• Michoud Assembly Facility is now expected to reopen not earlier than September 26. Access to the facility is by helicopter only due to surrounding roadways being flooded. Spaceflight hardware does not appear to be damaged, beyond some water on one ET. MAF has no electrical power and communication is limited -- maintaining the pumps may prove problematic if the water keeps coming up.
• Lockheed Martin now has a hurricane information page up.
• NASA has named Bill Parsons, former Stennis director and current Shuttle program director as their official in charge of the hurricane recovery efforts.
• The water is reportedly down in Metairie. Aaron Broussard announced that it may be possible to allow residents back in on a limited basis starting Monday, but only to gather belongings for a 1-2 month evacuation.
• Meanwhile, water was between 8-10 feet deep along St. Charles and rising.
• Slidell updates and check-ins are available at the aptly-named Slidell Hurricane Damage Blog.
• MSNBC has someone from the Corps of Engineers on, reporting another seven-hundred-foot long breach in a floodwall. He also says that it will take 2-4 days to plug the breaches once they figure out how (?) and perhaps months to drain the water from the city.

UPDATE:

• There's new video out showing the 17th Street Canal breach. It took me a moment to recognize the area around the lake entry of the canal, but then it hit me -- all those pilings in the water there used to be The Dock. That huge building and all of the restaurants around it are completely gone, but for the pilings. The pedestrian bridge nearby appeared to be intact. Coconut Beach is flooded (less, it seems, than the areas on the other side of the levee from it...oddly enough), the clubhouse was not visible and probably gone, and the tall garage structure behind it that someone used for restoring cars was missing its rollup doors and some of its siding.
• From the same footage, the difference in water levels from Jefferson to Orleans Parishes was striking -- there didn't seem to be all that much water on the Jefferson side of the canal at all.
• Jazzland is flooded, as are the low points of I-510 in the area. Kinda weird to see the up-close footage of it, considering how many times I've driven that stretch of road. The same for the overpasses on I-10 at Read and Bullard, where a number of people had gathered for rescue.
• Eddie Gabriel, the pianist at Pat O's piano bar, is apparently missing.
• Police have been pulled off of search and rescue duty to control the looting downtown. I wonder how many people will end up dying because of this. Way to go, people. Hope the sneakers and stereos were worth it.
• The Causeway is apparently in good enough condition to support a train of school buses evacuation survivors from the area near Lakeside Mall. There are also buses loading downtown (near the Sheraton?) beginning the evacuation of the Superdome. The Twin Span, meanwhile, looks worse than in the few pictures I found of it yesterday -- the flyover part on each span looked intact, but the rest of the spans were shredded to varying degrees.
• Oops, Ochsner is pronounced "OSH-ner" not "OKS-ner". It's apparently the only hospital still open in the city.

UPDATE: Sheesh -- this makes it sound like the area is descending into a Mad Max-like chaos, from Mandeville to Lafayette. Not good. Posted by T.L. James on August 31, 2005 06:50 PM