"Unless you're shooting a film called 'Hurricane,' you won't want to come to New Orleans, but we have 54 other parishes."

Oddly, as I was flipping yesterday, I caught a soundbit about a hurricane disaster movie. Not sure if it is ready for release, or just an idea, but you bet they are probably rethinking it....

Not sure if it is ready for release, or just an idea, but you bet they are probably rethinking it....

I keep wondering if they're actually going to run that new show, Invasion. It's mostly about aliens, as far as I can tell, but the story begins with a hurricane.

Gah. I have crazy, explosive work gossip from a highly placed source AND I CAN'T TELL ANYONE!!!! It's a damn good thing we're getting out early today or I think I might explode.

They've pulled the promos for it, at least. It'll probably run, though.

Our friend Andy just turned down a propmaster job on the new Costner movie because he didn't want to be away from his wife and kids for six months....in New Orleans. He would have been down there this week doing preproduction, so his choosing family over work was REALLY the right thing.

If anyone needs some horrified laughter (the good kind) take a look at the expressions. And the disclaimers: [link]

I keep wondering if they're actually going to run that new show, Invasion.

I'd forgotten about that one. A lot of the the heavily promo-ed shows (Invasion, Threshold, um...a president dying one. The Pentagon one) seem heavily predicated on OMGDISASTER. I wonder how well that's going to play now. In the face of the real thing, do you wanna watch fictional disaster (but the good guys will win mostly , unless network tv has radically changed) or something fuzzier like...I dunno? Sitcoms? Goofy reality shows? AFV?

If anyone needs some horrified laughter (the good kind) take a look at the expressions. And the disclaimers:

Hee! Thanks.

Sorry, to hammer on this one, but it's just gnawing at me. Under what circumstances should an American hospital need to appeal to Associated Press to get help and attention after a disaster? How is it that the head of FEMA is getting less information than what's on CNN? How is that you can abandon a hospital's staff with so little resources? They had helicopters in the air after the first day. They know where the hosptials are. The hospitals tend to have medivac ports.

**********

New Orleans hospitals getting some help
9/2/2005, 2:08 p.m. CT
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE
The Associated Press

(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 250 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.

"Our morgue at Big Charity is full and it is under water," said Don Smithburg, CEO of the LSU hospital system, which oversees the two public hospitals.

He said the morgue had 12 bodies, and another five were stacked in a stairwell — in both cases under water. Other bodies were in other parts of the hospital.

As for the doctors and nurses: "Some of them are on the brink of unable to cope any longer. We just can't get our people out fast enough."

He said some areas are out of food and water. "Some of my staff are giving each other intravenous fluids," Smithburg said. "We have to get them out of today."

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 Hospital.

"We're starting to make some headway," said Knox Andress, an emergency room nurse in Shreveport, La., who is helping coordinate relocation efforts.

He and others remained most concerned about University Hospital, where about 500 family and staff members joined 110 very ill patients and hundreds of others from the general community needing evacuation.

Andress and others had lost emergency radio communications with that hospital.

Paula Dees of Tallahassee, Fla., said her father, Dr. Oscar Ballester, called her early Friday morning from University, where he and his wife, Dr. Gabriela Ballester, have been working since Saturday.

"They're just begging for help," Dees said. "They're rationed a liter of water a day and have minimal food. He keeps saying, 'They forgot about us.'"

Her father also is a diabetic and has only about a day's supply of insulin left, she said.

Doctors at both Charity and University had called The Associated Press on Thursday, pleading for help.

Smithburg said evacuation resumed Friday at Charity after state police stepped up their protection. But action was suspended again later in the day, after many patients and hospital employees got out. It was unclear how many people remained behind, including patients' relatives.

Smithburg said sick newborns and 10 healthy babies had been evacuated.

"The evacuation has been called off again and we are seeking additional security presence so that we can continue the evacuation" of personnel, Smithburg said.

Or even Ford. He has the advantage of still being alive.

Yeah, but NOBODY would mess with Zombie!Nixon.

If anyone needs some horrified laughter (the good kind) take a look at the expressions. And the disclaimers: [link]

I'm imagining a kitty kinkster writing to a kitty dan savage and being directed to a site for safe kitty bondage. And it's all "meow-meow restraints... meow-meow mask."