Do we have Chiffers in the hurricane area?

[rebl_rn]

From the Red Cross' website:

Tattoo
Wait 12 months after a tattoo if the tattoo was applied in a state that does not regulate tattoo facilities. This requirement is related to concerns about hepatitis.

Acceptable if the tattoo was applied by a state-regulated entity using sterile technique. Only a few states currently regulate tattoo facilities, so most donors with tattoos must wait 12 months after tattoo application before donating blood. You should discuss your particular situation with the health historian at the time of donation.

[aderyn_du]

From the Red Cross' website:

Tattoo
Wait 12 months after a tattoo if the tattoo was applied in a state that does not regulate tattoo facilities. This requirement is related to concerns about hepatitis.

Acceptable if the tattoo was applied by a state-regulated entity using sterile technique. Only a few states currently regulate tattoo facilities, so most donors with tattoos must wait 12 months after tattoo application before donating blood. You should discuss your particular situation with the health historian at the time of donation.

I'm currently at approximately 10-1/2 months... I'll look into it some more before I head over to donate. I appreciate you posting the info!!

[Doug_Tipple]

I visited the French Quarter in New Orleans only two months ago. It was a beautiful cool day, and everyone was in a good mood. Yet, as I was standing by the Mississippi River, I could see the problem that is now so manifest: the city is below the level of the waters that surround it.

For reasons, know only to the politicians, there was only enough money to build dikes that were designed to withstand a level 3 hurricane. That is absurd, IMO. A major American city below sea level needed to have more aggressive (and, yes, more expensive) levees to protect it. Everyone with any sense should have know that this type of disaster was bound to happen, and that it was just a matter of time, especially since warmer oceans have increased the size and intensity of hurricanes in recent years.

Now, my thoughts go out to all the people who are caught up in this natural disaster, including my brother and his wife's extended family who live in New Orleans. I know that the people of this great country will be generous with their money to help assist the people in need. I also pray that people in leadership positions will make good decisions and make them quickly. It is a little late, Mr. President, but I'm glad that you decided to return from your vacation. You have some important work to do as a leader. Sitting in my chair in my living room, I find myself wanting to shout out orders, expletives included, my patience running out. This is no time for assessment surveys and studies. The people in need require immediate assistance.

[Lambchop]

What a tragic mess. I keep watching TV to see if anything is left of Tulane.

National Guard and special SWAT teams are trying to scatter the looters. More than 30,000 refugees are crammed into the Superdome, the toilets aren't working, there is a shortage of water, and yesterday evening a man fell to his death from one of the balconies, making, I think, 3 deaths. Tulane Medical Center is considering evacuating, because the water is up to the second floor and the generators will go out.

They are looking for places to evacuate all these people, but there is almost no way out. If you look at aerial photos, the roadbeds of the bridges across Lake Ponchartrain are gone . . . only pilings remain in some places.

The attempt to seal the levee failed and there is now the expectation that waters may rise still another 15 feet in the next hours.

They're putting black marks on homes which contain bodies because there aren't enough refrigerated trucks to hold them.

One poor woman called CNN a few minutes ago to ask the Louisiana governor to send help to her brother, who had been able to call her as he tried to get into his attic to escape the flood waters. She thinks he dropped the phone and knows he does not have an ax with which to break out of the attic. As he cannot swim, he cannot simply swim out a window to climb on the roof.

[Wombat]

For reasons, know only to the politicians, there was only enough money to build dikes that were designed to withstand a level 3 hurricane. That is absurd, IMO. A major American city below sea level needed to have more aggressive (and, yes, more expensive) levees to protect it. Everyone with any sense should have know that this type of disaster was bound to happen, and that it was just a matter of time, especially since warmer oceans have increased the size and intensity of hurricanes in recent years.

As a couple of us discussed briefly on another thread, it's actually happened before. Galveston was wiped out under these circumstances 90 years ago. I suppose that is a long time ago but folk memories of that are still sufficiently vivid for many people alive to know about it and how terrible the aftermath was. So why be so ill-prepared?

[Lambchop]

For reasons, know only to the politicians, there was only enough money to build dikes that were designed to withstand a level 3 hurricane. That is absurd, IMO. A major American city below sea level needed to have more aggressive (and, yes, more expensive) levees to protect it. Everyone with any sense should have know that this type of disaster was bound to happen, and that it was just a matter of time, especially since warmer oceans have increased the size and intensity of hurricanes in recent years.

As a couple of us discussed briefly on another thread, it's actually happened before. Galveston was wiped out under these circumstances 90 years ago. I suppose that is a long time ago but folk memories of that are still sufficiently vivid for many people alive to know about it and how terrible the aftermath was. So why be so ill-prepared?

The original system of levees was built in response to the 1947 storm. That's the Cat. 3 levee system. Since worse flooding that occurred in 1965, the height of the levees was raised substantially. Since then, however, the wetlands erosion along the coast has complicated matters.

Until very, very recently, it was not possible to determine exactly what a storm was or what it would do. It's still not possible, although we have better capabilities now. They're all different. We only know what we know in hindsight. I expect that when the city is rebuilt, there may be improvements to the levees based on what is learned from this storm.

NO is unique in that it is 1.8 m below sea level. What is happening there isn't just the initial storm damage from wind and storm surge, and it's not just that a levee was topped. The initial flooding was bad, but now a section of levee has failed. Something like 200 feet of it washed out. The dike broke. Water from Lake Ponchartrain, which is higher than the city, is pouring through the breach and it can't exit the city. It's filling up a bowl. The sides of the bowl are the remaining intact levees. There isn't any plug you can pull.

Here's a better explanation: http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2002/of02-206/p ... canes.html .

[Flyingcursor]

Some of the levee is dirt. I wonder how long before someone starts an "investigation" of why the levee's are so poor? Somewhere soon some finger pointing is bound to occur.

I am appalled at the destruction. Yesterday I got home from work and poured a big glass of water and thought how fortunate I am that I have a home and fresh water while so many thousands are now going without.

I watched helicoptor rescues on MSNBC last night. So many people stuck on their roofs with no water or food. I wonder how many are still sitting there.

[hans]

Katrina's real name:

from the Boston Globe:

THE HURRICANE that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming.

When the year began with a two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles, the cause was global warming.

When 124-mile-an-hour winds shut down nuclear plants in Scandinavia and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland and the United Kingdom, the driver was global warming.

When a severe drought in the Midwest dropped water levels in the Missouri River to their lowest on record earlier this summer, the reason was global warming.

In July, when the worst drought on record triggered wildfires in Spain and Portugal and left water levels in France at their lowest in 30 years, the explanation was global warming.

When a lethal heat wave in Arizona kept temperatures above 110 degrees and killed more than 20 people in one week, the culprit was global warming.

And when the Indian city of Bombay (Mumbai) received 37 inches of rain in one day -- killing 1,000 people and disrupting the lives of 20 million others -- the villain was global warming.

As the atmosphere warms, it generates longer droughts, more-intense downpours, more-frequent heat waves, and more-severe storms.

Although Katrina began as a relatively small hurricane that glanced off south Florida, it was supercharged with extraordinary intensity by the relatively blistering sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read more here: Katrina's real name

And global warming is the result of our excessive fossil fuel consumption, our "way of life".

Tread gently
Hans

[Wombat]

For reasons, know only to the politicians, there was only enough money to build dikes that were designed to withstand a level 3 hurricane. That is absurd, IMO. A major American city below sea level needed to have more aggressive (and, yes, more expensive) levees to protect it. Everyone with any sense should have know that this type of disaster was bound to happen, and that it was just a matter of time, especially since warmer oceans have increased the size and intensity of hurricanes in recent years.

As a couple of us discussed briefly on another thread, it's actually happened before. Galveston was wiped out under these circumstances 90 years ago. I suppose that is a long time ago but folk memories of that are still sufficiently vivid for many people alive to know about it and how terrible the aftermath was. So why be so ill-prepared?

The original system of levees was built in response to the 1947 storm. That's the Cat. 3 levee system. Since worse flooding that occurred in 1965, the height of the levees was raised substantially. Since then, however, the wetlands erosion along the coast has complicated matters.

Until very, very recently, it was not possible to determine exactly what a storm was or what it would do. It's still not possible, although we have better capabilities now. They're all different. We only know what we know in hindsight. I expect that when the city is rebuilt, there may be improvements to the levees based on what is learned from this storm.

NO is unique in that it is 1.8 m below sea level. What is happening there isn't just the initial storm damage from wind and storm surge, and it's not just that a levee was topped. The initial flooding was bad, but now a section of levee has failed. Something like 200 feet of it washed out. The dike broke. Water from Lake Ponchartrain, which is higher than the city, is pouring through the breach and it can't exit the city. It's filling up a bowl. The sides of the bowl are the remaining intact levees. There isn't any plug you can pull.

Here's a better explanation: http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2002/of02-206/p ... canes.html .

That's actually a pretty good explanation. But my point was a bit different. I know the situation with New Orleans and the lake and I suppose millions of people do. My point though was this: given what happened in Galveston which I assume is not below sea level and given that that happened before global warming and so on, shouldn't authorities have been aware of just how much more vulnerable New Orleans is? Just a thought. I suppose people are aware that there will be a major earthquake in LA sometime but just hope it won't be on their watch.

[Martin Milner]

Avanutria, Gary Kelly and I were watching the unfolding of this disaster on CNN on Monday - it was a Bank Holiday (vacation day) in England.


This event is so big, I don't know what to say.

[jbarter]

Help me get my round this. How big is the area of devastation? I know some states are as big as some countries and this seems to have hit three of them. Could anyone give me a comparative area of the UK that would match the size?

[Martin Milner]

Help me get my round this. How big is the area of devastation? I know some states are as big as some countries and this seems to have hit three of them. Could anyone give me a comparative area of the UK that would match the size?

The UK covers approximately 217,000 square miles of land.

Louisiana is 51,843 square miles.
Alabama is 52,423 square miles.
Misissippi is 48,434 square miles.

So the hurricane has affected an area approximately equal to 70% of the United Kingdom. This won't all be "devastated" of course, but it's no bag of chips either.

[lixnaw]

i hope they can recue all the people still alive.

but i'm afraid it will happen again if they rebuild new orleans(no matter how strong) at the same spot.

[BigDavy]

Hi lixnaw

I agree totally with you. The logical thing to do would be to build a new New Orleans in a more secure location, rater than try to rebuild in what will be a chemically and bacterialogically dangerous location after the flooding has been dealt with.

David

[missy]

if you are interested in seeing and reading, check:

http://www.nola.com

There's links to the Times-Picayune. The pictures are just horrendous, especially when I recognize the background from being there.