Devastation and Loss From Katrina Overwhelms Blogosphere
An entire city has been lost to floods, storm damage and chaos. It could take years to rebuild. Bloggers have been posting about violence, looting and people dying of thirst and lack of medicine. Today, we awake to explosions and a chemical fire in the city of New Orleans.
Hurricane Katrina is probably the most costly and deadly hurricane ever for the United States. Andrew was previously the most costly at nearly $27 billion
and Katrina will exceed that (Costliest U.S. Hurricanes). The most deadly was the Galveston
hurricane that killed over 8,000 people (Deadliest U.S. Hurricanes). The numbers of those killed by Hurricane Katrina could be staggering.
StarTribune.com reports
that LSU scientists estimate that in the city of New Orleans
as many as 80,000 people could be dead.
Scientists at Louisiana State University say their computer
models now suggest as many as 80,000 people may have perished.
Pray that number turns out high by a factor of 100.
Everyone hopes that number is way too high. There is no clear
figure on how many people remained behind so it will be a long time
before a death toll is calculated. Senator Mary Landrieu and
Governor Kathleen Blanco have both said there are thousands
believed dead in New Orleans alone. A lot of lives have also
been lost in Mississippi. Even one city in Mississippi --
Biloxi -- may have 1,000 dead according to the
BBC's blog.
The posts appear to be growing by at least 10,000 posts
or more everday as more and more bloggers give news, opinions and
thoughts. On August 31, 2005 the posts on Technorati for "Hurricane
Katrina" was 20,000 -- so the number of posts have doubled for that blog search engine in just two days.
Yesterday, we mentioned bloggers organizing aid drives like Blog Relief Day and urging
asking people to give money to charities. That blog aid post
can be found here.
DailyKos and other liberal blogs have organized a new blog drive called the Liberal Blogs for Hurricane Relief.
The blame game has also started. Many bloggers and journalists
are outraged by the government's slow reaction to help
victims of Hurricane Katrina. A
statement by CNN's Jack Cafferty has received a strong
reaction from the blogosphere -- there are 290
posts about "Jack Cafferty" on Technorati already.
There are also many posts about gas prices as prices soar
nationwide and shortages are reported in some areas. Our
DriversDrive.com blog is
covering the rising gas prices. Technorati lists over 54,000
blog posts related to gas prices.
Hurricane Katrina Blog and Media Coverage
We have also updated our Katrina links page again.
It can be found here.
