Days 1-2

These were mainly The Man's days, as we arrived in Detroit for his 25th high school reunion. Landed at Detroit Metro, endured the interminable wait for luggage followed by the Death March to the rental-car shuttle stand. Then we made a beeline for White Castle, toured Bill's old 'hood to see his old haunts, went out to Ann Arbor to hang with his buddy Paul (our wedding M.C.), and then went to the shindig itself on Saturday night. We also went looking for a few houses where my father's relatives lived back in the 1930s, finding a few of them, but alas didn't see the house my grandfather built in Berkley, since I had the address of the house from before it was moved across the street to make way for a school.

The best part of this first leg of our trip was at the very end, when we left the reunion and headed to the Green Lantern at 12 Mile and John R. for pizza. Dear God, it might be the best ever. Lots of crust, but very light and airy. And tiny pepperonis that are perfectly crisped on the edges. Recommended most highly.

(don't forget the photos)

Hope everyone has lots of grandma's quilts (or a wood-burning fireplace) handy!

Natural Gas Prices Set Record, Pointing to Costly Winter (NYT)

Williams Will Not Run for Third Term

D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams announced today that he will not seek reelection next year, telling supporters he feels "it's time for a change" and for "new challenges."

Nobody In Ukraine Notices Absence Of Government

Congress Abandons WikiConstitution

Bush's Approval Rating Of Other Americans Also At All-Time Low

New PSA Reduces Accidental Staplings By 33 Percent

Guy In Philosophy Class Needs To Shut The Fuck Up

Two Publicists, Stylist, Personal Assistant Injured As Nicole Kidman Turns On Handlers

Tiger Woods Signs $15 Million Deal To Endorse Alex Rodriguez

... But I'm not going to tolerate Criminal Intent much longer if I keep having to look at Olivia d'Abo's Botox-frozen face.

And did you know how many oil and gas installations there are on the Gulf coast?

UPDATE: .... But before I go, let me just say. I find a little interesting that there are a bunch of Republicans now concerned that Katrina recovery spending is going to break the bank--but they certainly haven't shown the same level of concern over the past few years as the open-ended Iraq reconstruction bonanza has gone on. There damn well better be cuts in our Baghdad spending before there are cuts in our New Orleans spending.

Unprepared for Disaster

Experts Say United States May Not Be Ready for Natural or Man-Made Calamities

Sept. 13, 2005 - In a rare move by his administration, President Bush accepted full responsibility today for the badly flawed response to Hurricane Katrina. Despite the billions of dollars the federal government has spent since 9/11, many leading disaster readiness experts say the country may not be prepared for most major disasters.

Another terror attack on a major city, either biological or nuclear in nature, is drawing the most attention.

Although there have been police drills, a leading Republican congressman says there is no effective preparedness plan for a dirty bomb.

"I think if there was a dirty bomb attack in any of our major cities, we would be very unprepared," admits Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., who heads a key House subcommittee overseeing the government's preparedness against terrorism threats.

As for smallpox, the government says it now has enough vaccine for everyone in the country. However, the New York Academy of Medicine finds the government's actual preparedness plans to be deeply flawed.

"The plans themselves are flawed because there's a real disconnect between what people would actually do and the risk that planners are trying to protect them from," asserts Roz Lasker, head of the public health division at the academy.

There appears to be even less preparation for natural disasters, such as earthquakes. California is considered prepared, but not the Midwest and cities along the little-known New Madrid fault that stretches from Illinois to Tennessee.

"We're talking about hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of casualties, an event in the Katrina class," says Kyle Olson, the vice president of Community Research Asociates, Inc., a private homeland security consulting firm.

"Whether any state or local government is ready to respond to that, an event that comes without the warning we had with Katrina, I think that's the kind of thing that can keep you up at night," Olson says.

In addition, many officials believe the federal government has been slow to recognize a new and potentially greater threat, a rare and deadly strain of flu. Currently found in Asia, it is threatening to become a global epidemic and hit the United States.

"We could be dealing with a situation where 1,500 people a day could be dying of influenza, with a large number of those people being children," says Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disease Preparedness.

There is no vaccine for the avian bird flu. The United States has been well behind most industrialized countries in obtaining supplies of the one medicine that works against the rare flu. No deliveries of the medicine are expected until after this winter's flu season.

According to Redlener, "We are not even close to being prepared for this country."

By the time it got to New Madrid and then the Avian Flu, I burst out laughing. It was like he was speaking to me!

Okay, I'm sorry, this is just too damn funny.

U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of freedom from want, persecution and war.

God, I love fall.

Hey everyone, September is National Preparedness Month! How handy!

Despite her impatience with my continuing Doom, Suzanne passes along this NY Times link, "Planning the Impossible: New York's Evacuation." Which then leads me to the Post version, "Terrorism Could Hurl D.C. Area Into Turmoil - Despite Efforts Since 9/11, Response Plans Incomplete".

There's a school of thought out there that the government (and the media) has completed what the terrorists started, that is, convincing the population of the United States that anyone and everyone could be caught in a terror attack at any time, causing unnecessary fear and stress in huge segments of the population that are about as likely to be struck by terror as they are by lightning. I agree with this wholeheartedly--the classic post-9/11 Onion piece "Security Beefed Up at Cedar Rapids Public Library" illustrates the absurdity to perfection.

That being said, most of you know that I also believe there are certain areas of the country and certain landmarks that are more likely than others to be targets. For instance, big gleaming marble buildings that symbolize the United States (because apparently, I'm told, terrorists hate our freedom). As the crow flies, our house is a half-mile downwind of the US Capitol. When we bought it 12 years ago, I never concerned myself with What Could Happen--my reasoning was always that the Capitol would be target #1 for a nuclear missile, so I'd be vaporized before knowing what hit me. And, as a friend once wisely told me, it would be better to be gone in an instant than to be one of those left behind who have to bury the bodies. So I was cool with it all.

But 3 years and 363 days ago, my point of view changed just a teensy bit. I have a hard time getting people to understand the permanent damage to my psyche that came from spending a glorious September day in my living room looking up at the sky watching for inbound hijacked passenger jets, and wondering whether the Air Force would choose to save the Capitol by shooting down a plane over my house. (The passengers of Flight 93 saved my beloved Capitol building and quite possibly my neighborhood that day, something I don't ever forget.) Then there was the anthrax scares of 2001, when we stopped getting mail for a few days because our deliveries are so intertwined with the Capitol's. Then we started hearing about suitcase nukes, chemical and biological attacks, etc., each time seemingly illustrated with "here's what would happen if it were exploded on the steps of the Capitol." In all of these scenarios, it's quite clear that our street is far enough away that we probably wouldn't even suffer a shattered window, but with a toxic cloud hovering, it would behoove us to get out. Immediately. With the knowledge that we might not get to come back for a long, long time.

That would kind of mark a change in our lives. (And in the appraisal value of our house, but that's for another time.)

And that's why I have a certain amount of impatience with the people who have a certain amount of impatience with me over this subject, that I don't just laugh it off and say, "oh well, gosh darn, nothing I can do about it." Of course there's nothing I can do to prevent the bad guys from pulling this off, but I can sure as hell make sure that if I do have to leave my entire existence behind at a moment's notice, that I'm ready.

And boy oh boy, am I now ready, even down to the level of having packed and ready two bags that can be carried if just one of us is home and has to evacuate the 10 miles to my parents' house on foot (since DC descends into gridlock when there's a thunderstorm, one can only imagine the chaos on the roads during an attack, and if you think I'm getting on the subway at a time like this...). The bags contain water, PowerBars, cash, a FM/AM/TV radio with extra batteries, a flashlight, hats, underwear, socks, toiletries, medications, lists of accounts, even a few sure-to-be-useless dust masks. Also, there are discs that hold all of my electronic documents, including scans of the irreplaceable--my photo albums, journals, writing notebooks, and genealogy documents. If getting out by car is an option, then there are additional bags to grab as well, that have more clothes, more food, more water, paper plates, plastic utensils, and even cat food. (Note that all of this is also everything needed to Shelter in Place, in case an attack shuts down the city but our neighborhood is spared.)

Honestly, this is really no different than what people should put together at the beginning of the hurricane season if they live along the coasts, or what folks who live in earthquake zones should have ready, or what you might want to have prepared in case there's a fire or a flood or a tornado.

And yes, getting all of this stuff prepped is really just my way of attempting to control what is an uncontrollable situation, I'm well aware of that. But I'm guessing a few folks along the Gulf coast are wishing they had had my level of angst....

Because, after all, I am the Prophet of Doom.

Update on Hurricane Katrina's Damage to the Gulf Oil Patch

[...] Mississippi has essentially lost its barrier islands.  In addition the Chandelier Islands of Louisiana are completely gone.  All that remains of the Chandelier Islands is a few shoals.  In most locations it is now deep water.  These may be observed on NOAA photos at their website.  In addition much of the State of Louisiana, East, and South of New Orleans has sunk.  This may also be observed at the NOAA site.  The dikes along the Mississippi river remain intact but most of the land adjacent almost into the city of New Orleans is gone.  This extends on a line almost to Morgan City.   There is some question if this is an extended "storm surge" (Note no such thing has been observed before) or if the area is permanently gone.  The area involved is about 2000 square miles.  The entire area of the state south of Baton Rouge is now in danger of sinking into the sea forever.   This includes some areas into the State of Mississippi and the ENTIRE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS.

[...] Some 50% of the US Natural Gas supply is shut down due to pipeline damage and rig damage. This is the thing I was talking about in a previous posting to the PESN site when I referred to a Global Famine being a distinct possibility. It now is approaching certainty. Let us hope for the best.

[...] More serious is the Natural Gas supply. Americans can adapt on Gasoline. Not so for Natural Gas. Natural Gas is a commodity used to directly power a lot of industry and is used extensively for Peak Loading of the Electrical Power Grid. About ﾽ of it is used in the manufacture of chemicals especially for making NITRATE FERTILIZER. The USA is a massive exporter of nitrate fertilizer to the rest of the world. We also use massive quantities of it. The exact tonnage of this is difficult to estimate but this loss of supply is enough to risk the loss of a very significant part of the world fertilizer supply. This is going to affect the supply of food in the world for about 2 years. This will not be a minor loss.  This is why I referred to a "World Wide Famine" in the earlier PESN posting.  It is now a definite possibility.  

If the USA diverts Natural Gas to preserve the fertilizer supply, the US Power Grid will lose about 30% of its gross supply of electricity and most of its peak loading capacity.  This threatens massive loss of jobs and productivity.  Many industries cannot operate without the natural gas.  If it does not divert this millions may starve.  It is a horrible choice. 

In the meantime, we're told that the recovery of bodies in New Orleans is well underway, but perhaps not with the haste you'd hope for, but with plenty of bureaucratic buck-passing. Bastards. (If the source of this heinous story troubles you, check back soon, I'm waiting for CNN to post the transcript of Anderson Cooper discussing seeing the same bodies over and over for the past two weeks, and how if the government is so concerned about the dignity of the dead that it doesn't want their recovery photographed, perhaps they ought to show the dead that dignity by actually picking their bodies up out of the muck.)

UPDATE: Here's what Anderson said:

And some search-and-rescue people from a local nearby parish said, don't photograph that person. And we basically waited. And they left. And we did from a distance and a respectful distance, not showing any details, nothing that any family member who was at home, you know, because, God forbid, we don't want some family member seeing their loved one on television like this.

But, I will say, this -- as Dan said, this is not some ghoulish pursuit that is, you know, we just want to get pictures of dead people. This is reality. These people have not had dignity for two weeks now. And so, it's a little bit artificial for people to be saying that they are trying to restore the dignity to these people by not allowing their pictures to be taken, because, frankly, if restoring their dignity was the primary, paramount concern, you might make the argument that they would have been picked up and not had their bodies tied to stop signs and lampposts for the last two weeks, while rescuers repeatedly went by them, instead of picking up their bodies, Aaron.

UPDATE II: Gov. Blanco apparently agrees.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco lashed out at FEMA on Tuesday for what she said was a "lack of urgency and lack of respect" involving the recovery of bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims. Blanco said she ordered the state to sign a contract with Kenyon International Monday, after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff failed to live up to a promise to sign a contract with the organization.

"You play a bad match against Pete, you lose, 6-4, 7-5," he said. "You play a good match against Pete, you lose, 6-4, 7-5. You play a good match against Federer, you lose, 6-4, 7-5. You play a bad match against Federer, you lose, 1 and 1."

Fewer Bodies Than Expected Found in Sweeps

NEW ORLEANS - Authorities said Friday that their first systematic sweep of the city found far fewer bodies than expected, suggesting that Hurricane Katrina's death toll may not be the catastrophic 10,000 feared.

"I think there's some encouragement in what we've found in the initial sweeps that some of the catastrophic deaths that some people predicted may not have occurred," said Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' homeland security chief.

Ebbert declined to give a new estimate of the dead.

This is great news. But will we think we "dodged a bullet" if the death toll is "only" 1,000?

I must admit to wondering about the word getting out yesterday that FEMA had ordered 25,000 body bags--were they intentionally setting a high bar so that a much lower number would seem a relief? It reminds me of how we originally thought 10,000 people might have died on 9/11, and so for a little while the "merely" 3,000 dead seemed embraceably low, until everyone stepped back for a moment to think about the horror of 3,000 people dying in one strike.

A hurricane in the U.S. hasn't killed more than 250 people since 1969 (Camille, with 256 dead). The list of the 50 deadliest hurricanes to strike the US shows Camille, Audrey (1957, 390 deaths), and Diane (1955, 184 deaths) as the only storms after 1938 to make the Top 20. (The 20th deadliest hurricane, which hit Texas in 1886, killed 150 people.) Katrina's current death toll of 301 already puts it at 11th on this list. If the death toll reaches 1,000 (and remember, it isn't just New Orleans, but all along the coast), Katrina would be the 5th deadliest hurricane on record.

(As for the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history, you'd think that would be an easy list to find, but it's not, and numbers from Way Back When are hard to come by as well--for instance, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake killed 470 people. Or 3,000.)

And of course the final total may only count bodies found, not ones that disappear by other means.

UPDATE: Once again, Wolcott and I are pondering the same morsel (though he heads off in a slightly more volatile direction than meek little me).

UPDATE II: Hmmm. They've done the sweeps, but are now starting the sweeps?

"There's some encouragement in the initial sweeps ... The numbers (of dead) so far are relatively minor as compared with the dire predictions of 10,000," said Col. Terry Ebbert, director of Homeland Security for New Orleans.

"The search for living individuals across the city has been conducted," Ebbert said. "What we are starting today ... is a recovery operation, a recovery operation to search by street, by grid, for the remains of any individuals who have passed away."

Not to be a Gloomy Gus (or a Doomy Dupree), but I'm guessing the initial sweeps didn't include the Ninth Ward, where the water was 20 feet high, and is still quite a ways up there.

But I submit to you that mandatory evacuations are a very dicey prospect. There are a lot of people now (on both sides of the aisle) screaming about how the city didn't do this, didn't do that, etc. But hurricanes don't always do what's expected, and if big cities in CYA mode now start demanding mandatory evacuations every time a storm is threatening, it's not going to take long before there are a lot of unhappy citizens and businesses complaining about how they had to leave town and spend money for shelter when their city ended up not being hit. Imagine if Tampa had been given a mandatory evacuation before Charley (the storm which seemed to be heading right for TB and then hung a right and smacked Punta Gorda instead). The outcry, especially from some folks like Neal Boortz, would have been astronomical.

Washington-area citizens should remember back to Isabel in 2003, which loomed in the Atlantic as a massive Category 5 hurricane with a perfectly annular presentation, a mark of incredible strength for a tropical system. Even here, 150 miles inland, we were under hurricane warnings. And it dropped to a Category 2 before landfall, still wreaking havoc but not ending up anywhere near the catastrophe that had been trumpeted for a landfalling Category 5 in the Chesapeake Bay. Heck, DC has been burned how many times by "snow days" where a predicted blizzard ends up in nothing more than flurries, and the government and private businesses lose millions of dollars by being forced to close. And residents don't even have to evacuate. But still the recriminations fly fast and furious.

New Orleans is (was?) a special case, of course, given "the bowl" and also the difficulties in getting it evacuated. And when Katrina ramped up to a Cat 5 on Sunday morning, with that perfect donut-shaped eye, anyone in the way should have had enough sense to get out. But plenty of people--myself included--have enough of a memory to know that hurricanes shift, hurricanes weaken (like Ivan did last year before hitting Alabama), etc. etc. etc. Certainly the city should have tried much harder to get buses out into the poor areas (though it did more of that than I think people are aware) and take people to the Superdome (for five fun-filled days of dehydration and hunger)--but with Betsy in 1965 being the last direct hit, and with the city having been through so many false alarms (Ivan and Dennis in the last 12 months alone), and with hurricanes being so fickle, can we honestly (outside of the Blame Game) berate the government and the citizens for not ramping up into Full Panic Mode? We know how many people made the decision to stay, would we have wanted the New Orleans police to carry those people out of their homes and onto buses?

On the other hand, Past Performance is No Indication of Future Results, and weather doomsayers have been saying for years that the past 30 years were a lull in tropical development rather than a new reality, and the tropical computer models were more in agreement on a just-east-of-NoLa-landfall than any models I've seen in 10 years of dedicated storm watching, but it's tough to get the average Joe to believe in theories and doomsaying as opposed to what they've experienced.

I'd also note that The Prophet of Doom is well aware--as are most people--that worst case scenarios rarely come to pass.

Large percentages of folks along the Mississippi coast also didn't run screaming for the hills. Personally, I would have been about 200 miles inland by Saturday evening, but I'm not sure how much I can truly begrudge the people living in houses that survived Camille who decided to ride it out. Camille was the grandmommy of storms, the one by which all Gulf of Mexico storms are measured. But even though Katrina ended up being weaker than Camille at landfall, she was a much larger-diameter storm, and her storm surge was most likely higher by as much as 10 feet, dooming a far greater portion of the Gulf Coast population. Again, this was predicted by the NHC, but it is true that oftentimes what the weatherman predicts and what comes to pass are very different situations, indeed.

That being said, I hope that Mississippi and all other jurisdictions who try to assuage their guilt at supporting SINFUL activities will stop with this nonsense of insisting that casinos must be on barges, to pretend that they're "riverboat casinos" from a bygone era. I'm guessing you won't find any of the major gaming corporations returning to Biloxi until they can rebuild on firm ground.

I'll be interested to see the reaction when the next major hurricane presents a landfall threat to the U.S., to see if in this post-Katrina world people flee in a panic, or if the "it can't happen again anytime soon" mentality will creep back in.

And, dear Heavens, if New Orleans does get rebuilt in the same spot, rather than focusing solely on levees, can we this time raise the whole city up by nine or 10 feet?

Kenneth in the (212)

Not that he needs a hat tip from here, he'll have 7,000 subscribers by tomorrow.

UPDATE: Jack Cafferty on CNN reads my mind:

Why are we talking about the "blame game" - there are thousands of people dead because government officials failed to do what they're supposed to be doing. That's criminal behavior. I mean, that's no game. There are people dead in the city of New Orelans and up and down the gulf coast because people charged with seeing to their welfare failed to do that. I don't understand this reluctance to say, Mr. Brown, you failed in your assignment. You're out of here. Go away. Go back to Colorado and go back to working for the Arabian Horse Assocaition that we got you from.

Why is Andy Roddick's mojo gay?

(Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

But really, I just haven't been able to bring myself to post much more about the Katrina aftermath. I am so so so very angry about it all, and to now see the Bushies yet again starting their Swift-Boating of anyone who dares to suggest that all is not sunshine and roses just has me livid. Atrios and Americablog and Washington Monthly are the best places to go if you wish to read about the many many many many many ways that the government has screwed (and continues to screw) this up.

I just hope that the media holds onto the spine it suddenly grew late last week.

I had more to say, but I'm seeing Air Force One landing in Louisiana so that Dear Leader can take a second swipe at trying to look like he cares. Maybe no cracks about partying hardy in New Orleans this time, or about rebuilding Trent Lott's house. And maybe this time relief helicopters won't be grounded while he's flying around. And maybe any progress he's shown won't just be a prop built for his benefit that gets torn down as soon as he's out of range.

And, guess what, it's still not done. The under-cabinet lights got installed, but suddenly stopped working right when the guy was leaving. And he didn't put in the moulding to hide the lights, either. So, 90 days and counting, but I'm completing my move back in tonight.

As for the real news of the day, I'll discuss it later. When I'm just a little less apopleptic.

Patrick Rhode, FEMA's deputy director, insisted that "this has been probably one of the most efficient and effective responses in the country's history." (NYT, 9/2/05)

But maybe it's just that liberal media, ignoring the good news and only reporting the bad news, like gangs shooting at innocent civilians, people dying while waiting to be evacuated, and rats nibbling on dead bodies in the streets.

So first, here's a quick link, to The Interdictor, a New Orleans blogger documenting the atrocities.

WLOX (Gulfport/Biloxi/Pascagoula) has some gasp-inducing flyover video of the devastation from Waveland to Biloxi.

I haven't started watching the live feed from WWL (New Orleans) yet today, but I can only imagine. People shooting at the rescue helicopters?!?!? Their blog includes some additional dandies:

11:44 A.M. - St. Bernard Parish official Walter Leger - thousands still trapped in St. Bernard. Thousands more are staying on the levee and are being taken by ferry to Algiers.

11:41 A.M. - St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis: There is no gasoline in St. Tammany Parish. If you enter, you will be stranded if you run out of fuel. Do not attempt to cross St. Tammany to reach any areas on the south shore. ALL bridges are closed. Most have severe structural damage or are closed indefinitely for safety reasons.

11:23 A.M. - (AP) Outside the New Orleans Convention Center, survivors are growing more frustrated with the lack of help after Hurricane Katrina.  [...] Several bodies lie scattered around. Edwards pointed to an elderly lady dead in a wheelchair and said, "I don't treat my dog like that." He says he buried his dog.

10:52 A.M. - Slidell Mayor Ben Morris said 15,000 people are now without a home in his city.

10:05 A.M. - WWL-TV's Mike Hoss: The camera cannot truly capture what transpired in New Orleans. "You have no idea how bad it is," he said.

7:37 A.M. - (AP) The evacuation of the Superdome was suspended Thursday after shots were fired at a military helicopter, an ambulance official overseeing the operation said. No immediate injuries were reported.

7:00 A.M. - "For the next two or three months, in this area, there will not be any commerce, at all. No electricity, no restaurants. This is the real deal. It's not living conditions." -- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

And where is the federal help? Oh, people have to be patient, the president says. Heaven forbid the Feds would have put anything in place nearby before the storm hit. After all, it's not like anyone was warning them that this might happen. And, as Atrios says, "It makes me furious that 4 years after 9/11 it's apparently the case that the government literally has no contigency plans for dealing with disasters of this scale. What the hell have they been doing?"

Next, two WaPo pieces on the big picture of doom.

Extraordinary Problems, Difficult Solutions

First they have to pump the flooded city dry, and that will take a minimum of 30 days. Then they will have to flush the drinking water system, making sure they don't recycle the contaminants. Figure another month for that.

The electricians will have to watch out for snakes in the water, wild animals and feral dogs. It will be a good idea to wear hip boots and take care of cuts and scrapes before the toxic slush turns them into festering sores. The power grid might be up in a few weeks, but many months will elapse before everybody's lights come back on.

By that time, a lot of people won't care because they will have taken the insurance money and moved away -- forever. Home rebuilding, as opposed to repairs, won't start for a year and will last for years after that.

Even then, there may be nothing normal about New Orleans, because the floodwater, spiked with tons of contaminants ranging from heavy metals and hydrocarbons to industrial waste, human feces and the decayed remains of humans and animals, will linger nearby in the Gulf of Mexico for a decade.

Critical US Supply Line is Disrupted

New Orleans is underwater, and its future is uncertain -- as is that of the $49 billion in goods, 60 percent of U.S. grain exports, and 26 percent of the nation's natural gas supply and crude oil that flow through nearby ports each year.

[...] Signs emerged yesterday of the havoc the storm wreaked on the companies and transportation lines that supply the nation, with dozens of firms disclosing the scope of damages at facilities near the Gulf of Mexico or simply stating they could not yet say what that scope might be.

Union Carbide Corp. officials could not even get to their chemicals plant in Hahnville, La., the firm said yesterday, and it will probably take weeks to resume operations there. Chiquita Brands International Inc. reported severe damage at the Gulfport, Miss., facility where it stores one-fourth of the bananas it imports from Central America.

Yellow Roadway Corp., one of the nation's largest trucking companies, has 20 trucking terminals in the area affected by the storm, some of which may have been destroyed, chief executive William D. Zollars said yesterday. With major bridges near New Orleans damaged, the company is routing trucks hours out of their way.

Rail carriers Norfolk Southern Corp., Union Pacific Corp. and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. have all stopped freight traffic into the afflicted area. And shipping experts said it is hard to predict how long it will take the Port of New Orleans and other nearby ports to reopen, given that they may need to dredge new channels and make major repairs. Efforts to reach officials of the Port of New Orleans were unsuccessful yesterday.

[...] The damage might even be felt at the breakfast table. New Orleans warehouses hold about a quarter of the nation's raw coffee, 211 million pounds. Concerns that importers will have difficulty rerouting coffee shipments and that large amounts of inventory have been lost pushed the price of coffee for December delivery up to $1.01 a pound yesterday on the New York Board of Trade, an increase of more than 3 cents, after gains Monday and Tuesday.

(I just hit the highlights on these stories--make sure to go read them in their entirety.) You can also read WaPo pieces "Gas Prices Soar" (near $6/gallon in Atlanta) and "Exodus from New Orleans Continues Amid Chaos" for late-morning updates.

And I haven't even looked at any of the national cable networks yet, either.

I told Bill last night that I think the ultimate solution will be to save the French Quarter, keep it as a Salute to The Big Easy tourist trap, and bulldoze all the rest of the place without bothering to rebuild.

This was after I told him that this has all been a good reminder for us to not plan on getting any government help anytime soon after the next terrorist attack hits DC. The Go Bags have been packed since 2001 (water, radio, extra batteries, PowerBars, peanut butter, cat food, clothes, etc), but I guess I'd better check on them again.

Of course, today is also the first appearance in 2005 of September 11th Weather. Crystal clear skies, low humidity, slight breeze. Just to add to the unease.

UPDATE:  I've just ventured onto the liberal blogs for the first time since Katrina hit, and the fury at the incompetence of the government response is something to behold. See Atrios, Josh Marshall, Kos, AMERICAblog, Kevin Drum, and Steve Gilliard for the best of it, especially the stories of the budget cuts in New Orleans levee construction over the past few years, with the money being moved to Homeland Security and Iraq.

I am just ill.