The big news of the day back in the States is of course the massive storm Hurricane Katrina that at the time of this writing is slamming into America’s Gulf Coast. The beautiful and historic city of New Orleans, Louisiana and surrounding areas are taking the brunt of the 400Km-wide Category 4+ storm. Recent reports say that the hurricane may reach U.S. Gulf Coast cities as far away as Biloxi, Mississippi and east into the Florida panhandle.
Along with mainstream news media networks (MSM) such as CNN bloggers are also on top of this developing story. Michelle Malkin has a good roundup on the Hurricane Bloggers in her August 28th post “Katrina Blogging: Dire Outlook”. Have a look at Dr. Jeff Master’s The Weather Underground for August 28th-29th updates and stop over at Stormtrack where Jordan and Bryan are surfing the storm right to your doorstep. Here is the Hurricane Katrina Advisory from the NOAA’s National Weather Service. These are great examples of how weblogs authored by professionals and ordinary citizens can be very useful in natural disasters and weather emergencies. The Asian Tsunami of December 2004 was another good example of how blogs can work to help save lives. My thanks to Chrenkoff for his August 29th lead to Michelle Malkin’s posting.
Additional info can be found at the CNN special section Hurricane Season 2005 and to be fair CNN’s Miles O’Brien has a Cane Blog too. First a Space blog and now a Hurricane blog; I guess that Miles is serious about the Blogosphere. CNN’s website also has a feature on Citizen Journalists covering the storm. It can be found in this article "Katrina’s floodwaters inundating Gulf Coast" but it is limited to photos with brief text descriptions only. Wikipedia has a detailed article on the storm and a special section titled 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season with lots of background information and facts on hurricanes and tropical cyclones around the world.
In the meantime lots of prayers and hope go out from around the world for the people in the path of this massive killer storm.
NOAA/NWS National Hurricane Center
Google News: Hurricane Katrina
Technorati Tags: hurricane Katrina
Mandela, Mobutu & Me
4 years ago
4 comments:
Just checking out the new anti-spam feature from Blogger (Word Verification). I've noticed that the spammers are out in force throughout the Blogosphere these days.
I have other anti-spammer tools at my disposal but you don't want to meet him. His name is Igor and he is very effective. 'Nuff said I hope.
BRE:
Katrina really left her mark in the US gulf, did she? Some of the levees in Big Easy are gone and water is raising slowly. This is scary even for me up north in Minnesota.
My heart goes to all the folks there. Men! and those looters; they should be shot!
A catastrophic event of huge proportions this is!!!
Yeah, we're all watching the news on our TV sets here in Europe and around the world. It's sad to see so many people lose their homes, possessions, and lives.
I know what you mean by living upriver from New Orleans as I grew up near the Mighty Mississippi and Missouri rivers at St. Louis, MO. We know all about high water and levees breaking up that way let me tell you. "Build on the high ground" we say "or be prepared to rebuild often".
You don't have much to worry about up in Minnesota except for the tornadoes that may spinoff from Katrina. You can pee across the Mississippi River up that way since you are at the source of the world's 4th longest river system.
Despite all of the destruction that Katrina has caused along the Glulf Coast the people affected will receive some help from the federal government (FEMA) and state government authorities. Then the American people are always generous with private donations to help one another out in emergencies like this as well.
People living down in the Carribean and Central and South America whose homes and livelihoods are wiped out due to tropical storms like Katrina all the time face a much greater challenge of course.
Did any foreign governments (Canada, Mexico) offer to send some help to the people of the Gulf Coast?
Yes, the Feds will step up- already oil allocations have been released from the strategic reserve. A gallon is already going for 3 bucks in some cities, as you know.
I have not heard much about foreign aid coming to the US...and I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't much. Sad, sad, sad!
It will definitely take some time and resources to clear the "toxic gumbo soup" stuck all over New Orleans, and clear the junk in other areas.
Regardless of the attitude of other nations, one thing is for sure, all the areas affected will be rebuilt and restored with time.
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