The destruction -- a first hand account

I got good news from a friend this morning that his house if virtually untouched by the hurricane. No damage visible inside or outside. But I also received this description of what's facing NO residents when they return from someone in Lakeside whose house was badly flooded. It's a real nightmare.

From my own personal observations yesterday on the ground in New Orleans: The water that needs to be pumped out of the LakeView area of New Orleans is a mixture of sewer and salt water plus gasoline, oil, etc.. The longer it stands, the less likely anything can be salvaged.

If you want to try to picture what my house is like and what those in LakeView will be like whenever the water is pumped out, look around your house. Picture everything from eye level down placed in a septic tank of human waste and salt water for over 2 weeks. Picture every drawer and every door frozen shut because water has swollen everything. Locks and hinges don't work. Drawers containing your important items must be broken open with a maul or sledge hammer. Picture furniture that it takes four men to carry tossed around your house like Styrofoam ice chests. Then think of 95 plus degree heat, the stench of an open sewer and the air so putrid that you cannot move around for more than a few minutes without stopping to catch one's breath.

Finally, picture all the devastation and then your insurance company tells you that they will not cover anything because the damage was caused by "rising water." Of course in my case, the rising water was a result of the negligence of man and man's corruption that resulted in substandard construction performed by man.