Pretty devastating. I think I heard on the radio this morning that they are asking all citizens of New Orleans to completely evacuate the city. 90% of buildings have also been affected by the flooding. And that is only for New Orleans, where they were lucky enough to be hit by the western (left) side of the hurricane as opposed to the stronger east side.

Has the International Community made any "statements" about this terrible natural disaster? or sent any help?

We were talking about that for a bit in my speech class yesterday afternoon. I really can't feel sorry for them. They picked to live there, to have businesses there, full knowing that the area is below sealevel and right on the fuggin' coast. Is like people who live in Tornado Alley. If you live there, chances are, yer going to get hit by something.

Sure, it's tragic, but I don't feel sorry for them. If you don't want to get hit by hurricanes, don't live on the coast.

On a side note, I have a few friends that go to Tulane down there. They shut the campus down and told them all to "go home." Instead, they all went on a road trip to Memphis

im gonna go ahead and say it, bc i know someone else will: not everyone chose to live there. ok, now that thats out of the way, ill give them some sympathy, as they would do the same if my town got tornado-ed. or would they? who cares. if you live there you'd better have hurricane/flood insurance, just like we on the MO river have tornado and flood insurane. there, so i guess it sucks and i feel bad for them, but then again, they have insurance and im gonna be bearing some of the financial burden through that so i cant say im too choked up about it.

Wow... those are some very cold answers. I guess there is no genuine compassion left in your worlds. If you were to ever get flooded out of home and lose all your possessions, I only hope people would respond better than you guys did. Shame on you.

*saracasm*I mean... gosh those people that died in the WTC should have known it was coming when they decided to work there. Planes have crashed into skyscrapers before (ie: B-25 into Empire State Building in 1945(?)). And insurance? Man.. we'll be paying for that one for a while. Why in the hell did they decide to build a new building too? it's just gonna fall down again anyway.*sarcasm*

On the insurance thing; if Katrina had remained a Category 5 when it hit land, most insurance wouldn't have had to pay a dime because Cat 5 hurricanes are considered an act of God, and that's not part of their coverage.

Unless you plan on having an entirely self-contained economy (fat chance in today's world) you have to have people that live on the coasts. In the US, that means those people are at risk for at least one of {earthquakes, hurricanes, freak blizzards, and yes, tsunamis}. Pure and simple. Somebody has to get that oil to us here in Tornado Alley. Somebody has to ship the food we produce here out to the world market. Somebody has to live on the West Coast to ship us cheap stuff from China.

Additionally, tornadoes don't bring major metropolitan areas to a screeching halt. I don't think we have a lot of room to tell them it's their own fault.

tulane is a nice campus, i hope none of the buildings get too ruined. my sister is a graduate of there, still knows some people.

My town got hammered by a tornado in the summer of '03 and we had people from all over the country come in to help, so I would say they felt pretty bad.

They shut the Nuke plant down the other day (which is designed to run under 30 feet of water) so I would think it probably isn't very good.

from a personal side, yes i feel bad for them. however, from a financial side, i think they will be covered. thats all im saying.

Yeah, my sister moved down to NO a few weeks ago to start law school at Tulane and rented a house a few blocks away from it. She got back home to St. Louis safely over the weekend, but isn't sure if her house and all the crap she left behind there sustained any damage, and probably wont know for awhile until they let people back in. They're saying it could be months.

Don't forget that 8% of the worlds coffee supply is in New Orleans.

My boyfriend's family had 3 beautiful houses right on the coast of Mississippi, and they were all leveled.

Dang... I feel sorry for his 3 houses getting leveled

To what people have said, yes SOMEONE has to live there to get us our stuff, but it's the people that chose to live there. (And no, not everyone chose to.)

I'm not too choked up from it, but not for the same reasons. They will get help, they will have people come to their rescue from around the US, and I am thankful for that. I am sorry for the people who have loved ones that were injured or died during this, because I'm sure there are some.

Actually, the entire town that they lived in was leveled, I was just getting the information. I do feel bad because it was an elderly woman who now has no home.

How fast do you think these things happen? How soon do you think the entire coast will get rebuilt? Have you ever had to deal with an insurance company for anything? You know how slow they go? Multiply that by the 100s of 1000s of people that they will be dealing with. It will take, at the very least a year to rebuild a home. So while there may be money and help, you have no home for a long period of time.

I don't think anyone's destroyed lived is something to roll your eyes at, even if they weren't important people to you. Hopefully your family never has to go through something like this. Hopefully your grandma never has all of her belongings, her entire house, and small town she has lived in her entire life, washed away. Hopefully no one is as big of a prick to you if that does happen.

Well, I guess I left a few things out of my post.
1: I know how slow insurance companies go, and I know that they will be without a house for awhile. The reason I said I'm not too choked up is because I'm not there. It doesn't affect me. It's just how I am.
2: I'm not worried about their 3 houses getting destroyed because they will be taken care of I'm sure. Live in a hotel for awhile, the insurance will probably even pay for it. If not, it's not exactly like they have to sleep in the dirt like some people are going to.
3: My grandma DID have all of her stuff wiped away, her entire town... in a sense. She has alhz-heimer's disease. When I come home she'll talk to me 3 or 4 times about the same thing, sometimes in the course of an hour. At least your grandmother can go through her life still doing what she wants, so don't talk to me about how her life is destroyed.

As a matter of fact, she does have aslheimers. That is why her house is so importnat, as are the 2 next to it because her kids live there. It's not really bad yet, but it's progressing.
Yes, your grandma may have alsheimers, but there are tons of people in the world that go through that. It is, in a sense, a part of life, or at least a big possibility that many elderly people are faced with.
If entire towns are wiped away, what hotel can people stay in? Many people are not even able to live in their own towns, or even anywhere near. It's not as simple as you make it out to be.