Margie:

I appreciate your fervor and zeal. I agree with your conclusion re: media overfocus on NO. However, your pictures don't show much, sorry. Aerials aren't as convincing as ground shots.

However---I WAS THERE for weeks in S. Mississippi, on the ground, in many of the places you (and others) are talking about. There is terrific destruction, but NOT to the degree you are stating. However, we are merely talking about differences in terminology/degree, most likely. It IS terrible in S. Mississippi...and directly related to the storm, not to subsequent events ("levee'" breaks).

I dispute your assertion about planning by the three counties....if there were plans, that were executed and executable, I didn't see them.

It was criminal that the public safety agencies didn't pull back out of harms way...one of the first rules for responders...."don't become a victim yourself"... if you become a victim, then you are of no help to anyone and actually absorb resources that could be better used. I heard about police swimming out of their stations ...saw a fire station ONE BLOCK from the coast that had all apparatus still in it, destroyed of course.

Hundreds of cars were abandoned along the median and sides of 603 and 607--in neat lines..by folks who thought they would be safe there. All destroyed...and people died in some of them....planning, I didn't see it.

Many people died due to lack of planning and lack of executable plans...I saw the proof of that.

The % of damage you stated in some of the coastal communities are true for the areas SOUTH of the RR tracks and /or US 90, but not true overall. Some figures have been highly overinflated (90% of Pascagoula was not destroyed...I was just there).

However...everything south of the RR tracks in Gulfport, Waveland, BSL and Pass C..yes, gone. Heartbreaking.

FEMA has started putting in trailers...and blue roofs went up much faster than last yr in Fl.

As in most cases--extremes on both ends can be discounted...the truth is in the middle. The truth is pretty terrible, any way you look at it. And NOLA was not the main damaged area by the STORM direct effects.

MM