Ok.. so here's the deal. Don't believe the national media stories of how lucky New Orleans is... luck is relative. Yes, the city wasn't completely destroyed, but...

From the info we're managing to gather now, the city has been dealt a crippling blow. As of earlier tonight, 80% of the city was flooded, with waters still rising in many areas because of broken levees and broken pumps. One of the major highways into the city has a large bridge which we call the Twin Spans. It's damaged to the point that it will have to be completely replaced. There are lots of vague reports of bodies floating in water and I've gone from thinking them as hysterical rumor to feeling pretty sure that we're going to see a rapidly escalating death toll over the next few days. Residents are probably not going to be allowed back into the city for a week. City officials are saying it's going to be 4 to 6 weeks until power is restored to the entire city and I imagine it's going to be days before a serious effort to start the process starts.

We're just trying to process the toll to individuals, to the city, to the state, to the country. New Orleans is based on a tourist economy... how long before they'll come back? The state gets a lot of money from NO taxes. People's homes are totally destroyed or significantly damaged. How can the Saints play in the Superdome when part of the roof is missing? New Orleans is one of the major port cities of the US... are the ports still there? How's this going to effect the national economy?

I expect that Richard and Jonno, along with Don's mom and our friend Robert will be our guests through the weekend if not for another week or more. They're feeling awkward about it, but their presence is a great comfort to me, because I have so many friends in New Orleans who I'm worried about. But, I have these guys here in front of me and I know they're okay.

We're all freaked out quite a bit. We'll deal, but it's really really weird trying to absorb what's happened to our beloved city.

For now, our guests are left wondering about their homes. Don's sister and her husband stayed in Algiers (the Westbank of New Orleans) and we haven't been able to contact them since 8 am this morning during the beginning of the storm. My mom is alone in Livingston Parish, far from New Orleans, but in an area that was also hit relatively hard and we haven't been able to contact her since noon today and a major band of storms went through the area about an hour later. Cellphones barely work. Land phones barely work. Text messages are a little more successful, but not always.

It's scary, folks.