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Katrina report

My sister lives in Lafayette, LA and sent me the following report:

What a mess! Lafayette parish enrolled 600 displaced students yesterday and more today. They have asked all displaced teachers to come down to the school board and they will be hired. Jordan had to get a ride to school with a friend today because his school bus was one of those commandeered to help evacuate people from New Orleans.

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I watch a Baton Rouge station 24/7 for information. Someone finally was able to call out from St. Bernard parish today. They had been sheltered in Chalmette High School and St. Bernard High Schooland not able to make contact with anyone. When the water started rising and the school started falling apart, men swam out and hot wired boats floating by...took everyone to the Chalmette ship slip on The Mississippi River where they are waiting for someone to come rescue them. They have been rationing their water to 3 oz. a day.

I don't know whether Gov. Blanco was slow to call for extra help or whether the National Guard has just been slow to respond. I told Ricky on Monday night that they didn't have enough National Guard in NO. Also , those scumbags in NO on the I-10 ramps ,telling the CNN reporters that no one told them where to go or what to do are lying. Mayor Nagin urged them to leave last Saturday...he ordered them to leave last Sunday...he told them all that city busses would come by and collect them and take them to the Superdome as a shelter of last resort...they refused to go. He sent city busses all over town with bullhorns calling for people to come to the Superdome and they still refused to go to the shelter. Also the national media sent out a false sense of security when they reported on Monday that the French Quarter was dry and had survived...the rest of the city was already taking on water...but the French Quarter was all they knew or cared about.

We still haven't heard anything from Ricky's aunt in Biloxi.

I told R---- to write you about the Gulf...but he leaves early every morning and comes home late at night...trying to get helicopters to check on platforms. He said to tell you that the eastern half of the Gulf is devestated and that is where 60% of the Gulf oil production comes from. He said it is rebuildable but will take at least a year.

Lafayette and Baton Rouge are bursting at the seams with evacuees...and the locals are buying handguns to defend themselves. They hysteria must be spreading.

It looks like my earlier optimism about damages to the rigs was misplaced. Still the most immediate problem is one of transporting fuel to places like Atlanta.

My daughter who works at Warner Bros. in Los Angelos reports:

There aren't words to describe the devastation and heartbreak we've seen unfold over the last few days as a result of Hurricane Katrina. It has been horrific and, sadly, conditions are expected to worsen.

In the spirit of pulling together to help our fellow Americans in this time of need, Warner Bros. Entertainment will donate $500,000 to kick off the fundraising effort being headed by Ellen DeGeneres (a New Orleans native) and her "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." We'll further match Ellen's viewers' contributions to this fund up to another $500,000 for a potential total donation of $1.5 million.

As you know, Time Warner will match $1 million in employee contributions made to the American Red Cross.

Separately, The WB Television Network is making a $100,000 donation to its New Orleans affiliate, WNOL, to help its employees affected by this disaster.

These donations will touch the lives of many thousands of people you may never know, but they will know that you cared and were willing to help.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of Hurricane Katrina and to those employees with family and friends in the affected areas.

Houston is doing an admirable job of absorbing people beyond the folks who are being bused to the Astrodome. The owner of the Houston Texas has issued a challenge donation promising to match donations up to $1 million. HISD and many of the private schools are enrolling students. Churches are finding housing and jobs for the displaced people. The same is going on in the Bryand-College Station area which has already absorbed two thousand refugees and Texas A&M has agrred to absord 1,000 additional students from the effected area. Hundreds of people are staying in motels in Brenham. As I drove home this evening I noticed that a mobil home camp ground that was finished in the last year and had only a handful of its spaces rented is now 75 percent full of large motorhomes and trailers. The campground is west of Hempstead on highway 290. Some people must have been able to leave in style.