The LA Cowboy is not impressed with the mayor of New Orleans:

During the last interview with the Mayor - I did not hear one word of ANY plan for the people who can not drive to get out of New Orleans. I assume there are some on the ground plans, but they certainly are not being adequately communicated to the press,

And just now a WDSU reporter is reporting seeing kids, as young as six and seven year old - on their own - with all their belongings in a plastic bag - begging drivers to take them out of the city. And when his news team left on the one bridge still open, there saw a line of the very old and the very young - people in wheel chairs - even more incredible - people being pushed on hospital gurneys - fleeing for their lives over the last bridge out of New Orleans.

The same reporter also gave an account of the gangs roaming and terrorizing the city.

We should all be asking - after all this time - why have buses and trucks not been commandeered to get the poor out of the city?

Why are the residents of New Orleans not being told HOW to get out of the city instead of just being told that they must get out of the city?

(Via Glenn Reynolds)

Disease is one of the greatest threats now facing those trying to recover from Katrina:

Flooding in New Orleans could cause major public-health problems ranging from diarrhea to West Nile virus, experts said. But on Tuesday, beleaguered medical workers were struggling to keep patients alive.

Contaminated floodwaters can spread such bacteria as E. coli and salmonella, which can be fatal for the very young, the very old and others with weak immune systems, said Dr. Delia Rivera, an expert in infectious diseases at the University of Miami School of Medicine.

Experts said it could be several weeks before the floodwaters -- polluted with toxic contaminants including human feces, gasoline and chemicals from industrial sites -- are pumped from the city.

The foul water could cause skin rashes and other ailments, Rivera said.

But while flooding can potentially spread such epidemic-causing diseases as typhoid fever, cholera and leptospirosis, they are not likely to be a problem in the short term, she said, because they are not endemic in the United States.

A more serious medium-term risk, Rivera said, might be mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and West Nile virus.

``In an area like New Orleans, it could happen,'' she said.

Federal and state officials already have launched a mosquito-control program for the region, said Christina Pearson of the Department of Health and Human Services.

There is "credible evidence" of gas price gouging, as heavy lines are reportedly forming for purchasing gasoline, alleges the governor of Georgia:

Lines at Atlanta area gas pumps grew along with prices this afternoon as word spread of possible fuel shortages.

By noon today, several metro Atlanta gas stations had posted prices above $3.15 per gallon. Some metro area stations were charging as much as $4.75 a gallon, according to a Web site that keeps track of such things, www.atlantagasprices.com.

Prices were rising so fast in some areas that signs at gas stations no longer matched what was being charged at the pumps.

Declaring that there's "credible evidence" of price-gouging at the gas pumps, Gov. Sonny Perdue late Wednesday signed an executive order threatening to impose heavy fines on gasoline retailers who overcharge Georgia drivers.

"When you prey upon the fears and the paranoia, it is akin to looting, and it is abominable," Perdue said at a hastily called, 6 p.m. press conference.

The anti-gouging law does not prevent retailers from selling gas at higher rates but bars them from charging what the governor called "unreasonable or egregious" prices. It was last used after Hurricane Ivan hit Georgia.

Perdue also urged motorists to limit Labor Day vacation travel if possible. "There is no reason to panic. There is plenty of gas on the way. The only way we would have problems is if people rush out and try to horde and try to accumulate gasoline they won't need for a while," the governor said today.

Jim Tudor, president of the Georgia Association of Convenience Stores, said panicky drivers are the problem now.

"Atlanta's not out of gas," Tudor said. He said there may be outages at some gas stations, "but it wasn't because there wasn't gas available. It was because there was a run on these stores."

From the AP:

As a public health catastrophe unfolded Wednesday in New Orleans, hospitals in the Crescent City sank further into disaster, airlifting babies without their parents to other states and struggling with more sick people appearing at their doors.

Dangerous, unsanitary conditions spread across the city, much of which now sits in a murky stew of germs.

The federal government declared a public health emergency for the Gulf Coast region, promising 40 medical centers with up to 10,000 beds and thousands of doctors and nurses for the hurricane-ravaged area.

In a stunning example of how desperate the situation has become, 25 babies who had been in a makeshift neonatal intensive care unit at New Orleans' Ochsner Clinic were airlifted Wednesday to hospitals in Houston, Baton Rouge, La., and Birmingham, Ala. Many were hooked up to battery-operated breathing machines keeping them alive.

Their parents had been forced to evacuate and leave the infants behind; by late in the day, most if not all had been contacted and told where their babies were being taken, said hospital spokeswoman Katherine Voss.

"We actually encouraged them to leave. It would just be more people to evacuate if there was a problem," said Dr. Vince Adolph, a pediatric surgeon.

Helicopters had to land on the roof of the parking garage to get the babies because water covered the helipad at the hospital, one of the few in the area that had been operating almost normally.

"We're getting kind of at the end of our rope," with a skeleton staff of doctors and nurses who have been on duty nonstop since Sunday, Voss said.

Officials were trying to evacuate 10,000 people _ patients, staff and refugees _ out of nine hospitals battling floodwaters or using generators running low on fuel. About 300 people were stranded on the roof of one two-story hospital in the New Orleans suburb of Chalmette.

Yet even as they tried to evacuate, many hospitals faced an onslaught of new patients _ people with injuries and infections caused by the storm, people plucked from rooftops who are dehydrated, dialysis and cancer patients in need of their regular chemotherapy or radiation treatments.

"We have thousands of people who are getting ill ... our hospitals need to be prepared to take care of the incoming sick," said Coletta Barrett of the Louisiana Hospital Association.

The government said dozens of medical disaster teams from nearby states were moving into hard-hit areas.

"We've identified 2,600 beds in hospitals in the 12-state area. In addition to that, we've identified 40,000 beds nationwide, should they be needed," said Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt.

Above $3 a gallon is not uncommon in many areas today:

Gasoline prices surged above $3 a gallon in many parts of the country Wednesday and shortages cropped up in some areas as supply disruptions from Hurricane Katrina widened.

Gas prices jumped by more than 50 cents a gallon overnight in Ohio, 40 cents in Georgia and 30 cents in Maine. The increases followed price spikes on wholesale and futures markets after the hurricane knocked off-line refineries and pipeline links along the Gulf Coast that provide about a third of the country's gasoline supplies.

Concerns are now mounting over limited supplies of gasoline, including the possible return of long lines and gas rationing reminiscent of the 1970s gas crisis.

"There is a possibility that we will see some form of rationing with the conditions being as bad or worse than many people thought," said Fred Allvine, an oil industry expert with the Georgia Institute of Technology.

This week's increase come on top of a 40 percent price rise in the last year that pushed up the average retail price of unleaded regular to $2.61 a gallon nationwide last week, Energy Department figures show.

As if the airlines needed further bad news:

On top of a summer of sky-high fuel prices, the airlines are now getting slammed financially by Hurricane Katrina, and that could translate into higher ticket prices for the rest of us.

Katrina has already wreaked havoc on the nation's travel plans, causing massive flight delays and cancellations, and closing down entire airports.

The disruptions come at the worst time for the industry. Airline stocks fell Tuesday as many feared that Katrina, combined with sky-high oil prices, could be the one-two punch that knocks some carriers like Northwest (NWAC) and Delta (DAL) into bankruptcy.

Delta, which is a major carrier in the hurricane-affected region, lost 5.5 percent on the New York Stock Exchange to $1.20.

United Airlines, the nation's No. 2 carrier, which is already bankrupt, canceled all 63 flights through midday Tuesday.

Experts say it's possible airlines could raise ticket prices immediately to cover fuel costs and hurricane losses.

From the AP:

WASHINGTON -President Bush said Wednesday that his administration was moving quickly to save lives and provide sustenance to uncounted victims of Hurricane Katrina but that recovery "will take years" from the storm that laid waste to the Gulf Coast.

"We're dealing with one of the worst national disasters in our nation's history," he said at the news conference hours after an aerial tour of the area.

"This is going to be a difficult road," he added, and made it clear the impact could broaden well past the four states along the battered coast.

"Our citizens must understand this storm has disrupted the capacity to make gasoline and to distribute gasoline," the president said.

Flanked by senior members of his administration, Bush ran down a list of actions already taken to help victims of the storm.

He said, for example, buses were on the way to help take thousands of storm survivors from the overwhelmed Superdome in New Orleans to the Astrodome in Houston.

Medical teams have been deployed, as have urban search and rescue teams, the president said.

The Coast Guard has rescued nearly 2,000 people, he added.

Bush said the Pentagon, as well, was contributing to the rescue and relief operations, and said he had instructed Energy Secretary Sam Bodman to work with refineries to "alleviate any shortage through loans."

In addition to the government's efforts, Bush encouraged private cash donations to recovery efforts.

Because of rumors of a suicide bomber:

BAGHDAD, Aug. 31 -- Rumors of a suicide bomber helped set off a stampede Wednesday among tens of thousands of Shiite Muslim pilgrims on a Tigris River bridge, killing at least 700 people as panicked worshipers hurled themselves off the bridge or trampled others underfoot, Iraqi authorities and survivors said.

The stampede was the single deadliest loss of life during the 2 ½-year Iraq war. While the disaster was not directly caused by attacks, tensions had been high because of an insurgent mortar-and-rocket attack upon pilgrims earlier in the day that killed seven. Crowding at checkpoints set up on the bridge to search pilgrims for bombs also directly contributed to the disaster, authorities and witnesses said.

"The people when they were at the bridge, more than one person started yelling, and saying, 'The bridge will fall down, the bridge will explode,' " said Khalid Fadhil, a goldsmith who witnessed the stampede. "So the people started running in panic, pushing each other, trying to run away. Some of the people fell down, and the people stepped on them. The others threw themselves off the bridge, into the river."

...According to the New Orleans mayor:

In New Orleans, where tens of thousands of people remained despite a mandatory evacuation order issued Sunday, Mayor Ray Nagin told a news conference that Katrina probably killed thousands. No confirmed casualty figures have yet been released for the city or affected parts of Louisiana.

"We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water," as well as other people dead in attics, Nagin said, according to the Associated Press. Asked how many dead, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

Nagin said that this time, there will be a "total evacuation of the city." He added, "We have to. The city will not be functional for two or three months."

***

Brendan Loy hopes the mayor is wrong:

"However, after his comments last night about how the attempts to fix the levee breach had been abandoned, I am predisposed to believe that Mayor Nagin tends to talk through his hat and doesn't necessarily have the facts to back up what he's saying. The man doesn't seem to have much of a "filter," if you will, between his private thoughts and his public statements, and he doesn't seem to fully grasp that what he says is taken as having a lot of authority, and there's a lot of responsibility that goes with that. So while what he's saying about the death toll may very well be true (God forbid), I hardly think his is a definitive estimate.

It's true, of course, that death tolls in natural disasters tend to rise. But wild early estimates of death tolls, formulated when everything seems utterly bleak and based on guesswork rather than facts, are sometimes wrong. As I recall, the headline of one of the New York papers on September 13, 2001 was "10,000 FEARED DEAD." So let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Mayor Nagin might be right -- I'd even go so far as to say, based on my own guesswork, that he probably is -- but I'm not yet convinced that it is pointless to hope and pray he might be wrong."

Strong words for looters:

"I agree with Jonah Goldberg that it's one thing for desperate people to help themselves to bottled water, food, or diapers from abandoned stores, and another to just sack those places for valuables. People doing the latter should be shot."

But can you really disagree? It's beyond contempt for the scum to be taking advantage of such a monumental disaster. They should be dealt with in the strongest manner possible.

Hugh is upset about this statement from Amazon.com:

But mainstream Web sites that had jumped to pull in money for the tsunami victims showed no evidence of repeating it here in the U.S. for Katrina's. Amazon.com, which raised more than $14 million for the American Red Cross in January via a donation link on its home page, didn't have one as of mid-day Monday. Nor did Google, Yahoo, MSN, or eBay, all of which hustled earlier in the year to put up donation links on their portals. (Google slapped up an "Information about Hurricane Katrina" link on its Spartan home page, but that led to news sources and stories.)

An Amazon spokesperson said that the online retailer had no plans to post a donation link on its site. "Each case is different," she said. "The Red Cross has essentially given over its entire site to donations. The tsunami came out of the blue, so it was an 'all hands on deck' situation, but the Red Cross has been getting ready for this and getting its message out there for several days."

Seems like a lame statement from Amazon to me. Barnes and Noble, anyone?

Not a good idea to offend someone with as big a bullhorn as Hugh, over something like this, for no good reason at all. Remember Target last Christmas? I suspect Amazon is going to backtrack fairly quickly, or come to seriously regret their statement when the profits plummet.

Amazon should drop the brainless excuses, and prodigously join in on the relief effort right now.

UPDATE: Hugh notes on the air that Amazon has now changed its policy, and a contribution button will be up on its site shortly.

***

But it's rotating!...As Hugh notes. It took me 7 tries to get it to come up.

***

Now it's coming up all the time. At least Amazon is listening.

Courtesy of Glenn Reynolds, a list of relief agencies you can donate to for hurricane relief:

American Red Cross

Catholic Charities

Episcopal Relief and Development

Humane Society

Mennonite Disaster Services

The Mercy Corps

Operation Blessing

Salvation Army
Walmart is giving to the Salvation Army.

Samaritan's Purse

Southern Baptist Disaster Relief

I'll add more if I see or hear of them. Please email me if you know of others.

Kos is losing it today. It must be the stress of the hurricane, but I doubt it. Unfortunately comments like he's making today are all too characteristic of the prince of the moonbat Left.

Take this, for example:

"He's finally decided to show up to work...It only took him what, four days? Well, in all fairness, he was busy playing guitar and trying to kill social security. You know, things that are important to Bush. And since Al Qaida and Saddam had nothing to do with the disaster on the gulf coast...

"...honestly don't think Bush and his cronies (and their apologists) understand the magnitude of the disaster. Otherwise, they'd be acting far different. Perhaps with some much needed urgency.

And then there's this:

"I just wish that the president gave a damn about what's happenend. Unfortunately, he's too busy playing 'country rock star.'"

We must have a slight degree of understanding for Kos. He's just a little bit slow. You see, Kos just has trouble understanding the concept that the president is always in communication, always working, and has been monitoring the situation, and taking the appropriate steps, from the beginning of this crisis.

It is people like Kos, and his fever swamp cronies, that insist on making a partisan issue out of a national disaster. And it didn't take him long, did it?

Disgraceful.

From the Times-Picayune:

Those trapped in the city faced an increasingly lawless environment, as law enforcement agencies found themselves overwhelmed with widespread looting. Looters swarmed the Wal-mart on Tchoupitoulas Street, often bypassing the food and drink section to steal wide-screen TVs, jewelry, bicycles and computers. Watching the sordid display and shaking his head in disgust, one firefighter said of the scene: "It’s a f---- hurricane, what are you do with a basketball goal?" Police regained control at about 3 p.m., after clearing the store with armed patrol. One shotgun-toting Third District detective described the looting as "ferocious."

"And it’s going to get worse as the days progress," he said.

In Uptown, one the few areas that remained dry, a bearded man patrolled Oak Street near the boarded-up Maple Leaf Bar, a sawed-off shotgun slung over his shoulder. The owners of a hardware store sat in folding chairs, pistols at the ready.

Uptown resident Keith Williams started his own security patrol, driving around in his Ford pickup with his newly purchased handgun. Earlier in the day, Williams said he had seen the body of a gunshot victim near the corner of Leonidas and Hickory streets.

"What I want to know is why we don’t have paratroopers with machine guns on every street," Williams said.

Like-minded Art Depodesta sat on the edge of a picnic table outside Cooter Brown’s Bar, a chrome shotgun at his side loaded with red shells.

"They broke into the Shell station across the street," he said. "I walked over with my 12-gauge and shot a couple into the air."

The looters scattered, but soon after, another man appeared outside the bar in a pickup truck armed with a pistol and threatened Depodesta.

"I told him, ‘Listen, I was in the Army and I will blow your ass off,’" Depodesta said. "We’ve got enough trouble with the flood."

The man sped away.

"You know what sucks," Depodesta said. "The whole U.S. is looking at this city right now, and this is what they see."

Unbelievable.

From the Washington Post:

Oil prices surged yesterday and gasoline prices were poised to top $3 a gallon by Labor Day weekend as oil companies and federal officials began assessing Hurricane Katrina's damage to the heart of the nation's energy production...

U.S. benchmark crude oil priced for October delivery rose more than $3 a barrel to trade as high as $70.90 on the New York Mercantile Exchange before closing at $69.81.

Wholesale gasoline prices surged to levels that, if sustained, will translate to more than $3 a gallon at the pump within days, after typical retail markups are added, analysts said.

Stock prices fell as investors anticipated that higher energy costs will dampen consumer spending and corporate profit.