Chalmette and St. Bernard Parish

The St. Bernard Parish has been declared a total loss. They will send bulldozers in and clear everything out. Tim Hines said there are barges that will have to be cut up and moved piece by piece, they are big as cruise ships. I don't know if you'll be able to pull up the link on the title above, but these are pictures that a 19 year old took from his dad's house. He stayed there throughout. Notice the water lines over the soffets of the homes.

Sam Milazzo Photo Album
Same parish, town of Chalmette. You can see why this county is a total loss. Julie is a friend of the church here and she was on the third story of the bank building taking these pictures. This is a letter from Julie herself:

From: MILAZZO, JULIE A
Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2005 7:21 PM
Subject: FW: View my photos

There were only a couple of things that I thought to take with me from the house, besides my 2 cats & 2 birds & one of those things was our cameras. We never in a million years thought things would get this bad & truly thought we would be home the next day but I had just gotten the cameras & didn't want to lose them no matter how remote the chance. So, we got the opportunity to take some pictures while we were stranded in that building. Some these are repetitious because Sam & I were both taking pictures. Although we have yet to see if for ourselves, we're pretty sure, based on the information in the pictures, that our house is underwater ;-).

To see the pictures, you have to join the easyshare thing, but it is painless. Feel free to forward the link to whomever you want. These are, of course, all from the 3-story Region's Bank building in Chalmette, taken from the third floor.

Chalmette was the place where the 40 bed nursing home was abandoned by the workers during the night. The news tells you all the bad stuff, but there's a COUNTER-story to that tragic event:

There was a doctor and his nurse from the same town and parish who in over 15' of water stayed around to help when all else had abandoned. The Fire department operated a week without any outside help or supplies. When they finally were evacuated, the doctor and nurse were found in a flat boat with five patients they had saved.