the articles I promised to find

I promised I was going to do some research on how much information Lousiana had before the storm as well as their efforts to prevent such a catastrophic outcome. Jay, a good friend of mine, actually needs to be credited for finding a lot of these and sending them to me. Others I found by just looking up articles from before the storm hit. I'm still looking for information on evacuation procedures and help given before the storm if anyone has seen stuff like that. I would like to emphasize that I am in no way trying to diminish the tremendous rescue efforts that are currently underway. I am just supporting my view that not enough was done before the storm to prevent the rising death toll (most likely in the 100os) and the severe damage.

New York Times online - off of NYtimes.com there is a great gallery of pictures documenting the actual hurricane in action as well as daily additions of the damage and evacuation efforts in Lousiana, Houston, and Mississippi. I highly recommend going to look at some of the pictures becuase they are stunning.

http://irishtrojan.com/ - this blog talks a lot about the same things I"ve been discussing and was actually part of a NYTimes article. I found it interesting to read about the views of another amature weather nerd.

http://news.com.com/Experts+New+Orleans+disaster+was+predicted/2100-1008_3-5846233.html?tag=st.prev - this article cnet (news.com.com) examines interesting technological indications that such a disaster would occur. Read it. It's very interesting.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/28/hurricane.katrina/ - this is a "pre-landfall" article which screams out warning signs in really simple sentences such as "Forecasters predicted the storm surge could reach 28 feet; the highest levees around New Orleans are 18 feet high," and "Hurricane-force winds extend 105 miles from the center of the mammoth storm and tropical storm-force winds extend outward up to 230 miles. It is the most powerful storm to menace the central Gulf Coast in decades." Looking at the pre-landfall stories tells a lot, I believe, about how much was ignored. Not that I put much faith in commercial and mainstream media but we have to take into account that mainstream media is how a majority of people get their "news."

http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=00060286-CB58-1315-8B5883414B7F0000 - this is an amazing Scientific American article that Jay found. Although the date at the top says August 31, 2005, we think it was actually written in 2001 or earlier and then reprinted in the latest edition. Dad or someone with a subscription, let me know if we're right about that. Since the article does not mention any storm by name, in particular Katerina, this indicated that it was written before the storm, even though the online publication date on the link is after the storm.

Well, have fun with all that. I'll keep digging and today my goal is to find the NPR station around here. I'm hoping since we now live on the 16th floor and Erica has some sort of special radio antennae, that we'll be able to find it easier than on campus. Listening online is okay but I'd rather be able to just turn on the radio.