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I read an article in our newpaper and the person directing the repair of the levees for the Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans is doing it from here in Memphis. He even said [paraphrasing here] that he only expected the water to top the levees, not have the levees break. So I guess y'all's assumption that if a levee is topped it will automatically break is incorrect. [I will try to locate that article online for you if I can]
Also I saw a friend last night who was down there for a bachelor's party& were supposed to return Sunday morning but the Amtrak train decided not to run, they were told it would be running when they checked on it the day before. They stayed in the French Quarter in a hotel and he told me that the hotel staff left& they were up in their rooms waiting for the rescue personnel to come get people out of that area. They decided to leave Wednesday b/c random people were starting to take over the hotel. They grabbed the shoer curtain rods to use as some sort of protection& to push things floating in the water out of their way. They were able to get out b/c they took maps out of the phonebook& sent text messages to find out what roads were open still. They were stopped by police on a bridge and told to wait for a bus that was coming by, they squeezed 9 guys into a bus that had 70 people already. They got to the next parrish over& were told by police at gunpoint they had nothing for them there& had to leave. They paid $200 to a guy to drive them to Baton Rouge where they flew home after getting in touch with one of the guy's relatives who had a private plane& he came and got them.
The point of all this is that I have heard from a very reliable source what's going on out there. He said what you see on the news about the looting, gun shots, robberies etc. are all true, if not worse than what's reported. So I can make my judgement based on a 1st hand source with no spin that the media gives things.
-Mark
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