Louisiana Legislature allows Hurricane Chris perform during a session

YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT TO BELIEVE IT!

Hurricane Ike

Happy Friday to all...WELL TO ALL EXCEPT FOR THE TEXAS/LOUISIANA COAST! Hurricane Ike and Tina...oops I mean Hurricane Ike is heading straight to the Houston/Galveston area. Please Pray for the families and friends that will be affected. I will give you updates periodically when possible!

On the eve of Hurricane Katrina's 3 year anniversary,New Orleans prepares for the worst!

Hurricane Gustav is headed in a straight line for New Orleans and I can tell you first-hand that the hydraulic pumps don't work. Who manufactured the defective pumps? Moving Waters Industry (MWI), which is owned by J. David Eller, who was once a business partner of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. (From 1989 to 1993 the two operated the company Bush-El, which marketed MWI pumps.)

A brave and brilliant woman from the Army Corps of Engineers, Maria Garzino, complained to the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) about the failure of the hydraulic pumps manufactured by Moving Waters Industry (MWI) and installed in New Orleans.

She should know. She was the team leader of pumping system installations. The OSC required the Department of Defense Secretary to conduct an investigation into her disclosures. The Department of Defense Inspector General substantiated more than half of her allegations, but ultimately concluded that . . . the deficiencies [were] performance related short-comings that did not rise to the level of a serious violation of law or regulation, abuse of authority or gross mismanagement.




So with that being said, what should one think about this? It's so difficult to read things like this.Although it is not certain that Hurricane Gustav will strike New Orleans, but for a city below sea-level its better to be prepared then not to be!

Thee years after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to the New Orleans area, there is indisputable evidence of recovery.



Houses are being repaired or built. New and long-established restaurants are seeing busier days. Health care institutions are reopening. Music is pouring out of crowded clubs lining Frenchmen Street. Streetcars are clattering once again along the entire St. Charles Avenue line.

And sales of cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe du Monde's legendary French Quarter stand have climbed back to about 80 percent of what they were before the storm struck on Aug. 29, 2005, said Jay Roman, vice president of the business.

But Xavier University President Norman Francis has a warning for the overly cheerful: Don't be deceived.



For Francis, whose home near the London Avenue Canal was wrecked by floodwaters, Katrina has left a lingering presence that he likens to a garish dye stain in a rug.

"The deeper you go, you see more," he said. "You keep rubbing and say, 'I think I've got it.' No, we don't have it all."

The signs of Katrina's legacy are both visible and subtle. Although a smattering of homes are rising in the Lower 9th Ward, much of that working-class neighborhood -- and swaths of Gentilly, eastern New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish -- remain virtually untouched.




Thousands of people who fled Katrina's wrath are still struggling to come back home from what they had envisioned as temporary havens across the country. And the storm left its psychological impact on just about everyone, even if it amounts to little more than tensing up when storm clouds form.

"I think that, since Katrina, everyone reacts in a much more hypervigilant way than we did before," said Joy Osofsky, head of the pediatric mental-health division at LSU Health Sciences Center.

Although she said tests have shown that the number of people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression has dropped by about 30 percent since the storm, Osofsky, a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry, said the symptoms are more acute among some people with those conditions.

"The recovery has been slow," she said. "There are neighborhoods still with just a couple of houses on the street. Families are still separated."

Even in neighborhoods that have bounced back, stubborn reminders of the hurricane linger in the form of blighted properties. A report released last week showed the percentage of vacant homes in New Orleans outranks any other American city by a huge margin, with New Orleans' rate, 34 percent, nearly doubling that of Detroit.
FOR MORE OF THIS ARTICLE by John Pope and Andrew Vanacore,go to Times Picayune.com

SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY DEACTIVATES AKA CHAPTER

Southeastern Louisiana University has deactivated an off-campus sorority, some members of which were arrested in an alleged January hazing incident that law enforcement authorities would not disclose in detail, a university spokesperson said.

The approximately 15-member Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority chapter at SLU in Hammond was ordered on June 24 into inactive status for three years. At the end of that period, the sorority may seek to reapply, Christina Chapple, SLU spokeswoman, said Friday.

Tangipahoa Parish sheriff’s deputies said Friday they arrested eight AKA sisters at SLU on counts of hazing, false imprisonment or other violations. All eight were arrested between Aug. 11 and 19, jail officials said.

Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Dawn Panepinto said she could not describe what incident prompted the arrests but would say only that the incident occurred on or about Jan. 7 in a house at 18233 Old Covington Highway, Hammond.
Also, Panepinto would not confirm aspects of the incident aired in other news reports, saying doing so could compromise an ongoing investigation under way since February. She said the case has been turned over to District Attorney Scott Perrilloux of the 21st Judicial District.

But seven of the eight arrested woman are the same students who sued SLU in April in state court to block their suspension over an alleged hazing incident Jan. 8, federal civil court records show.
According to court documents, SLU student Ariel Ellis accused the seven of locking her in a room in January, making her take her clothes off, beating her with a belt and a paddle, asking questions about her sex life and forcing her to simulate oral sex with a banana.
Ellis recanted her claims two days later and then later reinstated them. SLU officials asserted one of the sorority sisters urged Ellis to recant, records show.
Harry Lawrence Daniels III, an attorney who represents the seven woman in the civil suit, said his clients stand firm that no hazing occurred and there is no evidence that hazing occurred.

On April 28, U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon dissolved a temporary restraining order that had briefly halted the sorority members’ suspensions. The suit had been moved to federal court April 16.
Three students involved in the case were suspended for one year, Chapple said. Two were suspended for a semester and the remaining three were given disciplinary probation, which allows them to go to classes under certain conditions.
The disciplinary actions depended on the students’ involvement, but Chapple declined to say which students received what actions.
She said the sorority did not have a sanctioned house either on or off the SLU campus. Chapple also said the alleged incident that led to the university’s disciplinary actions occurred in a private home.

THE FIFTH STORM IS TO HIT TUESDAY

Edouard moving slowly and better organized
Tom Moore, and Mark Avery, Lead Meteorologists, The Weather Channel
10:58 p.m. ET 8/4/2008

In the northern Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Edouard (60 mph) the fifth named storm of the Atlantic Hurricane Season continues to move slowly westward toward the Upper Texas Coast and southwest Louisiana.
The official forecast keeps Edouard as a strong tropical storm as it moves toward the Upper Texas Coast or southwestern Louisiana Coast making by early afternoon Tuesday. There is a small chance it could reach minimal hurricane intensity before making landfall.
Tropical Storm Warnings are in effect from Grand Isle, Louisiana, westward to Port O'Connor, Texas.
Hurricane Watches are posted from west of Intracoastal City, Lousiana, to Port O'Connor, Texas.

JAMIE LYNN SPEARS HAS A BABY GIRL!

• There is a new baby in the Spears clan! Jamie Lynn Spears and her fiancé Casey Aldridge welcomed a baby girl Thursday morning!
• "Just the family was there," says a source about the birth around 9:30 a.m. at a hospital in Mississippi, near her Louisiana hometown. "Everyone is healthy and happy."

CONGRATS TO THE JAMIE LYNN AND HER FAMILY. THE BABY IS HERE NOW:STOP BEING NEGATIVE AND PRAY THAT THIS BABY GIRL DOESNT TURN OUT LIKE HER AUNT AND YOU KNOW WHO IM TALKING ABOUT!