As far as the hospital ships go, I imagine they are meant to be used more as temporary replacements for the abandoned hospitals than as triage centers.

Le N, I've heard that UVA (I live in VA, work in DC) has offered to take a few students if need be. (UNC, my other alma mater, has said that they won't.)

I know that the law school here at UC-Berkeley is accepting 20 2L/3L students tuition-free, with priority given to California residents. The publishing companies are arranging for free textbooks for them.

(UNC, my other alma mater, has said that they won't.)

Not true: [link]

(on edit, I don't mean to suggest that they didn't say they wouldn't, just that they are doing so now).

University of Wisconsin, Illinois at Chicago, and Chicago Loyola have all jumped on the bandwagon of offering automatic admittance and financial aid packages to displaced students. I know a lot of other are doing the same.

Part of the problem: Louisiana's official hurricane plan says absolutely zero about how to handle an evacuation once New Orleans is flooded.

Awww, fuck. There are still 8-10,000 people in the Superdome. They're basically living inside a blacked out garbage heap buried in shit.

It boggles me that they are just now evacuating babies out of Charity Hospital.

Also? Two raging uncontrolled fires in New Orleans this morning.

I've seen two guys in my office, checking out a Toyota Prius on the web. I'm actually thinking about trading in our van on a Ford Focus Wagon or Pontiac Vibe or something. The fuel savings wouldn't be immense, but we avoid driving the van and it's sort of odd to drive everywhere in the old, tiny car.

There's no excuse for this happening. No. Fucking. Excuse. Five fucking days after the hurricane and they still hadn't evacuated the hospitals? Which, incidentally, were out of drugs, electricity, food or water? How do you get a hole like that in your relief efforts?

********

9/2/2005, 12:26 p.m. CT
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Evacuations resumed Friday at some of New Orleans' most troubled hospitals where desperate doctors were being forced to make tough choices about which patients got dwindling supplies of food, water and medicines.

Rescuers finally made it into Charity Hospital, the largest public hospital and trauma center in the city, where gunshots prevented efforts on Thursday to evacuate more than 220 patients.

"We moved all of the babies out of Charity this morning," said Keith Simon, spokesman for Acadian Ambulance Service Inc.

Richard Zuschlag, the ambulance company's president, said the military was handling the evacuation of Charity and other hospitals in the flooded downtown.

Relatives of Dr. L. Lee Hamm, chairman of medicine at Tulane University, also reported that they received a text message from him around midday Friday, confirming that evacuations were taking place at Charity and nearby University Hospital, where more than 1,000 patients, family members, staff and people from the community had huddled.

David, I think it is really appalling. Particularly when the hospitals have been calling CNN and everyone with SOSes

This is fucking sick. I guess some people are just disposable, huh?