Daily Show covers Day One of the GOP convention, and the politicization of Gustav. Starts at 1:42.
Gloria Borger, CNN: “I think in many ways the Republicans can look at this [Gustav] as an opportunity, if they want to be crassly political about it.”
Jon Stewart: “But do they? Do they want to be ‘crassly political’? You know my head says they do, but my heart says: they dooooo.”
The tornado-diverting power of little girls and magical thinking.
‘Clicking our heels together’ by G. J. Charlet III
Wonderful.
“Close to the Louisiana border, in Pearlington, police officers and members of the Mississippi National Guard gathered on a dry isthmus of road around 4 p.m. near several flooded neighborhoods where at least a half-dozen residents had been stranded.
Some had stayed to ride out the storm. Others like Gerald Watkins and his family came back on Monday morning because they thought the worst of the storm had passed. Mr. Watkins managed to flee, joining the cluster of police officers and soldiers, after seeing ankle-deep water in the home recently rebuilt after being destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
“I just finished the downstairs on Friday,” Mr. Watkins said. He shook his head, standing in the rain, with his white T-shirt fully drenched. “On Friday.”
“Feeder bands of clouds streaking out from the extreme edges of a hurricane are not to be ignored. We call them “feeder bands” because they are pulling moisture up from the ocean “feeding” the clouds of the storm. Typically a day or two after the hurricane has passed the remainder of the feeder bands will come ashore, dropping incredible amounts of rain. Often the flooding caused by these rains causes more damage than the actual hurricane.”
We’ll see what happens as these feeder bands move through, and high tide hits tonight.
Watch live local TV feed from WLOX, Biloxi/Gulfport.
“And let’s hope that Mr. McCain doesn’t jet into the disaster area in Gustav’s aftermath. The candidate’s presence wouldn’t do anything to help the area recover. It would, however, tie up air traffic and disrupt relief efforts, just as Mr. Bush did when he flew into New Orleans to congratulate Brownie on the work he was doing. Remember the firefighters who volunteered to help Katrina’s victims, only to find that their first job was to stand next to Mr. Bush while the cameras rolled?”
Category 1 starts at 74 mph. If you’ve ever tried to stick your head out a car window at that speed, you know how hard it is to even breath. That’s where hurricanes start. Here’s video in a wind tunnel going up to Cat 5 strength winds.
“Lost or displaced Gulf Coast residents will be able to search for their families in Hurricane Gustav’s aftermath through a new FEMA locator system that was created as a lesson learned from the chaotic 2005 storms, FEMA Director David Paulison said Sunday.
“As you remember during Hurricane Katrina, we didn’t have a system like that in place, and it was very difficult for families to locate family members,” Paulison told reporters Sunday during a briefing about the government’s preparations for Gustav.
The National Emergency Family Registry Locator system aims to replace frantic and piecemeal attempts - mostly through personal Web sites or nonprofit aid agencies - to find missing relatives. Paulison said it can be accessed through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Web site at www.fema.gov or by calling toll-free at 1-800-588-9822.” (Associated Press)
