I'm trying out for Anderson Cooper's job next week. Or maybe they'll let me co-host ;)

From what I've heard, levee repairs haven't started. They are still attempting to figure out the full extent of levee damage. What they have done is dropped a couple 3000 pound sand bags via helicopter to mitigate the worst of the levee damage.

Go to MSNBC.com, click on the slideshow at the right side of the page, look at the second image and you'll see what's left (or not left) of the 90. It's unfathomable.

Gulfport Mississippi: This appears to be a large 3 story building in the middle of a 4 lane road.

I just heard on the news that the sand bag plan is not working. Apparently, they dumped lots of them there already, but the bags are just disappearing. The theory is that it isn't just the levee, but that the tremendous flow of water coming through has eroded a gigantic hole under where the levee used to be. They are not going to be able to plug it until there is someway to assess how much erosion there has been.

I think what we are looking at is a modern day "Grapes of Wrath". It will be several months - if not a year or more - until New Orleans is inhabitable again.

The plan now, as I understand it, is to build a temporary dam inside the lake that broke through the levee. This will stop the flow of water so they can pump out the flooding. Then the levee will have to be repaired. This process alone will take a couple months. After being submerged for a couple months, there will not be one structure that is salvagable. This means massive rebuilding, again taking months.

This time period means that the people that lived there will have to go somewhere else. How can you put your life on hold for a year? Kids need to go to school. Families need income. Families need shelter.

So they will migrate in all directions and settle elsewhere. I see no other alternative for those that lived in NO, and perhaps the same will apply to other communities.

Mind boggling and sobering. I watched the same news story that Wendybeth mentioned and it is amazing.

The whole thing is unfathomable.

Right now I'm "unfathoming" this:

What the hell is wrong with people? Every time there's any sort of issue the looting begins. And people act like it's totally normal. Or even expected. Apparently they're all entitled to free jewelry, teevees, guns, etc... If they're looting, I'm assuming they have somewhere to take all this bounty. Surely they're not taking it back to their cot at the Superdome? So they still have homes? If they have homes, then that "we're just the less fortunate taking our share of society" argument doesn't hold much water, (har), does it? So, instead of helping neighbors who may have lost everything, they're looting the Walmart?

It's not that I'm surprised that there is looting -- there are always pathetic opportunists. I'm surprised at the extent. The neighborhood block party atmosphere. The knowledge that eventually these people will go to church on Sunday and think nothing of their shopping spree. Instead of praying for the forgiveness of their sins, they'll be thanking God for the windfall of loot. And they'll actually believe that God granted them that opportunity as a reward for being such swell individuals.

And this is why I hate people.

Ugh, this is making me horribly depressed that I never got to visit NOLA as it was. It's gone forever now. :(

This kind of thing hasn't happened in a long long time, a city disappearing due to disaster. Seattle and Chicago were devestated by fire and rebuilt from the ground up. Life returns eventually, but it's a slow and difficult process. And so hard to absorb that it's a city like New Orleans that's been around for so long.

It's a law here that gambling establishments must be free floating. The casinos you hear about are built on large barges. All the supporting parking, lobby, meeting and hotel space is built landside, but all the gambling occurs on these barges, 4 or 5 stories tall. That building is a PIECE of one of those casinos. You'll see other pictures where the entire casino barge has been pushed to the other side of Hwy 90.

Bee and I were just lamenting skipping over visiting NO on our X-country trip this past February. We were just going to fly back out there "later." We actually got out our trip maps to see where we'd made that decision after seeing the I-10 pictures...

Man. We took the 10 across the country and didn't stop in the Big Easy. Feeling dumb now.

But, tourism concerns aside, I cannot fathom this loss. It's weird... a major city is pretty much gone. It's like 9/11 again, but we can't blame some political/cultural group.

And I had to tell my son what "looting" meant. Another piece of his innocence gone. Still, when these things happen, civilization does go out the window. I can't blame the poor souls who just see opportunity and go for it...I don't think they are thinking right. I sure wouldn't be...

Wow. This makes the '94 Northridge Quake look like a joke.

As was mentioned above, it's been a long time since a natural disaster has leveled an entire large American city. The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire was the last, and that was in 1906. I know I have been under the basic assumption that there was no way an entire metropolitan city could be destroyed these days, especially one as old as NO! I am sad that I never got to visit.

Looting sucks. I know there are plenty of people going for TVs, but I heard an interview with a woman who was sobbing as she stole food for her family. There were others hunting for bottled water.

I'm just as shocked as everyone else about all this...

The real scary part is the report that police got into a WalMart and found the gun section wiped out. There are already reports of armed groups walking through the streets.