Alvaro R. Morales Villa has posted a photo gallery of what it was like to stay in New Orleans through Katrina. These are some amazing pictures with commentary. 197 photos in all, and you will want to view them all. Among the interesting things are his take on the looters, police, firemen, and reporters. Any guess who he wound up with the least respect for? HT Mudville Gazette.

UPDATE: The link to the photos has now been updated to the new location.

Here is an inspiring story of how folk with no particular means saved themselves and others in their neighborhood in New Orleans. They planned ahead, worked together, and survived. What a great example! HT to Instapundit.

Major Garrett of Fox News reported that the Red Cross was prevented from delivering supplies it had wanted to bring to those in the Superdome, by the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security which is the state agency in charge of disaster relief in Louisiana. He then went on Hugh Hewitt's radio program and elaborated in more detail.

Power Line mentioned this on their blog, and readers sent in more confirmation of this story. If this is correct, then the state agency in charge of disaster relief made things far worse for 20,000 or more who were trapped in the Superdome and Convention Center, and may have been responsible for many of the lives lost there.

The Red Cross and FEMA have long preached to everyone who would listen how to prepare for disasters. Individuals and families are strongly urged to prepare to be totally on their own for at least 3 days, and 2 weeks is better. Similarly cities are told to be ready to fend for themselves for at least 3 days before any outside help is expected. FEMA even provides free courses to teach individuals and municipal officials how to best cope with disaster situations. They offer advanced disaster training programs through state agencies in a wide variety of critical skills.

Therefore, while individuals and families _should_ be able to take care of themselves for a few days, all communities and states should be prepared to help those who did not prepare. Everyone reading this should access the wonderful free materials available from the Red Cross and FEMA and be ready for emergencies so you will not be one of those in a "shelter of last resort" like the Superdome.

If it is true that the state intentionally blocked help from getting to those who most needed it that is criminal. I hope this is investigated.

For those who don't understand how the National Guard works, the units in each state are under the command of their respective Governors until and unless the President calls them up for National service. Therefore the Guard in both Louisiana and Mississippi were and are totally under the control of the Governors of their respective states. Under our laws the President can't send in the Guard or our military to do police work, however, a Governor of a state can legally use his own Guard to assist the police. Those who criticize President Bush for not sending in the Guard to restore order in New Orleans are either ignorant or intentionally trying to deceive the American public.

Today Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief, National Guard Bureau of the US Department of Defense gave a briefing to reporters about the National Guard and their efforts to rescue victims of Katrina, and restore order in New Orleans. HT to Michelle Malkin for the link.

One of the most interesting facts to come out of this briefing was that of about 1500 police in New Orleans, less than 500 are still doing their jobs. In other words there has been a massive breakdown of the police with at least 2/3 of the department missing or deserting their duty.

Read the whole thing!

DJ Drummond looks at some of the possible options for rebuilding after Katrina, and in particular the problem of rebuilding New Orleans. He looks at the example of Galveston Texas where a similar hurricane totally wiped out the city killing between 8 and 12 thousand people. Read the whole thing!

Today Hugh Hewitt posted a link to an excellent piece by Donald Sensing titled Moral Levees. In it he discusses what went wrong and what went right when the moral levees failed in New Orleans. Read it!

The American Motor Coach Association has asked their members to send 500 buses to help transport folk out of the disaster area in coordination with FEMA. Grace Coach Lines/International Family Missions a bus company from Lafayette Colorado is participating.

Vinelife Community Church in Boulder Colorado is sending a driver and team from the church youth group on one of GCL/IFM buses with supplies down to the disaster area. They are asking for supplies and volunteers to go help with the rescue efforts. If you can bring non perishable food to the church between 8:30 and 10 AM Saturday 3 September 2005 it will get on this bus. For directions to the church click here.

They would also like to bring down:

Bibles

Paper Goods - plates, cups, diapers, tissue

Cleaning Supplies - Bleach, Top Job, Mr. Clean type products

Water - Bottled drinking water (NO glass containers)

Single Serving Snacks - Pop Tarts, Cereal Bars, Granola bars

Peanut Butter

Canned Meat

Heat and Eat Foods - Chili, stew, canned pasta with sauce, canned vegetables etc.

Lunchables or other single serving foods that DO NOT REQUIRE REFRIGERATION

MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat)

Personal care items

Formula

Diapers

Even if you can't get items to the church at that time, please call the church at (303) 449-3330 and drop things off to go on a later bus.

They are also looking for places to live for folk who might want to relocate to Colorado. If you know of living spaces that would be available please contact Vinelife (303) 449-3330.

Power Line posts an email from a New Orleans native with interesting background on hurricanes and the warnings given every year so folk will know what to do. He also relates the harrowing story of an escape from New Orleans (and how the Police tried to prevent it!)

Today folk all across the Blogosphere are uniting to ask folk to donate to help those who are suffering in the wake of hurricane Katrina. I am joining this effort with the suggestion that you consider donating to the Salvation Army. Whenever disaster hits they have been out front providing relief to the victims and are one of the most efficient organizations around doing relief work. There are no huge salaries in the Salvation Army, just folk doing what God commanded and helping the poor and downtrodden.

Glenn Reynolds has a master list of charities to which you could also consider dontating.

My employer was giving a 50% match for donatations to the Central Texas Red Cross who are helps tens of thousands of the refugees from Katrina so I gave there too.

So please give.

After giving please go to N. Z. Bear's website and log your contribution. You can do so anonymously if you wish. He is keeping track of the contributions made because of this worldwide Blog effort. As I write this over $500,000 has been raised via blogs.

Technorati Tags: flood aid, Hurricane Katrina

Check out John Hinderaker's post on Religion and the Democrats over at Power Line. He looks at the new Pew Research Center survey.

What passes for reporting from Iraq in most of our media has been nothing but a listing of our dead and wounded with no context about what our soldiers are doing and why. There is an old saying that the slickest way to lie is to tell just enough of the truth then shut up.

I you would like to read an example of real reporting from someone who is embeded with a group of our soldiers in a real hot-spot in Iraq, read Michael Yon's " Gates of Fire" report on his blog "Michael Yon : On Line Magazine". What makes his work all the more amazing is that it is totally self funded via donations from folk who read his blog. Read his report, and if it moves you consider making a donation.

Hugh Hewitt has a list of bloggers who have written about this report and a link to follow-up from BlackFive about the wounded men who are central to Michael's report.

Hugh Hewitt linked to a lengthy article in Foreign Affairs about avian influenza. The bad news is that this variety of the Flu has at least in theory the possibility of killing a huge percentage of the world's population. So far only 109 are known to have contracted this Bird Flu, but of those 59 have died. The good news is that at this time there is no evidence that it can be transmitted from one human to another although there are unexplained cases.

In 1918 - 1919 the "Spanish" Flu killed 50 million people. Scientists say this Flu known as "H5N1 influenza" has the potential to be much worse than the "Spanish" Flu. "In short, doom may loom. But note the "may." If the relentlessly evolving virus becomes capable of human-to-human transmission, develops a power of contagion typical of human influenzas, and maintains its extraordinary virulence, humanity could well face a pandemic unlike any ever witnessed. Or nothing at all could happen. Scientists cannot predict with certainty what this H5N1 influenza will do."

This has doctors concerned and uncertain what to recommend. Rushing out to "Do Something" such as the USA did in 1976 over fears of a possible flu epidemic that never happened would be a mistake. This lengthy article offers no real advice as to what the USA could do (other than give the doctors more money). It does make clear that if such an epidemic should happen you are better off living in the USA or another wealthy country as opposed to living in the third world where medical resources are far more limited.

So what should we as individuals do? First pray that the world will be spared this flu. Then do your best to stay healthy. Those with weakened systems will be more succeptible. Like for many other dangers in modern society, if you can move out of a major city and into a smaller town, that may tilt the odds in your favor. Of course stay informed. Information is one of the most powerful things we have going for us. If this does turn into a real danger there will be lots of information available as to how to minimize the risks of catching this. Look for sources like Flu News Blog as well as more conventional sources like the Washington Post.