The New Orleans newspaper is (AFAIK) for the first time in its history *only* printing online. Its offices have been abandoned, and there are no means of printing a paper edition. These reporters have been doing an astounding job of covering an unfathomably large, complex, horrible series of events.
I've heard a number of friends — including displaced pals — say that the story unfolding in New Orleans feels to them a lot like 9/11. This was the largest national disaster we'd ever seen in America. It changed New York, and the country, forever. In both, great human suffering. But on 9/11, two buildings that had become an iconic part of a great American city disappeared. Now, it's as if an entire city is disappearing.
Snip:
As Jerry Rayes piloted his boat down St. Claude Avenue, just past the Industrial Canal, the eerie screams that could barely be heard from the roadway grew louder as, one by one, faces of desperate families appeared on rooftops, on balconies and in windows, some of them waving white flags.
(…) A woman screamed as Rayes boated by: "Hey! Damn! Hey!" "You can't save everybody," he said, as he passed street signs barely visible above the water along with scores of felled trees and downed power lines. "That's all we heard for hours this morning."
As he motored toward St. Claude Avenue, which looked like a bayou rather than a thoroughfare, his boat passed Fats Domino's pink-and-yellow-trimmed house on Caffin Avenue. About a half a dozen men screamed from the balcony, flailing their hands for help. He passed them by.
"What am I going to do? I got to go to the parish," he said. "There's way too many people out there and to few boats."
Link to "Flooding wipes out two communities"
Reader comment: oboreruhito says,
You were absolutely right about the Times-Picayune. The last time they didn't publish a regular edition was during the Civil War. Here's an AP story on what media outlets did to respond: Link
