A little storytelling....

[dzinkin]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Sep 11 2005, 12:10 AM\']I hope I don't sound heartless to step outside the human tragedy for a moment and marvel at a bit of irony here.  Louisiana politics has a long and glorious history of patronage, yet it was patronage at the federal level that proved disasterous to the people of New Orleans.  By every conceivable measure, Brown was totally unqualified to hold that position, and the amazing thing to me is how the Bush administration -- which is frankly pretty aware when it comes to this sort of thing -- didn't see this as a potential problem when the inevitable disaster struck.

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Who needs patronage at the local and state levels when good old-fashioned incompetence will do?  Mayor Nagin had an evacuation plan which he then proceeded not to follow, Gov. Blanco kept the Salvation Army and the Red Cross out early on (can't give food and water to residents, y'know, because they might not want to leave), and Bush put a friggin' horse breeder in charge of the federal government's response.  0 for 3.

Thankfully, where government is utterly FUBAR, the people generally pick up the slack... and Matt, Chris and I are proud to see that our little community is helping to do just that.

[Johnissoevil]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Sep 10 2005, 02:23 PM\']No flames here. Anyone willing to give up their home to help someone out in that situation gets the <HERO> tag, as far as I'm concerned. (Erm, that is, if we had <HERO> tags.)

I'm glad people like you exist.

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My roommate and I already discussed this, and we agreed that if anyone from New Orleans comes to Highlands, NJ and wants to use the spare room, they may.  And we will give them whatever time they need to get on their feet.

[Steve_Bier]

The world needs more people like you, Carl. God bless.

[tvmitch]

All I can say is that we admire you, Carl...and everyone else who has taken "little big" steps in helping the victims. I just wish our apartment wasn't so small, or I'd be setting up a soup kitchen! God bless you.

[LetsGoMets2003]

I don't mean to sound like a broken record for the rest of the posters on this board, but what you did was extraordinary, and should be applauded by any person who has a heart. Bravo, and God bless you!

James

[cacLA8383]

Everyone, here's some new information for me to share with all of you:

Today, Jefferson Parish did open once again with the 8am-6pm curfew still in place, so me and my best friend Renee traveled on the westbank of the parish to go see a friend of ours who's working at one of the hotels where some evacuees are at the moment. I can tell y'all that the horrible stench that was in that parish is pretty much gone and you can actually breathe clean air.

The more important visitation we did end up going via helicopter is taking a tour to one of the parishes that got the most water damage, Plaquemines. A lot of water is still all over the parish, but the good news is, we didn't see one single person other than the officials of that parish, so that's really good to see, but a lot of houses did suffer a great deal of wind damage as well. Just got pretty much halfway, then going back to one of the set up Army bases in Kenner.

There are a lot of Army people on the streets, making sure everything was in check. Power was on where we went to, so it's good to have seen a lot of progress being made. We're going back again on Wednesday to the same place to go hang out with our buddy who's pretty much out of place emotionally.

I'll add more new details as I do believe she wants to go as far as we can without any problems on Wednesday.

(EDIT 45 seconds later: if this post does not make any sense to any of you, don't mind me. It's been a long day)

[PYLdude]

Allow me to join the kudos train.

*raises glass* Cheers, Carl, from yet another Jersey guy. Hopefully for everyone down in the affected areas, things get better really soon.

[cacLA8383]

It will, eventually. It takes a lot of will and manpower to make a real difference.

[AH3RD]

I beat it out of The Big Easy 2 weeks ago with my family and friends. Our home was luckily spared massive hurricane wind damage and submergence in floodwaters.

We're currently in a shelter in Opelousas.

[cacLA8383]

[quote name=\'AH3RD\' date=\'Sep 14 2005, 01:18 PM\']I beat it out of The Big Easy 2 weeks ago with my family and friends. Our home was luckily spared massive hurricane wind damage and submergence in floodwaters.

We're currently in a shelter in Opelousas.

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I'm glad to see you made it out of New Orleans safely, Aaron.

[MyCapableAssistant]

Not sure if this is a question to ask here, but I have a good friend down in Houma, La. What is the damage down there like? I'm very concerned about him and his safety.

I've been watching the coverage of hurricane Katrina, basicly NONSTOP, and I cannot stomach it. The reports are MADDENING and uncomprehensible to say the least. I just cannot deal with the horrificacy (is that a word??) of what is going on down there. God what is happenning to our country???

[cacLA8383]

[quote name=\'MyCapableAssistant\' date=\'Sep 14 2005, 09:30 PM\']Not sure if this is a question to ask here, but I have a good friend down in Houma, La. What is the damage down there like? I'm very concerned about him and his safety.

I've been watching the coverage of hurricane Katrina, basicly NONSTOP, and I cannot stomach it. The reports are MADDENING and uncomprehensible to say the least. I just cannot deal with the horrificacy (is that a word??) of what is going on down there. God what is happenning to our country???

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Well first, calm down a sec here. lol Ok, now to answer your question, I live 15 miles away from Houma and I can tell you that Houma fared as well was we did in Thibodaux. I'm sure your friend's doing just fine as Houma's back up and running 100 percent with everything including cell phone service.

[MyCapableAssistant]

[quote name=\'cacLA8383\' date=\'Sep 14 2005, 09:15 PM\']
[quote name=\'MyCapableAssistant\' date=\'Sep 14 2005, 09:30 PM\']Not sure if this is a question to ask here, but I have a good friend down in Houma, La. What is the damage down there like? I'm very concerned about him and his safety.

Well first, calm down a sec here. lol Ok, now to answer your question, I live 15 miles away from Houma and I can tell you that Houma fared as well was we did in Thibodaux. I'm sure your friend's doing just fine as Houma's back up and running 100 percent with everything including cell phone service.

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LOL!
Awww, that's KEWL! AWESOME!
He's got NINE pets; two of which are McCaws! One a scarlet McCaw by the name of JEWEL! lol. I hate the idea of knowing that poor bird got left behind, but still I know the much greater concern is of HIS safety. Glad to hear things are well down there. Thanks!