Katrina blogging

The Wikipedia groupies are doing as well as anyone keeping up with the storm.
For a site that did not exist until lately it is a fantastic piece of work.

Most expect Katrina to be the costliest natural disaster in US history. Some early predictions in damage exceed $100 billion, not accounting for potential catastrophic damage inland due to flooding (which would increase the total even more), or damage to the economy caused by potential interruption of oil supply. At least 100,000 people without means of transportation are believed to remain in the city, although some have made their way to "shelters of last resort" including the Superdome. The government made no attempt to assist those without cars evacuate. It is worried that if the city floods, it will be nearly impossible to get them out of the shelters leaving tens of thousands of Americans at risk of death over the coming days.

[...]

So far, nine fatalities have been reported in Southern Florida: three in Broward County, one in Miami-Dade County, and four in Miami. A family of five feared dead was rescued by the United States Coast Guard [9]. Furthermore, more than 1 million customers were left without electricity [10]. TheAmerican Red Cross will be providing substantial support to those affected [11]. Shortly before midnight on August 29, local television stations WAPT and WWL reported the first deaths in Louisiana related to Katrina: three nursing home patients who died, probably of dehydration, during the gridlocked evacuation of New Orleans.

I think that means last night's "midnight," since August 29 is only a few hours old at this writing. That's a picayune criticism on my part.

I'm still impressed.