There are hundreds of people from the National Guard here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We're seeing people from all the agencies. They're waiting to deploy.

Their sense is that the condition inside New Orleans is so unstable they don't want to be sending people into harm's way.

Some state officials, though, have been getting into the center of town.

One of them, for example, got in with a bus. He saw one woman who was so desperate she actually handed her 2-month-old baby to another woman and said, "Take my child. I can't get on this bus, but you've got to try to save the child."

The woman promised her she would take care of that baby.

Living like animals

Posted: 1:07 p.m. ET
CNN's Chris Lawrence in New Orleans, Louisiana

It's hard to believe this is New Orleans.

We spent the last few hours at the New Orleans Convention Center. There are thousands of people lying in the street.

We saw mothers holding babies, some of them just three, four and five months old, living in horrible conditions. Diapers littered the ground. Feces were on the ground. Sewage was spilled all around.

These people are being forced to live like animals. When you look at the mothers, your heart just breaks.

Some of the images we have gathered are very, very graphic.

We saw dead bodies. People are dying at the center and there is no one to get them. We saw a grandmother in a wheelchair pushed up to the wall and covered with a sheet. Right next to her was another dead body wrapped in a white sheet.

Right in front of us a man went into a seizure on the ground. No one here has medical training. There is nowhere to evacuate these people to.

People have been sitting there without food and water and waiting. They are asking -- "When are the buses coming? When are they coming to help us?"

We just had to say we don't know.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/scene.blog/index.html

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

What I do not understand is why these buses have not been used for the evacuation of those people with out a car.

...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. MANY WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW POSSIBLY TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. MANY WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES MAY LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MANY POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED.

With the government itself announcing "DEVASTATING DAMAGE", shouldn't there have been just a little bit of contingency planning, just in case that very official and very explicit public warning turned out to be true? They've lost 4 full days. They had all the information and they let people die.

This is criminal. It's insane. It's unbelievable.

Read this again:

POWER OUTAGES MAY LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MANY POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

I have no words. I simply cannot believe this.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

no, only parts of it are...

there's discussion over at Moon of Alabama -- various threads on NO -- and Billmon has posted a good article, 'When the Levee Breaks.'  a taste of progressive American reactions to the fiasco.  Chris Floyd has commented on NO as an example of the end-state of the neocon destruction of the commons, at CounterPunch.

will the Yanks see this event as the global humiliation that it is?  will it provoke any re-evaluation or political unrest?  or will they cruise on with their signature parochialism, unaware of or indifferent to the shame of this highly visible governmental and societal failure?  the whole world is watching...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...