously mirrored it. Check it out.
Look, I know there’s a handful of people that may be reading this – mostly VJ Army users – that live in New Orleans. My advice after reading the Urgent Weather Warning from the NOAA is to run like hell.
I quote the level of destruction estimated, because I get the feeling the sheer insanity of the text will eventually disappear – emphasis is mine:
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS... PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED. THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE... INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE. HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT. AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK. POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS. THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.
Katrina a top-strength hurricane, aims for U.S
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (Reuters) – Shopkeepers sandbagged galleries and stores in the French Quarter of the vulnerable Gulf Coast city of New Orleans and workers boarded up city hall as Hurricane Katrina strengthened dangerously on Sunday into a top-ranked storm.
Officials in the low-lying city famed for its Mardi Gras parades urged residents to evacuate and stranded tourists to shelter on at least the third floor of their hotels as Katrina threatened to make a second and possibly more deadly assault on the U.S. coast after killing seven people in Florida.
“This hurricane has the potential to cause extreme damage and large loss of lives if they don’t take action very soon,” Max Mayfield, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center, told WSVN television in Miami.
Katrina grew into a Category 5 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale by 7:05 a.m. EDT (1105 GMT), with winds of 160 mph (260 kph) capable of causing catastrophic damage. The storm was around 250 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River.
The hurricane center warned it could come ashore with a storm surge of up to 25 feet, and douse the Gulf coast with up to 15 inches of rain in some area.
We were scheduled to go to New Orleans for a short but much needed vacation on the 9th. My fingers as crossed as tightly as they can be that this won’t fuck everything up.