My sense is that this is not the time to be blathering about who to blame for what has happened in New Orleans and the governmental response to it. The logistical complications alone of obtaining and organizing the resources necessary to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people under flooded and destroyed conditions are not understood by many of the folks who are criticizing those who are attempting to coordinate that task. So, I prefer to focus on that effort and the heroes who are arising amid the squalor.
One of those is Dr. Steve Phillip, who wrote the following email this past Tuesday afternoon from downtown New Orleans:

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As state and federal officials grappled with the massive human toll that Hurricane Katrina exacted on the Gulf Coast region, further assessment of the damage is indicating that the storm has wreaked havoc to key business properties along the Gulf Coast.
In positive developments, crude-oil prices eased early Friday morning in electronic trading and gasoline futures fell for the first time this week as several energy facilities on the Gulf Coast started up again for the first time. The front-month October contract on the Nymex Exchange fell 42 cents to $69.05 a barrel after rising 53 cents during trading on Thursday. However, crude oil contracts for November through February — traditionally high-demand months because of heating oil demand — were all trading above $70 a barrel amid worries that the storm had wiped out key refining capacity.

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Be sure to check out blogHouston.net where Anne Linehan and Kevin Whited are doing an excellent job of chronicling the local resources in support of Houston’s extraordinary Hurricane Katrina relief effort. Anne and Kevin have several posts relating to the relief effort, and they will be adding additional ones over the next several days. Check out their site periodically for updates. A great organization job by two of Houston’s best bloggers.
Update: Local blog The Lone Star Times is liveblogging from the Astrodome, providing a fascinating resource for keeping up with the unfolding developments within the largest refugee camp to be established on U.S. soil in many, many years. The Chronicle has also started up the Domeblog that is providing periodic updates from the Astrodome.

The following description of downtown New Orleans was posted about an hour ago from the Interdictor blog, the author of which is securing a building in downtown New Orleans. The description sounds as if it is coming straight out of a scene from The Road Warrior:

“Situation is critical.
I’m not leaving, so stop asking. I’m staying. I am staying until this shitstorm has blown itself out. Period. End of discussion.
Now for some updates:
1. Been too busy to debrief the police officer, so that will come later. Low priority now.
2. Buses loading people up on Camp Street to take refugees to Dallas, or so the word on the street (literally) is.
3. Dead bodies everywhere: convention center, down camp street, all over.
4. National Guard shoving water off the backs of trucks. They’re just pushing it off without stopping, people don’t even know it’s there at first — they drop it on the side in debris, there’s no sign or distribution point — people are scared to go near it at first, because the drop points are guarded by troops or federal agents with assault rifles who don’t let people come near them, which scares people off. It is a mess. When people actually get to the water, they are in such a rush to get it that one family left their small child behind and forget about him until Sig carried him back to the family.
It’s raining now and I guess that’s a relief from the heat. It’s hot as hell down there in the sun. Crime is absolutely rampant: rapes, murders, rape-murder combinations.
I have really cut back answering IMs. Not enough time. I apologize people.
In case anyone in national security is reading this, get the word to President Bush that we need the military in here NOW. The Active Duty Armed Forces. Mr. President, we are losing this city. I don’t care what you’re hearing on the news. The city is being lost. It is the law of the jungle down here. The command and control structure here is barely functioning. I’m not sure it’s anyone’s fault — I’m not sure it could be any other way at this point. We need the kind of logistical support and infrastructure only the Active Duty military can provide. The hospitals are in dire straights. The police barely have any capabilities at this point. The National Guard is doing their best, but the situation is not being contained. I’m here to help in anyway I can, but my capabilities are limited and dropping. Please get the military here to maintain order before this city is lost.
Doing what we can, this is Outpost Crystal getting back to work.”

In another development, CNN is reporting that the town of Waveland, Mississippi — a town of 7,000 thirty-five miles east of New Orleans — has been destroyed completely. The CNN story includes a grim video that indicates that there was a huge — but still undetermined at this point — loss of life in Waveland during the storm.
Update: The Chronicle’s Eric Berger passes along this daunting description of the conditions in New Orleans from Dr. Richard Bradley, a professor at both the University of Texas Houston Medical School and Baylor College of Medicine, who is assigned to the elite Texas Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue team that was deployed to the News Orleans disaster area on the evening of Saturday, Aug. 27, a day before the hurricane hit the area.

As the effects of the worst natural disaster of our time continued to become more apparent with each passing hour, Houston opened its arms to tens of thousands of New Orleans citizens who lost virtually everything but their lives.
Houston’s venerable Astrodome — the subject of a local debate over what to do with aging landmark — was prepared yesterday to receive as many as 25,000 evacuees from New Orleans, many of whom have spent the past five days inside the deteriorating Louisiana Superdome in downtown New Orleans. The evacuees are expected to begin heading for Houston this morning in a caravan of almost 500 buses provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As if to underscore the desperation of the situation, two of the three first buses to reach the Astrodome from New Orleans early this morning were “renegade” buses that did not contain evacuees from the Superdome. The Astrodome went ahead and took in the evacuees from all the buses, anyway. This earlier post provides links to blogs that provide up-to-the minute updates on the situation in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
Unfortunately, the chaos in New Orleans has delayed the evacuation of the Superdome on Thursday morning. The Associated Press is reporting the following as of 7:15 a.m.:

The evacuation of the Superdome was suspended Thursday after shots were fired at a military helicopter, an ambulance official overseeing the operation said. No immediate injuries were reported.
“We have suspended operations until they gain control of the Superdome,” said Richard Zeuschlag, head of Acadian Ambulance, which was handling the evacuation of sick and injured people from the Superdome.
He said that military would not fly out of the Superdome either because of the gunfire and that the National Guard told him that it was sending 100 military police officers to gain control.
“That’s not enough,” Zeuschlag. “We need a thousand.”

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As companies involved in the U.S. oil and gas industry continue to assess the damage that Hurricane Katrina has caused to Gulf of Mexico and Gulf Coast production facilities, Royal Dutch Shell PLC announced on Tuesday that its Mars floating production platform, which generates about 220,000 barrels of oil and 220 million cubic feet of natural gas daily, has sustained significant damage, as reflected by the picture on the left. It appears that the platform’s above-water module has overturned as a result of the storm. Here are the previous posts over the past several days on Hurricane Katrina.
Meanwhile, initial damage assessments from the hurricane sent oil and gasoline futures prices sharply higher as the storm appears to have knocked out about 10% of U.S. refining capacity for what could be an extended period of time. Katrina has flooded the areas around several major refineries and possibly the refineries themselves, so even when crude-oil production in the Gulf of Mexico is restored, converting that oil into gasoline and other products requires refineries that may not be online for quite some time. Eight major U.S. refineries in the Gulf Coast that produce gasoline, heating oil and other products for distribution across the Southeast and the East Coast remain closed as damage assessments continue.

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The already dire situation in New Orleans has taken a turn for the worse this morning as the breach in the 17th Street Canal Levee is now 200 feet wide and slowly flooding the entire city. In short, the worst-case scenario may be occurring as flood waters completely fill the below sea-level bowl that is New Orleans, potentially turning Lake Pontchartrain and the city into one big toxic lake.
For those of you who cannot monitor developments via television, Brendan Loy has been doing an incredible job of blogging developments as they occur, so check on his site frequently for updates. Also, WWLTV in New Orleans has established this blog that provides continual updates on developments in the city. Finally, the Interdictor is also providing up-to-date eyewitness accounts of developments in New Orleans.
In addition, the Chronicle’s Eric Berger has been doing an outstanding job of analyzing Hurricane Katrina developments on a more thorough basis on his SciGuy blog. The Chronicle’s Loren Steffy has also been doing a fine job of keeping up with the financial implications of the hurricane over at his Full Disclosure blog. Finally, here is an excellent Washington Post article that summarizes the difficult situation well.
The disastrous situation in New Orleans is exhibiting how weblogs are becoming an increasingly important medium for disseminating urgent and specialized information. The Chronicle’s excellent technology writer, Dwight Silverman, pushed the local newspaper into the blogosphere, and the brilliance of his vision is now being fulfilled by the his work and that of his colleagues. Kudos to Chronicle management for embracing this important information medium.

Officials of oil and gas companies and refineries with facilities in the path of Hurricane Katrina were scurrying around yesterday somewhat helplessly attempting to evaluate the extent of the storm’s damage on key oil and natural-gas production facilities that rattled energy markets early yesterday. The bottom line is that it’s going to take at least a few days — and perhaps weeks — to assess the damage fully and determine how long those facilities will be off-line.
Oil futures surged past $70 per barrel in overnight electronic trading on Monday, but fell back during the day. Oil for October delivery settled at $67.20, up $1.07 from Friday’s price, but still below the previous record. When adjusted for inflaction, oil prices overall are still well below the high of $95.26 reached in April 1980.

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The early bets on the effect of Hurricane Katrina are rising rapidly this morning as traders are reacting to what is turning out to be the worst-case scenario for the U.S. energy industry
In overnight electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, October crude-oil futures opened up more than $4 over Friday’s close, topping $70 a barrel for the first time. September gasoline futures were up over 20 cents (over 10%) to around $2.12 a gallon. September natural-gas futures, which expire today, increased by more than $2 (over 22%) to about $12 per million British thermal units. Some energy analysts are predicting the possibility of $80-a-barrel oil and $15 per million British thermal unit natural gas as a result of the storm.

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For years, experts have been warning that a potential disaster looms if a major hurricane hits the New Orleans metropolitan area, much of which sits beneath sea level.

It is beginning to look as if those predictions may come true later this weekend.

Over last evening, Hurricane Katrina took a westward course away from the Mobile, Ala.-Florida Panhandle area and appears to be headed directly for the New Orleans area.

This website (be patient, takes awhile to load) shows the catastrophic flooding that will occur in the New Orleans area as a result of a category 3 hurricane.

Hurricane Katrina is currently predicted to hit the Louisiana coast as either a category 3 or even a 4 storm. Hat tip to my friend Scott Hagen for the link to this website.

If you are in New Orleans and reading this post, you should seriously consider getting out. Now.