Report from Baton Rouge/New Orleans
 

Unfortunately the storm has taken the exact path they thought, on a scale of 1-5 on the scenarios this path took it at 2, 1 would have been a more west, northwestern jog through the lakes and up the river instead of across them, but it is still very bad here. The storm surge has been enough to push the 3 lakes and the various rivers in the area over their banks and into parts of New Orleans and the "northshore" area of St. Tammany Parish.


I am in Baton Rouge in the shadow of LSU, we are actually on their power grid which is why I still have power and internet. Downtown Baton Rouge is getting hit pretty hard, it is not far from me so I expect to lose power soon enough but may luck out, hope the rest of the BR guys are so lucky, post here if you can. Storms are expected to get heavier as the eye wall gets more north and level with us here to the west,we will just get heavier and heavier rains perhaps a few tornados but right now one of the arms has passed so it is calming before the other arm hits.

New Orleans' Lower 9th ward and St Bernard parishes are devistated, water is at 3-5 feet and rising at about a foot an hour, expected to go on for the next 4-8 hours. Over 100 people have been reported to have escaped through their attic to their roof tops and are trying desperately to get help. If you have family who stayed as hard as it may be please do not call, the phone circuits both land based and cell are jam packed and it is taking people hours to get a call through, Jefferson parish phone lines are useless, no one, even rescue/news has been able to get through for hours now, so once again please do not call

St Tammany Parish (mandeville, slidell, abita springs, lacombe, covington etc) The northern and western eye wall is now there, sustained winds of over 120 miles per hour are being reported. Pearl river is rising as are the smaller rivers as the storm surge has pushed Lake Ponchartrain over the banks and into the city of Mandeville/Covington, same thing with phone lines, no calls in please so that people who did not or could not get out can call and emergency people can use phones also. The storm will unfortunately be there for a few hours, it is only moving 15 miles per hour still, north, northeast towards western mississippi which will be getting hit very soon.

I will try to post more if we keep power, thanks for all the calls i have gotten from some of you, but please no more so that people who really need the phones can use them.

thanks for the heads up. glad to see your internet is still up

i knew the lower 9th would catch hell.

just like the westbank is right now too.

My grandmother just told me the trees on our street have blown over and blocking the street. Huge cedar and cypress split and block roads.

no way in, no way out.

Stay safe!!

The ST Bernard Levees have broken I have been told. My mom just told me levees have been breached.

Also, there are more than one coll[apse building on areas where there are no news, and people are trapped.

you caNnot call the police and there is no rescue until this thing is moving a little more.

hopefully things get better.

Hope everything goes ok for u

just talked to my grandmother... lines were up... JEFFERSON PARISH phone lines are operating.

I just talked to people in Jefferson parish.

Fletch - the building that collapsed is on Laurel right near Washington - also the Times building has some damage according to their website
The levee down at the French Quarter has a breech but not too much water rise yet - although its just the beginning

Thanks for keeping us updated. Be safe.

I am not talkinjg about New Orleans metro.

Fact is, where I am from the CNN reporters will not go.

There is no way they will cross the Crescent City COnnection, and they damn sure will not cross huey P Long bridge.

My gfamily just reported to me small hotels in Harvey have collapsed and people are trapped.

I am trying to fllow the news OUTSIDE of new orleans, because new orleans news is not where the tragedies are right now.

Small rural areas are under water yet the news is focusing on the Superdome.

i am looking past NOLA aand into rural areas where the families and communities i grew up in are now underwater.

Be safe.

I'm amazed you still have Internet connections.

Godspeed

Yeah they keep talking about how the vents and such blew off the dome, and windows broken out of the Hyatte meanwhile the East is getting the lake put in their living rooms. Some woman from out here just called in and said her family is calling her from their house out in the East, they are stuck in their attic and the water is rising fast. There are probably people calling the news stations directly with simular calls for help but for the moral of the people they are not going to cover the areas which we call "New Orleans" that are not really within the city limits just like Fletch said, those are where most of our families lived New Orleans as most of you know it is just where people worked. If your family is not one of the older ones and you just moved here within the last 10 years you probably did not know about the "Betsy Axe", back when Betsy hit new orleans most people died from drowning in their attics, after that everyone kept an axe in the attic so they could get to their roof tops. Pray for your families and friends

Storm is expected to be in state for the next 2 hours or so as it is getting faster, still heading into Mississippi, now a catagorie 3 down from the 5.

its overcast and windy here up in north la

Why did not all people leave?

yes, there are local reports of people in their attics.

one guy said he has a crowbar, an axe, etc and is waiting a little longer before hebusts through his roof and will be sitting on top.

imagine yourself in that situation.

locked in your attic, the water is rising, you got an axe and upon choice you will bust through the roof for your suvival.

this is the odds people are up against, and its far from over.

Stay safe, hope all goes well.

simply impossible.

new orleans is a work city.

many of the people there do not own cars. they work and live within the city.

new orleans still uses trolley cars and has great public transportation for workers, but no evacuation.

its simply impossible to even consider such a thing.

People stayed in town and thier homes because umm why?

no car, no hotel money, no where to go maybe? yeah that must be it. :disgust

Fletch exaplained it....

Wow, you should work as a journalist.

Stay safe out there!

Ahh.
Then in otherwords it is better to risk death.

Thats logical.

Don't get me wrong, I feel bad for the people that stayed behind but...

Lets be realistic for a second.

Its stupid as fuck to be there.

Thanks for the follow up!

There's a couple here in ATL that paid a taxi driver to drive them from NOLA to ATL. $1000 but like they said, their lives were worth it.

I can't imagine living in the rural areas and not having a vehicle of some sort, but I guess it happens.

You've obviously never driven through any of the projects down there. Don't be ignorant. Yeah, it sucks, but that is the way it goes.

Reality is that there are thousands of poor people down there that have no where to go.

Bush doesn't want the biggest polluter to be part of the Kyoto protocol because of short term views (like all of his views). It will only get worse over there.

Too bad it is mainly the poor Americans that suffer the most.

I was thinking that as well.

I've got 2 friends that live about 40 miles NW of the city, any idea what condition they'll be in at this point??

Damn, stay safe man :(

Thiis is why I dont live down there! Be safe though man. :( :thumbsup

You are in my prayers.

yeah that's pretty crazy. stay safe man

Not sure, but people are being encouraged to boil water before drinking it and there are reports of 12+ feet of water in Chalmette now.

Chalmette is just ouside of the city. And has bodies of water between it, so to see this amount of flooding is insane.

okay so their area is Hammond, LA I guess.... which looks to be very close to Baton Rouge...

http://www.nola.com/paradecam/index.ssf?video

"The cam is out of service due to Hurricane Katrina."

I have friends in Hammond.

Hammond is a very small town.

No idea about its condition as of right now though. I have been there many times and can only imagine the people there would be as prepared as they could be.

these things hit hard and those areas al;ways suffer power outage due to down lines and communication will be the first thing to go.

My prayers are with everyone in that area.

I really can sympathize with those people. I can't imagine the fear and panic that they must be feeling and if they have children how that must feel...trying to remain calm to keep your children calm....it must be heart wrenching...

Hammond has a few cool bars too.

Hammond features SOuth East Lcollege, so all i ever did there was party. :)

We might have the same friends in Hammond then... the 2 I'm talking about are webmasters...

the Hammond site is down too :(

http://www.hammond.org/

no, i dont have any friends who are webmasters.

Ahhkay. Well, hopefully they're alright!