(no subject)
yeah, so it's pretty bad.
I just spoke w/ my g'ma who's been housing about 8-9 people since NO began to flood allowing them to shower for the first time in five days, and get some sleep. They are the doctors and nurses my aunt works with, and are fixing to head out to Houston where they are more welcome.
The street corners of Baton Rouge have police on every corner. The order is "shoot to kill". Baton Rouge will not tolerate looting, and the police are there to make sure everyone knows it.
Chaos in BR is summed up nicely by Geminimystique, and the general attitude of those down there is that people are taking advantage of the situation and not showing the better side of humanity.
All of New Orleans is flooded. The levees on the lake broke, while the river held fast. The lake has dropped 2 feet, but has stopped leaking water, and there is a 300 foot break in the levee that will need to be repared. The further south you go, the less of the city you see. My aunts house, further north in the city, only has four to five feet of water in the streets. Entire neighborhoods (such as the 9th ward) are underwater, and what isn't wet, is being looted and burned. My aunt expects to loose all of the belongings in her home to looters. She has a decent number of family antiques, and a couple of my personal family herilooms. We'll see what survives the chaos.
My aunt is back in NO helping the state police care for the sick, and taking care of the wounded in the shoot-outs and riots that are occuring. My uncle is staying in Tennessee with the kids. They retreived the passports, etc from the home before the looting began, so at least they will have their identities when the flood waters finally receed.
There is chaos in the south, and i only wish that I could at least be there to tough it out with the people I grew up with, rather than reading about it up here from the relative comfort of my dc apartment. i gave $5 to the relief fund at work so that i could wear jeans tomorrow. i feel this makes me a bad person some how. good god.