It would seem to me that some obvious places in Louisiana to avoid would be New Orleans, anything along the coastline, anything too near the many chemical plants and oil refineries, or bases like Barksdale AFB. There just aren’t enough escape routes leading away from New Orleans to make me ever feel comfortable living there. Think if you were trapped between Lake Pontchartrain and New Orleans when every traveler had the same idea as you—getting out of town fast. “Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide,” as Martha & The Vandellas sang in their hit song from the ‘60s.
Excerpt from the report (see link below)
IS THE U.S. CHEMICAL INDUSTRY OUR WEAKEST LINK AGAINST TERRORIST ATTACKS?
". . . more than a million Louisiana residents who live every day in a region that is blanketed by chemical "kill zones." These kill zones surround more than 100 petro-chemical facilities located along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. A 1999 federal government study of the U.S. chemical industry found security against terrorists to be "fair to poor."
http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/features/chemical_terrortext.htm
On Hurricane Katrina, Aug. 2005:
Councilman Byron Lee of Jefferson Parish, "This is not life as it used to be. It's like a war zone."
For updates as they come in on Hurricane Katrina, go to
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html or http://www.wwltv.com/. For Katrina Aftermath Information in Mississippi, see
http://www.wlox.com/Global/category.asp?C=15602 at http://www.wlox.com/.
Many prayers to the victims and families of those who were caught among Hurricane Katrina's wrath.
Looters Turn New Orleans into 'Downtown Baghdad'
Defender: 'It's an opportunity to get back at society' for those who've been oppressed
With few supplies coming into the seriously flooded city of New Orleans, which is now 80 percent under water after Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast yesterday (Aug. 29, 2005), looters are taking matters into their own hands, hauling off food and other items from local grocery stores.
At a Walgreen's drug store in the French Quarter, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers, the Associated Press reported. Others were floating garbage bags full of stolen merchandise in full view of National Guard personnel.
"It's downtown Baghdad," said Denise Bollinger, a tourist from Philadelphia who stood outside and snapped pictures. "It's insane. I've wanted to come here for 10 years. I thought this was a sophisticated city. I guess not."
According to the report, when police finally showed up, a young boy stood in the door screaming, "86! 86!" – the radio code for police – and the crowd scattered.
Fox News reported a local McDonald's restaurant also was looted with residents stealing burger patties and buns.
Around the corner on Canal Street, the main thoroughfare in the central business district, looters waded through hip-deep water as they ripped open the steel gates on the front of several clothing and jewelry stores.
One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked if he was salvaging things from his store.
"No," the man shouted, "that's EVERYBODY'S store."
He wasn't the only one to justify the looting.
Mike Franklin stood on the trolley tracks and watched the daylight crimes go down. "To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he told AP.
Said one male looter who claimed to have eight grandchildren to feed: "It's about survival right now."
New Orleans wasn't the only place looters were active.
An AP reporter along the beach in Biloxi, Miss., says it "looks like a free-for-all," as looters come running out of souvenir shops, loaded down with merchandise.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46056
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46056
Gulf Coast Poisoned?
By Peter Worthington/Toronto Sun
Normally, one wouldn't expect a small environmental magazine in Canada to discover a shocking reality of the New Orleans hurricane disaster that seems to have escaped notice.
It seems that a toxic landfill site on which housing was built in central New Orleans is now under floodwaters with the potential to pollute and contaminate portions of the Gulf Coast.
Despite the overwhelming international coverage of Hurricane Katrina's lethal attack on southern U.S. states, it is the current issue of Solid Waste & Recycling magazine that unearthed an environmental hazard that has the potential of being an underwater Love Canal.
CNN and Fox News have now been alerted.
Something called the Agriculture Street Landfill (ASL) is located on a 95-acre site in central New Orleans.
It is registered as a "Superfund site" (whatever that is) on the federal government's national priorities list of highly contaminated sites requiring cleanup and containment. But nothing has been done.
Instead of removing the mass of toxic waste 50 years ago, the site was covered with clean soil and houses and a school were built on top of it.
Not only was municipal garbage dumped there, but for decades industrial wastes from service stations, manufacturers, and chemical facilities were put there.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the site was routinely sprayed with DDT, but in 1962 some 229,300 cubic metres of excess fill was removed because subsurface toxic fires kept erupting (and got the site known as "Dante's Inferno").
According to the editor of Hazardous Waste magazine, the ASL site -- now under water -- will almost inevitably leach toxic effluent into the floodwaters, with the potential of inflicting unpredictable damage on the coast, and those that live there -- a possible environmental catastrophe.
The editor of the magazine is Guy Crittenden, coincidentally my stepson, but also a recognized "expert" on hazardous environmental issues.
Guy used maps of the old ASL site and overlaid them on maps of today's New Orleans and found that "the old toxic landfill is situated right in the middle of a huge area of 3-foot flooding."
In the past, residents who lived in housing atop the landfill have complained about unusual cancers and ill-defined health problems, and even lobbied unsuccessfully to be relocated.
Apparently, a case study listed on the website of a group known as Environmental Justice has a detailed description of the ASL and its history of pollution.
For those who care, or know New Orleans, the contaminated ASL is bounded on the north by Higgins Blvd. and the south and west by a railroad right-of-way. The eastern boundary is Clouet St. to Press and Montegut Sts.
That means nothing to me, but it is roughly midway between Lake Pontchartrain and the New Orleans business district and the French Quarter.
As Crittenden points out, while the immediate concern in the hurricane aftermath is humanitarian -- rescuing and relocating people -- the long-term concern may be toxic pollutants leached from the flooded downtown landfill.
The more one learns of New Orleans, the more one comes to a conclusion that it would be folly to try and restore the city -- especially parts that are significantly below sea level.
Realistically, the city should be relocated, with the historic French Quarter -- the original town, built on higher ground -- which escaped serious damage, left as a tourist attraction or theme park. A Williamsburg of the Gulf.
There is no safeguard against hurricanes -- even if George W. Bush weren't president.
While the federal government reacted weakly, the greatest blame for what has happened in New Orleans must go to the inept municipal government and its hopeless (hapless?) mayor, and the state government which waited four days before sending in the National Guard.
And, of course, the startling lack of initiative on the part of those who lived there.
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Worthington_Peter/2005/09/05/1202432.html