The water is rising fast:

Reporters said there was waist-high water round the Superdome, the huge covered football stadium near downtown New Orleans that had been used as an emergency evacuation center for thousands of residents.

An 11:15 AP story had it at knee-deep.

Sophia, does it have a brand label on it anywhere?

Good idea! I can look when I get home, but there is none in my memory! I'll try and let ita know if I find one!

I'm getting a hate on for Cingular because of dropped calls. How is Virgin Mobile for that?

I'm not sure what a "dropped call" is, but the only problem I've had with Virgin is they don't go some places. I have range in Portland, ME but I don't in Brunswick for instance (meant to check Freeport, but forgot to the last time I was there).

This is a warning. This photo is really fucking sobering.

Dead body (partial view) in Biloxi.

[link]

oh, my god.

Okay, let me link a happier photo...

Children being rescued in NO:

[link]

Virgin uses the Sprint network for connectivity. So if you can use Sprint in a location, you can use Virgin Mobile. Since I was already Sprint and have had good connectivity for the kinds of places I go, it wasn't any worse than I'd been experiencing.

Eeek for New Orleans! Especially because the closer parts of MS where I expect most people evacuated to, isn't doing any better....

I talked to my mom earlier and she said every hotel in a 100 mile radius from Memphis (where she is) is completely booked. The casinos in Tunica, MS converted their convention rooms into shelters and put up cots. As of 10 pm last night, they still had some cots available (after than, my parents' power went out and they hadn't gotten any more news).

Big-assed photo of Katrina from space: [link]

Big-assed photo of Katrina from space:

Yow. Other than Andrew, I can't remember another one that was that tightly organized and also that big.