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looking for good news from new orleans

This is what I'm going to do.

I'm going to collect stories out of NO/Mississippi. Good stories. Stories of people helping each other, people reuniting with loved ones, companies opening their wallets wide, things like that. And pictures, too. Pictures of animals being rescued or families hugging. Feel good stuff. That's what I'm going to do.

If you want the rest of the news and the links to go with it and some tireless blogging work, try Brendan Loy.

If you want to help, leave relevant links in the comments.

Update: I have my first entry already:

38695146_19460f5b33.jpg
Steve Toolel walks through the rubble of his home after rescueing his friend's dog, Hercules, in Biloxi, Misssissippi. (AFP/Robert Sullivan)

And another:


Getty Images

The Baytown Community Center, a shelter that is located at 2407 Market St., is the temporary home for 320 refugees. Houstonians dropped off much-needed supplies, such as food, blankets, clothing and other items, at the makeshift shelter.
  • Local business owners installed 30 animal kennels at the shelter so evacuees' pets could remain with their owners. Wal-Mart is supplying the pet food.
  • Thanks, so far, to Allah and Beth for the link collecting.
  • Museums, zoos, and sports arenas in Houston are offering free/reduced admission for anyone showing a LA, AL, or MS drivers license.

doggie2.jpg
Rescued pup!

  • Karolyn Bell, her newborn baby cradled against gales and lashing rain, edged over a plank between two homes in a desperate bid to outrace hurricane floods fast swallowing New Orleans.

    Bell, 26, stitches fresh in her belly from a C-section delivery at noon on Thursday, relived her ordeal as she limped barefoot, babe in arms, across a bridge Tuesday out of New Orleans' deluged Ninth District, one of the city's poorest areas..
    Read the rest.
  • "Can you pass me my cane?" Ronald Wood said as he steadied himself on the concrete barrier. "I'm kinda cold right now," he said as he climbed into a waiting ambulance. "I feel pretty sick."
  • Big Easy Bites Back:
    A sumptuous aroma of barbecued shrimp, the promise of warm beer and Hurricane cocktails drew disbelieving storm survivors to the only restaurant still open in the battered French Quarter of New Orleans.

girlred.jpg
AP Photo

  • Nurses held flashlights and ventilated patients by hand. Doctors wearing green scrubs used canoes to ferry supplies between the city's four downtown hospitals.

Ok, I need to go to bed. Please leave any relevant links in the comments and I will start a new thread in the morning. It looks like the news is just going to get worse come morning, what with the levees not being contained, and I'd really like to continue to focus on the good. Rescues, relief efforts, anything like you see linked above - if you see a good story, share the link please.

Parts 2, 3 and 4 of this are here.

Comments

The fellow at Overtaken by events found out his mother-in-law in a nursing home is safe, thanks to the work of several bloggers:

http://overtaken.blogmosis.com/archives/029169.html

They couldn't evacuate in time once the evacuation order was made, so the doctors and nurses stayed to take care of the patients.

Being the "fellow at Overtaken by Events", I can only say that the outpouring of tips and support from bloggers and lurkers was amazing.

We're incredibly relieved and will be even happier when they get her out of the city.

Thanks, Michele!

Here's something for the good news file.

Museums, zoos, and sports arenas in Houston are offering free/reduced admission for anyone showing a LA, AL, or MS drivers license.

Here's one, Michele. Refugee Dolphins!

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/strange/news-article.aspx?storyid=43405

I love the story of dolphins in the pool. Cause they are mammels the chlorine doesn't kill like it would fish.

Delete posts that expose your hypocrisy? What kind of person are you?

Revisit Michele's post from last night- if you see this before it is deleted again.

http://asmallvictory.net/archives/009706.html

Ok, Tom. I'll bite. How is that hypocritical. I took issue with the way the media reports events such as this. I take issue with their drooling, expectant reporting. I take issue with their alarmist headlines that do nothing but make people panic.

Nothing's changed. The fact that the dire predictions are true does not for one minute change the fact that the media are, for the most part, sharks, leeches and whores.

Understand? Or do I need to type slower?

michele - link for "Texas business donates $25,000" isn't working.

Thanks for responding here vs the name calling you did in the email you sent me.

Apparently the media did not issue enough of an alarm. Why are there so many people on rooftops waiting to be rescued?

It is hypocritical to take one attitude towards the disaster last night and a different attitude tonight. In fairness, it wasn't just you but most of your commenters.

I have to admit, I was a bit miffed when I first scanned that post, but then I actually read it. I've felt about the same about the coverage. To hear some fuckwit CNN anchor talk about how much this had affected the reporters just about made me puke.

I've mostly been watching the local streaming coverage. These are people that have a vested interest and real love for their city. They make the overpaid Infodips look utterly and completely shallow.

This is a fucking disaster. How could it possibly help to compare it to anything?

Trish, thanks, fixed the link.

Tom, why is it the media's responsibility to issue an alarm? That responsibility resides with the city.

And I didn't take any attitude toward the disaster, it was towards the media. Not the disaster. The media. Get it yet?

For example, you took great issue with those who used the word "tsunami" to describe what could happen.

In tsunami a 20 foot or more wall of water comes in from the sea and destroys all in its path. How is that sustantively different from Katrina's storm surge?

In light of the recent tsunami, it is and was the perfect word to convey how serious the situation could become.

The officials and the media were totally justified to use that term.

Thanks for this post Michelle, I've been dealing with clients whining to me all day about how the Hurricane screwed up their business so bad, blahblahablah, meanwhile we're still trying to make sure some of our employees in the area are ALIVE for godsakes.

This was a welcome change from what I've had to read about all day...

Thanks again....

Ok Tom, you say tomato, I say tomahtoe. Whatever. This thread is supposed to be about sharing good news. So whatever your beef with me is, move it to email or shut up.

This is sort of good news. The hurricane veered slightly due to a small puff of air.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3331922

You (and others, ie Glenn Reynolds) already commented on the support that Houston is giving; makes me proud to be a resident.

Also the chronicle has some 'good news' photos:

http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/05/katrina/index.html#

Okay, some good news.

I am a native New Orleanian now living elsewhere. My extended family, like most, have lost most of their possesions but are all safe and sound hundreds of miles away.

I pray they will rebuild with a lot more sense about which parts of the area are actually habitable. Several family members moved fairly recently from now high and dry Uptown to areas close to the lake that are now underwater.

Peace.

I'm glad your family is ok, Tom.

Thanks so much for the terrific news!! This is great to see... I'm especially touched by all the donations and love the rescued animal stories!

I hope that corporate America can do better than $1M a piece though. Ouch. Considering CEO salaries, that's just a tad out of wack.

-Card-carrying Republican with an MBA.

Why are there so many people on rooftops waiting to be rescued?
Because they were either too poor or too stubborn to evacuate. It was NOT because nobody sounded enough alarms. I'm down here, I know that to be true. EVERYONE knew they needed to get out of New Orleans. I pity the ones that couldn't. The ones that wouldn't, not so much. Thanks to them, valuable resources have to be diverted and valuable time is being lost.

I think doing your best to focus attention on all the good that's being done in this tragedy is a wonderful idea, Michele. There is apparently a fair amount of bad being done down there. I was tempted to write about that today, but any time we spend talking about miscreants is time that could have been spent highlighting all the courage and goodwill that's being shown by so many in the face of this disaster.

Thanks for doing the great job you always do.

does anybody know of a place where survivors names are being recorded as they are rescued?

a friend of mine can't locate his grandfather or aunt & uncle who were unable to get out of NO.

if anybody knows of such a list, or knows the whereabouts of Malcolm Hurstell, please email me...

my brother is Phoenix FD! Those guys rock!

Michele, thanks for putting this linkfest together.

Boston to the rescue of storm-tossed pets:

http://sisu.typepad.com/sisu/2005/08/update_weve_fou.html

Tribune McKormick Relief Campaign will match first million dollar raised at 50 cents on the doller:

http://www.rrmtf.org/mtf/hurricanerelief.htm

Good news of a sort - encouraging, anyway:

http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2005-08-31T150056Z_01_ROB152866_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESS-ECONOMY-KATRINA-BERNANKE-DC.XML

Responding to AimeeC above. This blog has a list of people accounted for and people being looked for. Hope it's a start. http://humidcity.blogspot.com/

Thanks for posting the humid city site. There are people looking for survivors everywhere and that is an encouraging start.

Thanks for these links. Nice to see some good news and heartwarming stories for a change. :)

,m trying to locate my mother and father,ROGER and ALBERTA EVANS address 7231 pinebrook dr. new orleans father was last known to have been in baton rouge, la. mother went to the superdome please, please, help they are 78, and 74 yrs. of age. please if anyone has any information please contact me at 404-344-0271 or 404-323-6211 i am going crazy not knowing if dead or alive.

I'm looking for any info on my sister and her husband. Robert and Victoria Elizabeth Wood. The last address I had for them was 240 or 300 S. Jeffersn Davis Pkwy, New Orleans, LA. She worked at a plant nursery and also partime as a caterer. He drove a forklift but for who I have no idea. They are realitively new to New Orleans. She moved there just before Christmas of last year and he followed a couple of months late. She had made some friends, the only name I can remember is "Poppy" Or "Poppie" not sure of the spelling. If anyone has any info on her and her husband please send me an email. Jaxjake1@comcast.net

I'm looking for a very dear friend who I used to go to school with. His name is Ashton Brown and he lives in NO. If anyone has any info, please email me at msmocha318@yahoo.com. Thank you.

We have started numerous topics there concerning Katrina, how to get help, how to find people and so forth. Please visit and help or post your worries and maybe you can get help. God Bless

www.Safesearching.com is where the forums are

My sister called me today at 5:00 p.m. est. She is okay but shook up. Her hubby is slightly ill. Will hear more from her later. Did not want to hog the phones from others.

Christine, that is wonderful to hear!

It's good to hear all the good news.

FYI ... Canada is sending what help we can: http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=e7cfca1b-e696-414e-8756-653d4c2e1b6d

http://www.alltell.com/corporate/media/0905hurricanerelief.html

i was surprised to hear of these efforts. I forget which of the many forums i was at, but there was a discussion going on about how selfish the "providers" are being. Someone decided to give us a little hope by posting this link. Glad they did. It's good to know that the provider my husband's family goes through is a compassionate one.

There are reports of some other provider giving away "free" phones, but are actually hooking the poor victims into contracts.

Wish i could remeber what forum that thread is on. Sorry!

Just posted an email I received with a personal experience through Katrina. It's here (and if that html link doesn't work--as I tend to screw that stuff up--I put the link to the entry in the URL portion of the comment section so my name should link to it.) Thought I'd come over here and leave it for you as well, since you're collecting nice stories. :-)