It's worse than I imagined...

As the rain started here in Nashville yesterday afternoon, it was finally subsiding in New Orleans and the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast. But it was also the world's first real glimpse of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. I watched news reports for two and a half hours last night trying to get updates on the smaller cities on the Mississippi coast.

Since January, I have visited the Gulfport/Biloxi area three times with Roxi at her grandparents vacation house in Pass Christian, MS. I haven't found any specific information about Pass Christian but what I did read about the neighboring towns of Long Beach and Bay St. Louis does not bode well.

And then late last night, the Lake Ponchartrain levee broke further flooding New Orleans. The doomsday scenarios aren't coming to pass but New Orleans will have a long and rocky reconstruction ahead.

Several people have been blogging about the damage from Baton Rouge, New Orleans and parts of Mississippi. They can be accessed at:

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/

http://www.electricmist.net/

http://eyesonkatrina.blogspot.com/

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/

Based on what I read last night, the best thing for people to do who want to help is to give money to the Red Cross. People are urged not to travel to the affected areas because they will be turned away in an effort to maintain control of and manage what is a very large rescue and recovery effort.

So please, if you want to help, call 1-800-HELP-NOW or go to www.redcross.org to donate money to the cause. Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama thank you.

UPDATE: Scanning through the news this morning, I have found a Town-by-town report of the Mississippi Gulf Coast that is amazing to read.

UPDATE: There is another blog that has been plugged on Electric Mist as having "the best, most up to date links and info on the hurricane aftermath." I hope this isn't true because one of the posts concerns a rumor of New Orleans being uninhabitable for some time. Take it with a grain of salt but there are good links to other info.

http://www.brendanloy.com/

And there is a backup of the site at: http://66.237.232.84/