The news in New Orleans is starting to pay attention to Gustav. Events are being moved, stories about what should be in a 3-day survival food package, suggestions to use up food in your freezer and one article about how the Corps plan to deal with 20 miles of unfinished levee work.

I'm putting my money on orange, but only because I hate The Bahamas.

How do you feel about Turks and Caicos?

We were visited by the remnants of Hanna here yesterday. Not a lot of wind, but steady rain pretty much all day.

I feel the former should acknowledge what they did to the Armenians and the latter should apologize for what they did to the Shire.

I'm watching live coverage from Houston as Ike marches towards one of my old home towns.

I gotta say, no matter what else you might say about the "good old boy" mentality down in that part of the world, when the wolf comes knocking they pull it together and get s*it done. You just don't see the paralysis or victim mentality I've seen in other disaster areas.

Specifically?

"Other disaster areas." :rolleyes:

Don't have time to get into the massive governmental failure that was Katrina, I'm on my way to work. But, please.

Is Houston in the path?! Crap.

What about Austin?

I was thinking more Gustav, but Katrina works as well. Watching the local coverage in the run up to the storm, The New Orleans media was all about what the officials were not doing. Where the buses were not showing up, footage of people not knowing where to go or what to do, overloaded shelters, etc...

In contrast, The Houston area has their shelters ready, they prioritized the evacuations, they can track who is going where, contraflow traffic lanes are configured, etc... They have moved beyond just plans on paper, they are making it happen. Will there be damage and chaos? Of course but I'd feel a lot better living in Galveston/Houston than New Orleans in terms of preparedness.

The American Eskimo breeder that we got our pup from could face a near direct hit. They live in Port Lavaca which is on the water south of Galveston. Right now they are expecting landfall somewhere between Galveston and Matagorda which is a mere 30 miles from their home.

We've emailed them and haven't heard back. I'm just hoping they along with their family and all of their pups have managed to evacuate safely.

:(