No One Back to NO for 3-4 months

[SUMG]

(I think it's pretty obvious that our league won't have a bowl game in NO this year. Here's the story from AP:

The governor of Louisiana says everyone needs to leave New Orleans due to flooding from Hurricane Katrina. "We've sent buses in. We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. Army engineers trying to plug New Orleans' breached levees struggled to move giant sandbags and concrete barriers into place, and the governor said Wednesday the situation was growing more desperate and there was no choice but to abandon the flooded city.

"The challenge is an engineering nightmare," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

As the waters continued to rise in New Orleans, the Pentagon began mounting one of the biggest search-and-rescue operations in U.S. history, sending four Navy ships to the Gulf Coast with drinking water and other emergency supplies, along with the hospital ship USNS Comfort, search helicopters and eight swift-water rescue teams. Red Cross workers from across the country converged on the devastated region.

The Army Corps of Engineers said it planned to use heavy-duty Chinook helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags Wednesday into the 500-foot gap in the failed floodwall. But the agency said it was having trouble getting the sandbags and dozens of 15-foot highway barriers to the site because the city's waterways were blocked by loose barges, boats and large debris.

Officials said they were also looking at a more audacious plan: finding a barge to plug the 500-foot hole.

The death toll from Hurricane Katrina reached at least 110 in Mississippi alone, while Louisiana put aside the counting of the dead to concentrate on rescuing the living, many of whom were still trapped on rooftops and in attics.

The Red Cross reported it had about 40,000 people in 200 shelters across the area in one of the biggest urban disasters the nation has ever seen.

A full day after the Big Easy thought it had escaped Katrina's full fury, two levees broke and spilled water into the streets Tuesday, swamping an estimated 80 percent of the bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city, inundating miles and miles of homes and rendering much of New Orleans uninhabitable for weeks or months.

"We are looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in," Mayor Ray Nagin said on ABC's "Good Morning America, "and the other issue that's concerning me is we have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue."

Blanco said she wanted the Superdome _ which had become a shelter of last resort for about 20,000 people _ evacuated within two days, along with other gathering points for storm refugees. The situation inside the dank and sweltering Superdome was becoming desperate: The water was rising, the air conditioning was out, toilets were broken, and tempers were rising.

At the same time, sections of Interstate 10, the only major freeway leading into New Orleans from the east, lay shattered, dozens of huge slabs of concrete floating in the floodwaters. I-10 is the only route for commercial trucking across southern Louisiana.

The sweltering city of 480,000 people _ an estimated 80 percent of whom obeyed orders to evacuate as Katrina closed in over the weekend _ also had no drinkable water, the electricity could be out for weeks, and looters were ransacking stores around town.

"The logistical problems are impossible and we have to evacuate people in shelters," the governor said. "It's becoming untenable. There's no power. It's getting more difficult to get food and water supplies in, just basic essentials."

She gave no details on exactly where the refugees would be taken. But in Houston, Rusty Cornelius, a county emergency official, said at least 25,000 of them would travel in a bus convoy to Houston starting Wednesday and would be sheltered at the 40-year-old Astrodome, which is no longer used for professional sporting events.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency was considering putting people on cruise ships, in tent cities, mobile home parks, and so-called floating dormitories _ boats the agency uses to house its own employees.

Once the levees are fixed, Maj. Gen. Don Riley of the Army Corps of Engineers said, it could take close to a month to get the water out of the city. If the water rises a few feet higher, it could also wipe out the water system for the whole city, said New Orleans' homeland security chief, Terry Ebbert.

A helicopter view of the devastation over Louisiana and Mississippi revealed people standing on black rooftops, baking in the sunshine while waiting for rescue boats.

"I can only imagine that this is what Hiroshima looked like 60 years ago," said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour after touring the destruction by air Tuesday.

All day long, rescuers in boats and helicopters plucked bedraggled flood refugees from rooftops and attics. Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu said 3,000 people have been rescued by boat and air, some placed shivering and wet into helicopter baskets. They were brought by the truckload into shelters, some in wheelchairs and some carrying babies, with stories of survival and of those who didn't make it.

"Oh my God, it was hell," said Kioka Williams, who had to hack through the ceiling of the beauty shop where she worked as floodwaters rose in New Orleans' low-lying Ninth Ward. "We were screaming, hollering, flashing lights. It was complete chaos."

Looting broke out in some New Orleans neighborhoods, prompting authorities to send more than 70 additional officers and an armed personnel carrier into the city. One police officer was shot in the head by a looter but was expected to recover, authorities said.

A giant new Wal-Mart in New Orleans was looted, and the entire gun collection was taken, The Times-Picayune newspaper reported. "There are gangs of armed men in the city moving around the city," said Ebbert, the city's homeland security chief. Also, looters tried to break into Children's Hospital, the governor's office said.

On New Orleans' Canal Street, dozens of looters ripped open the steel gates on clothing and jewelry stores and grabbed merchandise. In Biloxi, Miss., people picked through casino slot machines for coins and ransacked other businesses. In some cases, the looting took place in full view of police and National Guardsmen.

Blanco acknowledged that looting was a severe problem but said that officials had to focus on survivors. "We don't like looters one bit, but first and foremost is search and rescue," she said.

Officials said it was simply too early to estimate a death toll. One Mississippi county alone said it had suffered at least 100 deaths, and officials are "very, very worried that this is going to go a lot higher," said Joe Spraggins, civil defense director for Harrison County, home to Biloxi and Gulfport. In neighboring Jackson County, officials said at least 10 deaths were blamed on the storm.

Several of the dead in Harrison County were from a beachfront apartment building that collapsed under a 25-foot wall of water as Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast with 145-mph winds Monday. Louisiana officials said many were feared dead there, too, making Katrina one of the most punishing storms to hit the United States in decades.

Blanco asked residents to spend Wednesday in prayer.

"That would be the best thing to calm our spirits and thank our Lord that we are survivors," she said. "Slowly, gradually, we will recover; we will survive; we will rebuild."

Across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, more than 1 million residents remained without electricity, some without clean drinking water. Officials said it could be weeks, if not months, before most evacuees will be able to return.

Emergency medical teams from across the country were sent into the region and President Bush cut short his Texas vacation Tuesday to return to Washington to focus on the storm damage.

Also, the Bush administration decided to release crude oil from federal petroleum reserves to help refiners whose supply was disrupted by Katrina. The announcement helped push oil prices lower.

Katrina, which was downgraded to a tropical depression, packed winds around 30 mph as it moved through the Ohio Valley early Wednesday, with the potential to dump 8 inches of rain and spin off deadly tornadoes.

The remnants of Katrina spawned bands of storms and tornadoes across Georgia that caused at least two deaths, multiple injuries and leveled dozens of buildings. A tornado damaged 13 homes near Marshall, Va.

___

Associated Press reporters Holbrook Mohr, Mary Foster

[DallasGreen]

The SBC should immediately begin working toward a tie in with Ft. Worth or Houston to substitute for the now defunct New orleans Bowl. Ft. Worth still has a tie in with C-USA for this year and the possibility of TCU doing anything in the MWC is very unlikely.

[Arkstfan]

The SBC should immediately begin working toward a tie in with Ft. Worth or Houston to substitute for the now defunct New orleans Bowl. Ft. Worth still has a tie in with C-USA   for this year and the possibility of TCU doing anything in the MWC is very unlikely.

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New Orleans Bowl isn't defunct. It's just liable to be played in Lafayette this year.

[Harry]

I think the New Orleans Bowl should be moved to Fouts this year. The best looking stadium in the conference should be utilized for a national TV audience

;-)....

[Arkstfan]

I think the New Orleans Bowl should be moved to Fouts this year.  The best looking stadium in the conference should be utilized for a national TV audience

;-)....

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Heard today that Shreveport may end up hosting before its all said and done.

[Harry]

Not a bad idea... I know for us that's a much cheaper trip.

[GreenN'walinsVet]

If i was going to guess i would say that both bowls will end up being played at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge

[GreenBat]

Are they even going to be able to hold class in LSU. I wonder about Tulane and Univ. of New Orleans as well. Both schools are NO and if people aren’t going to be allowed in town, that means no school. I guess they could do Online school, but where will the people live. This is Apocalyptic for Louisiana and Mississippi. Where will the Saints play; Baton Rouge, Lafayette, a Stadium in Mississippi? It will be at least a decade before things are back to normal in that area.

[SilverEagle]

Interesting article.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/20...n/index_np.html

[keith]

Interesting article.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/20...n/index_np.html

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Might as well shut this thread down now because that article isn't interesting it's a crock of sh!t. The author obviously has a political agenda and is using a horrific natural disaster of unprecedented proportions and human suffering to make his point.....despicable.

At least it's listed as opinion and you what they say about opinions, they are like a......., everyone has one.

Blumenthal is a idiot. Does he really think a "study" would have prevented this? Why is it the responsbility of the federal government to fund what is a state and local issue? Why do people choose to live 12 feet below sea level? The seeds of this disaster were sown a long, long time ago.

Keith

[MeanGreenTeeth]

Interesting article.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/20...n/index_np.html

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Wow.. People are blaming Bush... shocking....

[untbowler]

With so many displaced and taking refuge in Dallas, Houston, etc...

My mother-in-law found that the camps and sites are accepting donations in clothes, toiletries, etc...

My wife and I have gathered up and bought coloring books and games for the kids.

In Dallas:Samuell Grand and Grauwelyer Rec Centers are sites right now.

This on top of any monetary donation we can make.

Best wishes everyone in thhis tragedy.