Storm's A'Coming

[SimpleSimon]

Looks like Hurricane Katrina is going to come ashore tomorrow, right over New Orleans. Most of the city is below sea level, and is bordered by a huge lake held back by about 30 foot levees.

City officials have been saying "if you can get out, get out now!" The expected storm surge and probable failure of the levee system is going to result in 20 plus feet of water in the city, with storm driven waves another 15 to 20 feet higher, in the worst case scenario.

When this clears away, New Orleans may be history.

[mute]

Read that prediction in a National Geographic a year, or one more, ago. All it takes is 18 feet from what I remember.

[SimpleSimon]

Fairly good coverage here: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050829/D8C95OQ01.html

[Escape Artist]

If we poke its eye out, then it won't be able to see where it's going - we can aim it at California instead! :D

[Asmodeus]

I like how EA thinks.

[Billyman]

Yeah well the bitch has caused a 30 cent per gallon gas hike effective at midnight round here. :icon_piss

[ms. bing]

well, it looks like new orleans has been spared yet again. proof that God loves Mardi Gras? maybe, maybe not. however, you can bet that thousands of french catholics are putting away their rosary beads right now with a smile and sigh of relief.

[MAC]

Remember hurricane dennis from a couple months ago?
It was a category 3 when it made landfall, but as a category 4 crossing the gulf it did it's share of damage to the petroleum industry:

http://www.cox-internet.com/fabcoproducts/DSC00394.jpg

(other than this BP rig a buddy sent me a pic of there where 12 others damaged or destroyed in that storm)

As of this morning only about 20% of the total jobs in my main shop were slated to go to towns within 100 miles of where the western edge of the eye passed. now they are sitting, waiting for the trucking terminals down there to reopen and for my customers to check in and tell me that their vessels didn't get washed out into the canals. Luckily, the mass of my Louisiana customers are in the lafayette area of central Louisiana and all appear intact. Except for little things like, their phone systems all route to New Orleans. Their contract engineers are in New Orleans. Their customer's head offices (the ones that issue checks) are in New Orleans.

The offshore stuff is completely shut down and will remain so for several days. The best they can hope for is helicoper passes to ensure that their floating rigs didn't float too far off when the waves broke their anchorage (one of last seasons hurricanes moved a shell rig about 5 miles from it's original location and ripped the pipeline out of the ocean floor) and their giant jack-up platforms didn't topple.

For me this storm means sometime in the near future all will be chaos. My customers have everything invested in their jobs and without the internals their vessels are just expensive cans. They must finish what they are working on and get paid or they are fucked. Their customers must repair and refit to keep pumping to justify buying new shit or they are pretty fucked too.

However, I consider that an echo of the real problem. We are refining/producing 100% of everything we pump and purchase slower than we are consuming it and there is simply NO incentive for the energy companies to attempt to keep up.

Now tell me, storms aside, if you had a company that was so heavily regulated that expansion was fiscally unsound, but, luckily for you, it was also too expensive for anyone new to go into business as competetion and you could EASILY sell 100% of everything you made, why would you even TRY expand?
Why would you rush to refit damaged equipment?

The oil stocks go UP when production is cut for ANY reason.

God Bless the environmentalists and the greedy capitalists they feed.

[Escape Artist]

Hell....invest in oil stocks. Maybe the dividends will offset the pump prices. *shrug*

You must've missed the warnings I gave out well before the hurricane hit, Billyman - yer loss. :p

I reckon the current prices will stay like this for a good long while, if not permanently.

[Large Filipino]

Gas lines swamped tonight. I fear violence up ahead. This is not cool.

[Mudflap]

Some of ya'll might have recieved this one in your inbox. Don't know if its legit, but it sounds good to me. Everyone working in the petroleum industry is satan.

*tosses holy water on MAC*



IT HAS BEEN CALCULATED THAT IF EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES DID NOT PURCHASE A DROP OF GASOLINE FOR ONE DAY AND ALL AT THE SAME TIME, THE OIL COMPANIES WOULD CHOKE ON THEIR STOCKPILES.

AT THE SAME TIME IT WOULD HIT THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY WITH A NET LOSS OF OVER 4.6 BILLION DOLLARS WHICH AFFECTS THE BOTTOM LINES OF THE OIL COMPANIES.

THEREFORE SEPTEMBER 1ST HAS BEEN FORMALLY DECLARED "STICK IT UP THEIR @$$ " DAY AND THE PEOPLE OF THIS NATION SHOULD NOT BUY A SINGLE DROP OF GASOLINE THAT DAY.

THE ONLY WAY THIS CAN BE DONE IS IF YOU FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN AND AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN TO GET THE WORD OUT.

WAITING ON THIS ADMIINSTRATION TO STEP IN AND CONTROL THE PRICES IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REDUCTION AND CONTROL IN PRICES THAT THE ARAB NATIONS PROMISED WEEKS AGO?

REMEMBER ONE THING, NOT ONLY IS THE PRICE OF GASOLINE GOING UP BUT AT THE SAME TIME AIRLINES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES, TRUCKING COMPANIES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES WHICH EFFECTS PRICES ON EVERYTHING THAT IS SHIPPED. THINGS LIKE FOOD, CLOTHING, BUILDING MATERIALS, MEDICAL SUPPLIES ETC. WHO PAYS IN THE END? WE DO!

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IF THEY DON'T GET THE MESSAGE AFTER ONE DAY, WE WILL DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN.

SO DO YOUR PART AND SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND MAKE SEPTEMBER 1ST A DAY THAT THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES SAY "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"

PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU CAN!!!!

[Koliedrus]

The remnants of wind and water that has taken New Orleans and hundreds of lives is shaking off the last drops of its movement over my head/house. The giant bitch has finally stopped its pissing.

Unfortunately, its destructive power is four-dimensional. This is just the beginning of our loss.

For those of you who have experienced Mardi Gras in the "Big Easy", consider yourselve not only fortunate but also Historians. Let that soak in for a while.

For those of you with roots tied to the devistated areas, I have no words to describe the pain I share from a distance.

Physically, there isn't much the average netizen can do aside from donations to relief efforts.

Effort, however, is a powerful thing even if you're manipulating a keyboard.

Matthew is searching for his parents:http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/90596/an/0/page/0#90596
You can help by finding links to the most current overflight/sat images of New Orleans and posting them either here or at the forum linked above. I (or someone in the community) will either create the overlays for Matthew or forward the info to someone much more proficient.

"Pulling together" is a concept that many of us are used to by now. Do what you can with the tools you have.

[Billyman]

Hell....invest in oil stocks. Maybe the dividends will offset the pump prices. *shrug*

You must've missed the warnings I gave out well before the hurricane hit, Billyman - yer loss. :p

I reckon the current prices will stay like this for a good long while, if not permanently.

Yeah I saw them…..yours and a dozen other peoples but who needs warnings? We all (should) know that it doesn’t matter what happens and where, the gas companies are looking for any excuse what-so-ever to jack the prices up for profits sake. And that’s all it is…….excuses for profit. A car bomb could go off in Iceland and the gas prices would go up. It’s fucking ridiculous.

BP is also looking for anyway to recover easily from the refinery explosion in Texas a few months ago. Hell, they earned 5.6 Billion in revenue for the second quarter. That’s just BP……what about the other giants.

The shit just pisses me off.

[MAC]

ok, just incase some of you youngsters have forgotten, oil production was restricted in the late 1970's by OPEC, in an effort to raise revenues (which did cause prices to escalate) but those same prices fell from a high of $29/barrel to less than $10 in 1986. You cannot force prices to stay down when there's demand and despite demand you cannot hold them too high for too long.

theory: he who wants to win needs to play

if you where a major energy company right now how would you steal your competetor's market share over the next 10 years?

(don't thank the democrats when oil prices begin to decline sharply, thank cheap money and the american will to spend it)

and speaking of oil:

over 1,000 injured or dead in bridge stampede in Iraq (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050831/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq)

how long did it take to kill or injure 1,000 US troops after we invaded Iraq?
months?

how many ppl will have died in this hurricane? so far they are talking "hundreds"

how can the worst hurricane in US history hitting TWO major metropolitan areas kill fewer ppl than a peaceful gathering in Iraq? (peaceful is a relative term since it says in the article that the mosque they were going to was mortared)

but why are we spending billions to keep troops in Iraq when all we need are a couple guys to stand in crowds and yell "bomb"?

oh...we want to kill INSURGENTS!!!!! my bad
I thought we were still doing that "kill the little brown godless ppl" thing

[sauron]

Some of ya'll might have recieved this one in your inbox. Don't know if its legit, but it sounds good to me. Everyone working in the petroleum industry is satan.

*tosses holy water on MAC*

[/b]

Yeah, these emails go around everytime gas prices go up - and yet, even though we supposedly give them a 4.6megamultibilliongazillion dollar hit if we don't fill gas for a day, prices still never go down.

It has been surmised that, in order to manage to have an affect on gas prices, we would all have to go without filling gas/diesel/etc - for about a month. And yeah, you'll never see that happen in the gas-happy US, much less in Texas.

The reason the "Don't fill gas on <insert day> doesn't work - is everybody'll just fill the day before/after - and it's a wash.

Yawn.


- d.

[ms. bing]

i made my previous post the night after the storm blew in, and because of work and sleep i honestly had not seen any news until thursday after. then i felt like a real asshole.
they may have dodged the bullet, but the shrapnel killed them.

[Koliedrus]

Logical numerological progression.

Seems like I've been following "hat tips" from blogger to blogger for hours today. I came across some real gems but I found this article (http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf?/washingaway/thebigone_1.html) to be particularly unsettling. At first I felt guilt as I came to realize that the information was already out there and I didn't know about it. Then I switched to "who am I to oversee the fortification of a coastal city below sea level".
Then the "everyone has a voice through vote" thing kicked in and I felt guilt all over again.
BUT! It's up to the citizens to vote for local government that will make changes that are in the best interest of the local population! I was off the hook again!
Then I took into consideration that we're arguably talking about the poorest, least educated area of the US (by ratio). So I'm back to feeling obligated again.

Refugees are being taken in at Tejas and airlifted to states that have agreed to help out. Tennessee is one. My city has only 750 coming in at present but I'm sure that will increase. Most will be housed in the Civic Auditorium at first until we can find them something more comfortable. LSU students are coming to UT so that they can continue their educations for free. The UT Hospital alone is freeing up rooms to accommodate as many as the healthcare system can manage.

Isn't it odd....

When we do it to ourselves, we take up arms and fight each other. We're just stupid that way.
When it comes from somewhere other than our own shortfalls, be it tsunami, earthquake, hurricane, volcano (and perhaps, some day, asteroid strike followed by alien invasion) we comfort each other like children during a thunderstorm and hope that a parent, government official, beneficial alien race or Supreme Being will come in and make everything better.

I've only been here for 4 decades but the last 10 years has shown me that some of humanity is beginning to open its eyes.

Helping someone doesn't need legislation or devine intervention. Do what you can regardless of the "disaster". You'd be surprised to find out how much you can help by just giving emotional support.

[Billyman]

You said a wordydird Kol. ‘Refugee’ is not acceptable and in fact a direct insult and racial slur. If you don’t believe me, watch the news. Also listen to how it’s my fault….”whitey”… and the gov’t’s fault of the poverty level in which the victims have been forced into.

I tell ya, my heart genuinely goes out to the victims. No one should ever have to go through what they are going through right now and will be enduring for a long time. I see the pictures and watch the news and go “man-o-man…….wow…………..damn….just damn”…….

But then Kanye West or Jesse Jackson gets on there and fucks the sympathy all up.

[Koliedrus]

Oh hell. Tell me when an acceptable word for "one who seeks refuge" is coined and accepted.

One of the reasons I'm not management material for the retail industry is that the customer isn't always right. Sometimes the customer needs a punch to the solar-plexus. I had to make a choice today between slapping the dentures out of an old woman (thereby creating a household financial vacuum) and sticking to the Mickey Mouse script that I've adhered to for far too long.


She was in her late to mid-sixties. I could tell by
her "voice" that she was "one of those".

Here's a description of the encounter (voice
inflections and accent sold separately, batteries not
included):

She: Would you find somebody that stocks these shelves
and have them go to the back to get me some of the
mayonnaise that's on sale for 99 cents?

Me: Well, I can help but the stockers have just
finished working last night's truck. If it's empty we
probably don't have it but I'll look. It may be on a
display somewhere and they just forgot about it.

She: I wish you would. It's been empty all week. I've
been down here three times and it's always gone.

Me: Happy to help. Go ahead and shop and I'll find you
(in your fugly pink sweatsuit and ponytail induced
face lift, you evil sounding), ma'am.

So, I check the shelf and sure enough the space set up
to hold 24 jars of the cheap stuff is empty. I then
proceed to look for displays of it at the ends of
aisles and the promotional section. Nothing.

So, I call my supervisor and learn that people have
been wiping it out for disaster relief.

I find Her Pinkness and explain the situation.

She: That's the excuse for everything now, isn't it?

Me: (analyzes the multiple responses coursing through
my head, discards the ones that will get me fired and
chooses one before my hesitation is noticed). It IS a
very good excuse, ma'am. People come in to buy bottled
water, diapers, bread, peanut butter... Anything these
folks need.

She: I wish those people would just stay down there.

Me: (more hesitation. This time I didn't mind her
catching the pause.) I can have customer service write
you a Rain Check. (I would have given her a
substitution but hell FUCKING no!)

She: I don't want a Rain Check! I need mayonnaise
today and I'm not gonna spend two dollars on a jar!
When will it be here?

Me: I'll make sure that we order several cases so we
don't run out. Our next delivery is on Friday night.
It'll be in the shelf on Saturday morning.




I turned and walked away.

God help us all.

[Mudflap]

You think you got it bad? Last night I had a coworker label me as a "blame America first type". He's 24 years old, a college drop out, and a devoted Limbaugh "ditto-head" with a huge hard on for dubya.

[Koliedrus]

No, I don't think I have it bad. I had a good day like many people in this area.

This is more a test of American resolve than it is of the currently governing "body".

Until a better term is coined, the Katrina refugees are dispersing throughout the states. Like it or not, the victims will become your neighbors. Our level of tolerance and compassion will ultimately show if we are indeed the people we claim to be.

When the death toll is known, those of us on the periphery will be the ones to give the most comfort. We will have heard the stories of the stricken first hand. We may feel compassion but there is no substitute for experience.

If you can, Jump.

Do so however you see fitting with your lifestyle.

[Escape Artist]

I do not possess tolerance or compassion.

Should be interesting.

[Koliedrus]

God help us if YOUR area requires evacuation.

[Escape Artist]

More accurately, god help me if I choose to sit around despite an evac order.

[Koliedrus]

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2679391

[Billyman]

Oh hell. Tell me when an acceptable word for "one who seeks refuge" is coined and accepted.

http://www.stltoday.com/blogs/news-talk-of-the-day/2005/09/refugees-evacuees-who-are-the-katrina-victims/

https://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=68&aid=88496

http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1101

etc, etc, etc.......

[Koliedrus]

I'll look at those after I post, Billy. I promise. Right now I have to shit this stuff out of my head...

I started looking at New Orleans webcams as it made landfall. I saw several stills and lot's of darkness (or water droplets obscuring the view) but nothing that really took me where my thoughts were.

I've searched again today, found a recent list of functional cams but "recent" is three days old. From one I learned that the Tropical Isle (http://www.tropicalisle.com/) claimed to have "the most powerful drink on Bourbon Street". Sadly, the water in the city is now unimaginably more powerful than the famed "Grenade®".

I found a blog with a cam that is active at: http://mgno.com/

No doubt there are others but I'm not compiling a list. If you find something, post it. Bet your ass there are people out there hoping that you will find their stories.

Let's see if we can assist in some small way.

[Koliedrus]

Damn.

As promised, Billy, I looked.

Looks like communication <--> comprehension should be the first thing those recently discovered evolutionary brain genes should work on. If language and definitions of words are the root problem, I'll bet your testicles that the next evolutionary shift will be our method of communication.

This whole "you don't get what I mean" thing has gone on far too long.

[ms. bing]

dude, it's so not the communication, it's the language.
allow me to de-rail the previous train and take up residence in the dining car for a moment.
in almost every other language there are modifiers for words such as refugee to denote the proximity, gender, age and class involved in the situation. in ours, we have one word, and it comes up lacking.
yet, our language is one of the hardest to learn.
why? because it's borrowed. like the land our country sits on and most of our population.
around these parts the biggest debate going on about the NO situation is a sign outside a southern baptist church that reads "New Orleans: a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah".
needless to say the people here seeking shelter and a chance to rebuild their lives take offense at the notion that they somehow deserved what happened to them.
i'd even be willing to throw in the idea that if all of Tyler Tx was wiped out by a Cat 5 tornado that preacher would be one of the first ones in front of the tv cameras pleading for aid and the chance to rebuild, saying that "God has a plan".
however, when confronted by a couple ladies from the NO area who wanted to know how in the world he could have the self-righteous cahonis to put up a sign like that, he said that they were reading it wrong, that's not what he meant.
once again, the language fails us.
i'll let the train get back on schedule now.

[Mudflap]

cojones

[Koliedrus]

Yup. Method of communication should be brain to brain so words like "refugee" and "communication" are understood for their intention.

Re-read my last post, Bing, and see that I've agreed with you in advance. :)

[Billyman]

But then Kanye West or Jesse Jackson gets on there and fucks the sympathy all up.

I think maybe you might have a better understanding of the quote above and the reasoning behind it.

I only partially agree on the “communication” and “borrowed language” being causes of some of the attached BS. The problem falls from the roof and is basic education or lack their off. I see the use of ‘refugee’ as being the correct term, word, whatever. By definition, this is what they are. But to the uneducated and the racist leaders (Jesse Jackson), these people are suddenly compared to the likes of the Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. After all, to a lot of less than educated people, they only know or associate the word with that war/era. It’s no different that when the DC Mayor used the word ‘niggardly’ and the shit met the fan face first.

More often than not I wish political correctness would follow the rules of: “there is no excuse for ignorance of the law” and just toss out some STFU’s when needed.

[Escape Artist]

More often than not I wish political correctness would follow the rules of: “there is no excuse for ignorance of the law” and just toss out some STFU’s when needed.


Hell, that leads to its own abuses. Dunno 'bout dat, Willis.

[Koliedrus]

I can't help but try to keep track. The journalism (http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2005/09/11/chronology_of_errors_how_a_disaster_spread/) is well written and professional. The professional journalists are doing what they've done for years. They're back on the front lines. This time, the lines are drawn by Nature and in their own back yards.

www.mgno.com hasn't passed by anyone searching for a working webcam in New Orleans. Blogs about the event are practically everywhere, making the search for specific information just that much more difficult for the non-geek.

Geeks have hearts, too. The link above is proof positive as are the many efforts (http://www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,68720,00.html) being done by individuals worldwide.

Now that NBC has decided to set up a permanant New Orleans bureau (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8045532/#050916a), will the media outlets battle each other for the bottom of Cresent?

Of course they will.

I'll put it this way...

If I know, before tonight's broadcast, the information given above, you can bet your grandma's ass that other journalistic organizations are ramped up to do the same.

That's one consequence of the aftermath. That should tell you that it will be in our vision for a long time to come.

Here's one problem that will crop up: contaminated evidence.

Rich or poor, those cases will have to be tossed back into the system at taxpayer's cost. Will the legal loopholes widen broadly or constrict tightly?
Will rich claw their way out while poor lose hope once again?

Duh.


Maybe, JUST maybe... things are different now.
Read that as you may.

Kol