this is not the storm of the century, but it's still dangerous

New Orleans might be in a better situation today.

Gustav is expected to hit at 1 p.m, and here's a map delineating the difference between Katrina and Gustav and the weak vs. strong levees of New Orleans. Gustav has weakened to a Category 2 hurricane with 110 mph winds.

NY Times article about Gustav.

I'm really nervous so i'm doing lots of research and here it is

Police blockade on I-10 in New Orleans.

“When this storm hits, those trailers will move around quite a bit. As a matter of fact, most of them will become projectiles and start to fly around the city.” - Ray Nagin on FEMA trailers

Really, Nagin?

The NY Times is keeping an eye on the hurricane in "Countdown to Gustav".

I am also including a link to a website that shows the traffic on many major roads in New Orleans. This site is managed by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (La DOTD). (This shows that most people have already left New Orleans.)

Here is a map of Gustav's projected route as of two p.m. on Sunday afternoon. Mayor Ray Nagin's website has updates about the status of the mandatory evacuation.

Another resource (not necessarily for Hurricane Gustav, but just for reference purposes) - here is a NY Times "Interactive Look at Post-Katrina Recovery", which shows that about one third of residences in New Orleans are still "blighted", or just plain beat up. How big of an effect will Gustav have on this patchy recovery?

More updates to come.

"please leave new orleans alone"

Addressed to Hurricane Gustav: “please leave new orleans alone” – Sushma Reddy, fellow DukeEngage NOLA participant

I am very worried about New Orleans. First thing tomorrow morning, I am going to call several friends (my coworkers at Providence and friends at St Ann’s apartments) and make sure they have evacuated.

How many people will keep coming back to New Orleans? And how many hurricanes will keep lashing my battered New Orleans?

How many times will Ray Nagin continue to exaggerate the problem? How many times will politicians on the state and national levels use New Orleans’ plight to further their careers?

How many times will the government badly botch its response to disaster? Let’s hope only once.

Blogging in the Airport

I guess it's fitting that I bid goodbye to Lafitte in the rain.

It rained all day Friday, my last day of work at Providence. Unfortunately, neither LaTonya nor Tammy were at work (they are my coworkers and very close friends), but I'm not very good at goodbyes anyway. Man, I'm going to miss them.

Felicia and I visited St. Ann's apartments (a Providence property) one last time before we left New Orleans. While doing a free furniture program with the residents of St. Ann's, I became good friends with some of them. I'm glad that I got the chance to say goodbye. The people that I will miss most are the elderly residents of St. Ann's and the people from Providence. We had to wade through one foot deep water to get to St. Ann's (because it rained and the streets flooded), and then Felicia and I tried to film a serious movie about the deep water and silly infrastructure of New Orleans, but it turned out to be unintentionally hilarious.

I really have nothing else to say because I'm not that good at expressing myself when I feel something very strongly. I'm sitting in Louis Armstrong International Airport typing this, and I was just hit by a wave of sadness. Sure, I'm excited to go home - I miss my family and my bike, but I'm also going to miss the people here.

YOU DO NOT TAKE DOWN DALE EARNHARDT FLAGS

Does Martha Stewart realize what she has (inadvertently) just done?

Kannapolis, North Carolina. Home of the late NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt. Home of "Dale Earnhardt Boulevard." Home of Dale Earnhardt Plaza, with a 900 pound, 9 foot tall statue of Dale Earnhardt (picture at top).




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An article in the Raleigh News & Observer caught my eye when it mentioned Martha Stewart's visit to Kannapolis to tour the North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC), a collaboration of several NC universities and scientists to study "nutrition and its relationship to disease." (Why is it in Kannapolis and not the Research Triangle Park? Because David Murdock, funder of the Dale Earnhardt plaza, also funded the NCRC.)

Last week, city workers took down flags honoring Dale Earnhardt because "some were dirty and torn and might upset a Murdock guest, who wasn't identified." The guest was Martha Stewart.

Wanna know the reaction from Dale fans? Let's just say that it was so potent that both the MAYOR OF KANNAPOLIS AND THE CITY MANAGER HAD TO WRITE A LETTER TO DALE EARNHARDT FANS TO EXPLAIN THE ABSENCE OF THE FLAGS. It is possibly the funniest letter I have ever read. They even promised to make the statue bigger. Is 9 feet, 900 pounds not big enough??

Some of you out there will not understand this post. You will not understand the legend that is and was Dale Earnhardt, NASCAR driver with the #3 car.

"Earnhardt is known for his success in the Winston Cup Series, now known as the Sprint Cup Series. He won seventy-six races (including his only Daytona 500 victory in 1998), and his seven championships are tied for most all-time with Richard Petty. His highly aggressive driving style made him a fan favorite and earned him the nicknames "Ironhead", "Mr. Restrictor Plate", "The Man in Black" and most famously, "The Intimidator."" - Wikipedia.org

He died in a crash during the last lap of the Daytona 500 in 2001. I was in middle school - people cried. Some people didn't come to school for a week.

"For the remainder of the season and the next Daytona 500, racing fans, television and radio broadcasters would fall silent during lap 3 of every Winston Cup race in Earnhardt's honor." - wikipedia.org.

These are the people that you affect when you take down any sort of Dale Earnhardt paraphernalia, especially in his hometown of Kannapolis, North Carolina.

I hope that Martha Stewart does not get any hate mail.

RYAN BIRD BEAT ME TO THE PUNCH

I bookmarked New Orleans Councilwoman Stacy Head's webpage. I didn't do this because I am a fan of Stacy Head - in fact, I think she is insane.

Civil rights activist Jerome Smith brought 200 children to a City Council meeting to protest the actions of two New Orleans policemen. One brandished a gun outside the Treme Community Center during a youth summer camp, and when 911 was called and another officer showed up, he messed around with the first police officer and jokingly threatened to shoot someone. New Orleans' finest? I don't think so.

As Katy Reckdahl wrote in the Times-Picayune, "Specifically, Head said, she took issue with Smith's statement that an officer responding to similar misconduct outside the Jewish Community Center in Uptown would have behaved differently."

Head is advocating cancelling the city's funding of the summer youth program at the Treme Community Center because of Smith's "blatantly racist statements". JEROME SMITH MADE NO RACIST STATEMENTS. Thankfully, Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell "would be hard-pressed to strip away summer programs from children in that area."

At least someone on the City Council may have some sense.

Ryan Bird beat me to the punch because he wrote a blog about this before me - after I specifically told him that I was going to write a blog about Stacy Head. Shame on him - and shame on Stacy Head.

I AM ANGRY AND I AM WRITING THIS BLOG

Anger is a very heady feeling.

Being furiously angry is interesting. For one thing, you feel like you could commit any crime and get away with it and be an agent of JUSTICE - kinda like Batman. On the other hand, the situation that you are dealing with is so full of injustice that you want to burst into angry tears and break something. Either one results in violence of some sort.

It's a good thing that the anger I felt today was directed at people who were not within reaching distance.

I went outside and sat in the sun for a while. Someone came out and asked if I was taking a smoke break - I do not smoke. But I let them think that I do. When you're furiously angry, you don't care what people think of you.

Some people would say that acting upon furious anger is the best way to deal with a situation because you don't skirt around the subject at hand - you don't try to butter the person up - you merely SAY WHAT YOU THINK AND TO HECK WITH IT.

Unfortunately, my parents taught me not to act upon anger.

So, instead of saying things I would've regretted once my anger wore off, I thought about New Orleans. I thought about my tiny problem and the juvenile-minded people with whom I was angry - and then I compared it to the problems facing the poor people of New Orleans. I thought about people I met here whom I will dearly miss. I thought about mothers who scrape for a living and families who are scrambling to find housing.

What the heck am I mad about? My problems are nothing compared to theirs. I have a home. I am attending a very good school. I have the Internet as a readily available resource. I attended very good public schools (shout out to Person County Schools). I have goals and a bright future ahead of me. My mom and dad are close and keep in touch. I have the support of my wonderful community of Roxboro.

Honestly, Abigail.

So, I'm going to end this week with my usual cheerful smile - I will laugh at jokes - I will make horrible puns - I will genuinely enjoy my day at work - I will be sad when I leave New Orleans.

I truly love this city, and I am an ungrateful wretch for indulging in one moment of anger over petty people when others here worry about having a roof over their heads or food to put in their mouths.