]]>Urgent Weather Message from NWS New Orleans
WWUS74 KLIX 281550NPWLIX URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005
DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED
HURRICANE KATRINA MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969. MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. ATLEAST 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. ALL 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 TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL 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 WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST 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. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BEKILLED.AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEARHURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS. ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE!
LAZ038-040-050-056>070-282100-ASSUMPTION-LIVINGSTON-LOWER JEFFERSON-LOWER LAFOURCHE-LOWER PLAQUEMINES-LOWER ST. BERNARD-LOWER TERREBONNE-ORLEANS-ST. CHARLES-ST. JAMES-ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST-ST. TAMMANY-TANGIPAHOA-UPPER JEFFERSON-UPPER LAFOURCHE-UPPER PLAQUEMINES-UPPER ST. BERNARD-UPPER TERREBONNE-1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28, 2005.
About 24 hours later, we watched the city drown. Wear a fleur de lis today in memory of New Orleans and the rest of the northern Gulf Coast, much of which remains in ruins and under tarps.
I'm stunned, stunned, I tell you, that Heath Ledger offed himself before Britney Spears. No one with a bet in the Troubled Young Stars Death Pool saw this one coming. Is there still enough mirth remaining in the nation's withering newsrooms to run death pools? They were such wicked fun. I won the whole pot in the summer of 1999 for putting JFK Jr. at the top of my list of famous people most likely to die soon.
The autopsy results for Heath aren't back, but all the ingredients for suicide or accidental OD are there: naked on the bed, surrounded by sleeping pills. Discovered by the housekeeper. He never got the massage he'd ordered in, so he died with tension in his shoulders. The same old sad Hollywood story, youthful talent and promise cut short by mood altering substances. It'll take a few days to find out what mood-altering substances felled handsome Heath. What a waste. Heath had an Oscar ahead of him and a 2-year-old daughter to raise.
I keep thinking of that Lucinda Williams song "See What You Lost When You Left This World," the one where she gently chides a friend who has taken his own life, reminding him of all the little moments he'll never have again. 
Renfro in the 1992 Renfro in a 2003 police mug shot
film "The Client."
You gottta feel bad for Brad Renfro, another, lesser known actor who died last week in Los Angeles of what appears to be an overdose. He was 25. He'll be completely eclipsed by the coverage of Heath Ledger's death. Heath was taller, blonder, better looking and had been nominated for an Oscar. Renfro became a child star at the age of 10 when he starred alongside Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones in "The Client", one of those John Grisham legal thrillers in the early 1990s. He did the child star thing and adolesced into a mood disordered man with a receding hairline, a drug problem and a propensity for making bad script choices. Renfro was buried this week in his hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., in a misty rain.
A pair of toxocology reports will tell the tale in coming weeks of Hollywood dreams gone bad.
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