Fierce Planet

From Americablog (I don’t have a link or a copy):
From a press release LA Senator Mary Landrieu sent out today:

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – black and white, rich and poor, young annd old – deserve far better from their national governmeent.

UPDATE: Evacuation of people at the Convention Center has started. Conditions there are grim.
UPDATE: WWLTV says Charity Hospital has finally been evacuated. All hospitals have now been evacuated, they say.
UPDATE: Crooks and Liars has video of an extraordinary report from the convention center and from the highway last night on Fox News.
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I haven’t heard of any actual evacuations from the Convention Center. There are still several thousand people stuck in the Superdome without evacuation help at this time. There are a couple of swamped parishes with survivors who have had no help at all, and the people rescued from roofs and attics are being left on the roadside, with no help available there, no food or water (see last night’s Nightline program). The Red Cross has been forbidden to enter the city.
Federal officials are in full self-defense mode, claiming they had not idea how bad things were. Guess they weren’t bothering to watch the news, cause it was all there.
Tbogg has a round-up of what officials are saying and what people on the ground are seeing. The disconnect has been incredible.

Nice work if you have the connections to get it. From the Los Angeles Times:

The city also has called in top corporations to help with the effort. Microsoft has been asked to develop a program to help reunite families, and Halliburton has been requested to share the expertise that it has used to house troops in Iraq in order to set up tent cities in Houston.

Mmmm… Halliburton! Always in the right spot to rake in the cash.

UPDATE:: One of the buses carrying survivors out has rolled over. No word on casualties that I can find; I saw the footage on CNN.
UPDATE: They have fire boats in trying aggressively fighting the industrial fire. There are other fires burning in the city and the wooden homes are very close together and we may yet lose some of those that were spared in the flooding.
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CNN is showing footage of amphibious military vehicles which are taking supplies to the Convention Center. At last! They’re under command of a three-star general, and have orders not to shoot or raise their weapons unless attacked. It would be nice to get through this without the military killing any innocents, though I wouldn’t weep for any thugs or criminals who might get shot.
UPDATE: From this CNN transcript of Mayor Nagin, apparently the general in charge is really starting to get things done. This is what we need to see.

Now, I will tell you this — and I give the president some credit on this — he sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done, and his name is [Lt.] Gen. [Russel] Honore.

And he came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving. And he’s getting some stuff done.