Recently in slidell Category

My posting has slowed down considerably, which I hope is understandable. Right now I'm kind of out of things to say. I have only limited patience for the news media and the talking heads. Because of my health I'm not likely going to be going back to the shelter any time soon, and I'm trying to focus my limited energy on my job and my family now (who themselves are getting sick).

Part of me feels guilty about that. Because when I get exhausted, when I get sick, I can just go home and rest up, but those people in Louisiana, and those people in the shelters...they don't get a break. They don't get to just go home and rest up. Their situation is what it is.

At the drugstore the other day I ran into somebody wearing a blue City of Austin shelter badge and I felt compelled to go up and talk to her. Because lately I've felt like the only people I can really relate to, other than my good friends, are people who have worked at the shelter. Austin is back to being obsessed with Longhorn football and software releases and the usual stuff of normal life, and I don't feel ready to go back to a normal life yet. But only other volunteers understand that.

Turns out this woman is a crisis counselor, so we ended up spending a couple of hours at Spiderhouse talking over coffees. She's trying to organize counseling for the volunteers, because she says a lot of them are showing signs of what I think she called "secondary post traumatic stress", or something like that. A common syndrome among people who work closely with disaster victims.

Since I don't have much to share, I thought I'd point you to a recent post at Electric Mist, which is a great blog by Toni who has been back and forth between Baton Rouge and the North Shore in the aftermath. She's one of the ones who gets it. Click through to read the whole thing, read her whole blog even, but here's a snippet:

When I went to the shelter Saturday, I asked the Red Cross Volunteer (who'd arrived on day seven, three days later) if FEMA had shown up. She said they had driven by once and dropped off some ice (which was gone in an hour) and they hadn't been back. At that point, it was day twelve.

The newspaper, the following day, showed another city entirely forgotten: Bogalusa. No one had been there, no one had called, no supplies, lots and lots of damage.

I don't understand these things. I know I live in America. Well, last time I checked, Louisiana was still in America. Maybe something happened somewhere that someone forgot to mention to us, but yeah, pretty sure we're still in America. And the magnitude of the inept response (including local) is staggering.

It was like watching someone I love get gutted and lie there bleeding and knowing that help was standing a few feet away, talking about golf scores.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

BATON ROUGE, La. — Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, the singer and guitarist who built a 50-year career playing blues, country, jazz and Cajun music, died Saturday in his hometown of Orange, Texas, where he had gone to escape Hurricane Katrina. He was 81.

Brown, who had been battling lung cancer and heart disease, was in ill health for the past year, said Rick Cady, his booking agent.

Cady said the musician was with his family at his brother's house when he died. Brown's home in Slidell, La., a bedroom community of New Orleans, was destroyed by Katrina, Cady said.

"He was completely devastated," Cady said. "I'm sure he was heartbroken, both literally and figuratively. He evacuated successfully before the hurricane hit, but I'm sure it weighed heavily on his soul."

Tonight my brother Mark and I were able to see the flooding at his house very close up. Detailed enough that we could tell that his car in his driveway was in water but the trunk and hood of the car were not covered. These are the best photos yet of the damage, very useful if you want to check on a specific neighborhood or property anywhere in the path of the hurricane:

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM

Judging from the photos, he's expecting that there is probably water in the house, but only the ground floor and not very deep.

I was insanely busy today and thankfully nowhere near a TV or computer for the past nine hours. I'll post details in a little while, but I have a couple of informational posts I want to put out there.

They're fine, the water didn't even make it into the house. They have plenty of food and water, but no electricity and no phone.

Hot damn, this calls for ice cream.

This post describes one guy's driving tour through Slidell: http://www.wwltv.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9872

There is also the Slidell Hurricane Damage Blog, which is awesome.

WWL TV was showing video footage from driving around Slidell. Many structures look to be in good shape, but some neighborhoods show devastation as bad as that in Biloxi and Gulfport. Streets were dry, but you could see high water marks on many houses.

I've heard from other family members looking for the Menards. I've heard from one guy in Texas who knows them and knows the neighborhood and is planning to try to get into Slidell to look for people this weekend. I've heard (uncomfirmed) that many Tammany refugees are being bussed to Red Cross shelters in San Antonio, so I've tried to leave word down there.

As of 11:30 this morning, Mark and Anne had no word from her family.

St. Tammany communications are a godawful mess, though, so they probably just can't get word out.

Craigslist New Orleans Lost+Found

WWL TV web site
now has a search function on their missing persons forums.

Salvation Army Emergency Radio Network

WDSU Missing Persons forum

UPDATE: They're all fine!