the end of the first push -- update

Well, I had hoped to hit 50%, but considering I had a lot of things both good and not-so-good occur unexpectedly this week, not so bad a pace after all.

original goal:

21,600 / 60,000 (36.0%)

adjusted probable length goal:

21,600 / 55,000 (39.0%)

Katrina

UPDATE: NEW ORLEANS HAS BEEN PLACED UNDER MANDATORY EVACUATION ORDERS.
It's going to be too late for a lot of people -- the traffic is going to be hellish, and if you didn't buy gas beforehand, forget about filling your tank now. They've opened up shelters -- if you know anyone caught in the city, plead with them to get to one of those. Even if it's not any safer, they'll be closer to medical and emergency services -- and someone will know where they are! If you/they have pets they/you can't evacuate -- leave them fresh food and water, and pray for the best. Animals have a better chance of surviving than people do; their instincts tell them to go low and hide, not panic/stormwatch.




for those of you who may be wondering what the fuss is about, this from weatherchannel.com might claify things a bit:

"Hurricane Katrina is an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Maximum sustained winds have now been greatly increased to 160 mph. Katrina continues not only grow stronger, but it continues to grow larger. Hurricane force winds extend 75 miles from the center in all but the southwest quadrant of the system. The center of Katrina was 275 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River at 4am CDT, but the hurricane force winds are only 200 miles from the coast.

Everyone along the northern Gulf of Mexico needs to take this hurricane very seriously and put action plans into play now. Hurricane warnings have now been hoisted from Morgan City, La., to the Florida-Alabama border. This includes the city of New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. A tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch have been issued from the Alabama-Florida border eastward to Destin, Florida and from west of Morgan City to Intracoastal City, Louisiana....

Effects from Katrina will not be confined to coastal areas. Once Hurricane Katrina makes landfall, it will progress inland Monday into Tuesday with a trail of flooding rains and damaging winds across Mississippi and Alabama and then into Tennessee. Torrential, flooding rainfall is possible with the remnants of Katrina well inland, possibly into the Ohio Valley, Great Lakes and the Northeast later this week."

Still not sure what Cat 5 means? Check this out.

If you're reading this, and are in Katrina's estimated path? Shut down the computer. Pack up. Go!

And I say this as an avowed lifetime storm-fan. She is one seriously pissed-off dame, and you do NOT want to be anywhere near her ire.

'k?

New Orleans

It's like the night before an execution -- you don't know how bad the grief is going to be, only that it will be terrible.

( the only song in my head this evening... )

And I wonder why there seems to have been n discussion of airlifting people... not even to say "it was discussed and discarded as causing more riots than people could be saved." I want to know, Mr. President, what you're doing. And if you say "praying," I will be third in line behind Jesus and St Peter to slap the shit out of you....