Thousands of Blogs Cover Hurricane Katrina's Impact
More bloggers are posting about the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe as the enormity of the situation becomes more and more clear. Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have suffered a devastating blow. Dire warnings about devastation in the city of New Orleans have materialized. This is a catastrophe that will hit the nation's economy hard and change some people's lives forever. Hundreds of thousands
of people are now homeless and hundreds of people are dead or missing.
Technorati now shows over 20,000 results for the keywords "hurricane" and "katrina." That number
has quadrupled since Sunday when it was 5,000 the night before Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana. Blogpulse shows 9,500 posts
and IceRocket.com shows nearly 23,000 posts.
Bloggers have expanded their coverage of the catastrophe
caused by Hurricane Katrina to include not only the local
devastation to cities like New Orleans, Biloxi and Gulfport but also
the economic impact the storm will have on the entire nation.
Damage from the hurricane to refineries and oil rigs
will cause gas prices to rise at least temporarily.
Blogs are also covering local issues like the looting that is taking
place in New Orleans and the conditions people are facing in the Superdome.
And organizations like the Red Cross are requesting donations. Help will certainly be needed.
Here are links to some of the enormous amount of coverage provided by bloggers, citizen journalists and the mainstream media:
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco: "The situation is untenable," Blanco
said, pausing to choke back tears at a news conference. "It's just heartbreaking." (Via AP)
After touring the destruction by air, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour
said it looked like Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped. (Source:
The Guardian)
Senator Trent Lott is urging President
Bush to visit Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, telling the
president -- quote -- "the people of Mississippi are flat on their backs.
They're going to need your help." (Via KLFY.com)
Biloxi Mayor A. J. Holloway: "This is our tsunami." (Via Volunteertv.com)
Aaron Broussard, the president of Jefferson Parish, "there is no plumbing
and the sanitary situation is getting nasty." He told WAFB-TV that he is carrying around a bag for his own human waste. (Via Sploid)
Hugh B. Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency: "There is not
enough money in the gross national product of the United States to dispose of the amount of hazardous material in the area."
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin: "Well, I'll tell you this, and I'll give the president some credit on this. He sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done. And his name is General Honore. And he came off the doggawn chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving. And he is getting some stuff done. They ought to give this guy---they don't wanna give it to me---they give this guy full authority, and he'll get things done, and we can save some people." (Via Democratic Underground)
President Bush about Trent Lott's house: "The good news is that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubble of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's gong to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." (Via Media Cynic)
Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff: "Louisiana is a city that is largely under water." (Via Bloggerman)
Colin Powell: "It should have been a blinding flash of the obvious... that when you order a mandatory evacuation, you can't expect everybody to evacuate on their own" (Via BBC)
Brendan Loy 8-26-05: "If I were in New Orleans, I would seriously consider getting the hell out of Dodge right now, just in case." (Via International Herald Tribune)
President Bush: "To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility." (Via CNN)
Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight, a Lexington, Mass.: "We are just starting to see the impact of Katrina. We are going to see awful inflation numbers, awful employment numbers and awful industrial production numbers for a few months." (AP)
More blogs covering Katrina and the aftermath have been mentioned in prior posts.All of our blog coverage of Hurricane Katrina can be found in the special section we have set up at: http://www.bloggersblog.com/hurricanekatrina/
