Kalika- Is the hurricane effecting you?

I was on the freeway yesterday, and saw at least 50 army trucks rolling on their way to N.O.

People were honking and waving flags out the windows and yelling "thank you"

Kalika,

Glad you are okay! I've been watching the news casts daily about the situation down there, it is so unbelievable and sad.

Kalika wrote: hey all, back again. Yeah, New Orleans is totally f**ked.  Its martial law right now, and I heard a couple hours ago about 1/2 the police force quit because they couldnt controll the situation, all they have is pistols and looters got to the gun shops and have friggin ak-47s.  theyre trying to shoot down the helicoptors that are trying to rescue people. A lot of people say bad things about the kinds of clubs I work at, but I have NEVER met people who cared about their employees more.  I get along beautifully with all the managers and bosses there, and theyre willing to discuss anything with you.  Hell because they listened to people like me, theyre getting healthcare and sh*t in there.  They even hired someone JUST to take our cars to get gassed up because the lines are SO long and there are fistfights breaking out at the pumps, they want to make sure we're safe.  The owner and managers opened up their own homes to some of the girls who have no where else to go.  That says alot about "dirty strip clubs" huh?  Would blow some fundie christians mind.

Hi Kalika,

So glad you are OK.  Lots of refugees are pouring into Dallas and everyone is doing their best to help.  There are lines at the gas pumps here and the price of gas is skyrocketing.  Unfortunately some people are taking advantage with gouging on hotels and gas but for the most part it seems that people are trying to help.

I used to play keyboards in bands in a former life :-) and so I have a lot of muscian friends.  One of my friends used to work in the clubs and was always so complimentary about the management and how everyone had a family attitude and looked out for each other.  So what you say about where you work doesn't surprise me at all after what I have heard from my friend.  He used to work in strip clubs both in Wisconsin and Florida and said that they treated him and his band much better than just plain old bars where sometimes they didn't get paid.

Anyway...I am so glad you are OK. 

And yes...one of the magazines where I am friends with the editor is doing a special edition on Katrina even though this would not normally be even close to what they focus on publishing.  That makes me ill.  It is like the media just wants to make a quick buck off the suffering of others.  I could not believe that they were doing a "special Katrina" issue.  Just wait...the newstands will be full of them.

hey all, back again.

Yeah, New Orleans is totally f**ked.  Its martial law right now, and I heard a couple hours ago about 1/2 the police force quit because they couldnt controll the situation, all they have is pistols and looters got to the gun shops and have friggin ak-47s.  theyre trying to shoot down the helicoptors that are trying to rescue people.

I was at work tonight and the owner has (er...had) a sister club in New Orleans, he's worried sick about the girls, trying to make sure theyre all right and getting them to work here to make some money.  I feel bad that we have to turn away a lot of girls from the other clubs there, but he's trying to focus on his "family" and make sure they have enough money to eat.  He gave a girl $100 out of his own pocket to make sure she had gas money to get her mother whos in New Orleans out of there.

A lot of people say bad things about the kinds of clubs I work at, but I have NEVER met people who cared about their employees more.  I get along beautifully with all the managers and bosses there, and theyre willing to discuss anything with you.  Hell because they listened to people like me, theyre getting healthcare and sh*t in there.  They even hired someone JUST to take our cars to get gassed up because the lines are SO long and there are fistfights breaking out at the pumps, they want to make sure we're safe.  The owner and managers opened up their own homes to some of the girls who have no where else to go.  That says alot about "dirty strip clubs" huh?  Would blow some fundie christians mind.

Gas in Europe is always more expensive for some reason.

SOOOO Glad you are OK hun

ijust found this online

-- Breaking news from New Orleans

Search-and-rescue efforts in New Orleans are being abandoned as the devastated city plunges into violence and anarchy.

With thousands feared dead in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the city's remaining residents told to evacuate, Mayor Ray Nagin has ordered virtually the entire police force to concentrate on catching armed mobs roaming the area.

The evacuation of 25,000 refugees from the Superdome was suspended after shots were fired at a military helicopter.

"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 stadium.

He said that the military had decided not to fly out of the Superdome either and that the National Guard told him that it was sending 100 military police officers to gain control.

"That's not enough,'' Mr Zeuschlag. "We need a thousand.''


He also said that during the night, when a medical evacuation helicopter tried to land at a hospital in the outlying town of Kenner, the pilot reported that 100 people were on the landing pad, some of them wielding guns, and decided to abort the mission.

About 10,000 National Guard troops in armoured cars were ordered to shore up security, rescue and relief operations along the hurricane-battered Gulf of Mexico coast.

"The truth is, a terrible tragedy like this brings out the best in most people, brings out the worst in some people,'' said Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour on NBC's Today programme.

Dozens of car-jackings were reported, including a nursing home bus and a truck carrying medical supplies for a hospital. Police officers said they had been shot at.








A man in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, is reported to have shot his sister dead in a row over a bag of ice.

Mr Nagin said New Orleans would not be functional for two or three months and that people would not be allowed back into their homes for at least a month.

Asked how many people died in the hurricane, Mr Nagin said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands.'' The death toll has already reached at least 110 in Mississippi.

Conditions in the Superdome were described as "horrendous". There was no air conditioning and the toilets were blocked.

The smell was so bad that medical workers wore masks as they walked around.

Around the city, looters used rubbish bins and inflatable mattresses to float away with food, clothes, TV sets and guns.

Outside one pharmacy, thieves commandeered a forklift and used it to push up the storm shutters and break through the glass.

The driver of a nursing home bus surrendered the vehicle to thugs after being threatened.

The federal government dispatched helicopters, warships and elite Navy Seal water-rescue teams in one of the biggest relief operations in US history, aimed at plucking residents from rooftops in the last of the "golden 72 hours'' rescuers say is crucial to saving lives.

As fires burned from broken natural gas mains, the skies above the city buzzed with National Guard and Coast Guard helicopters frantically dropping baskets on to roofs where victims had been stranded since the storm roared in with a 145mph fury on Monday.

Hundreds of people wandered up and down shattered Interstate 10 pushing shopping trolleys and laundry racks carrying their belongings.

On some of the few roads that were still open, people waved at passing cars with empty water jugs, begging for relief.

Most of the city's half a million population were evacuated before the hurricane struck but between 50,000 and 100,000 remained.

Mr Nagin said that 14,000 to 15,000 a day could be evacuated in convoys.

The floodwaters streamed into the city's streets from two levee breaks near Lake Pontchartrain a day after New Orleans thought it had escaped catastrophic damage from Katrina.

The floodwaters covered 80 per cent of the city, in some areas 20 feet deep, in a reddish-brown soup of sewage, petrol and rubbish.

Water levels between the city and Lake Pontchartrain have equalised and the Army Corps of Engineers planned to use helicopters to drop 15,000-pound bags of sand and stone into a large gap in the failed floodwall.

But the agency said it was having trouble getting the sandbags and to the site because the city's waterways were blocked with loose barges, boats and debris.

If the mayor's death-toll estimate holds true, it would make Katrina the worst natural disaster in the United States since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire which killed more than 3,000.

Katrina would also be the nation's deadliest hurricane since 1900 when a storm in Galveston, Texas, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people.

This is such a terrible dissaster!

Kalika, im so glad you are okay.  Hows things at the moment?  Also, off topic, where did you get your aviator?

Best wishes,

xx