Day 9 AM Update: Progress, NGS Maps, University Help, Shell

Today marks the beginning of semi-normal-in-exile life in Houston. Today is for mail re-routing, filling prescriptions, resource accounting, minor shopping and settling in at txyankee‘s for the unknown-duration haul.

The news out of New Orleans may not be voluminous for a while as the police and military go about dealing with the daunting task of discovering, identifying and properly storing human remains.

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Focus On Rebuilding: Nagin warns of price-gouging contractors and sellers. To report price gouging, call (800)488-2770. BellSouth, Entergy, wireless carriers and other infrastructure companies are on it (with what vigor, I do not know). The help of evacuees is not welcome until water is drained and contamination/disease is under control. A word to the returning: Please do not run generators inside your house due to the danger of carbon monoxide inhalation.

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The National Geodetic Survey of NOAA hosts post-Katrina satellite images. Affected areas of the Gulf Coast are broken down into blocks so users may access areas most important to them.

Gulf Coast with Katrina’s path –> Orleans Parish (New Orleans-centered) –> neighborhoods. N.B.: Some of these maps are not north-oriented, so you’ll have to do some guessing as to the location of your home. I suggest that you locate landmarks and follow street curves.

Examples:

1) Portions of the Lower Garden and Warehouse District (including my home)

2) Uptown and some Mid-City (right is north)

3) Lakeview

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Universities Offer Help To Displaced Professors:

Several national universities have kindly extended a semester’s worth of help to New Orleans university professors who are currently out of jobs. For instance, Jean Bahr, a friend and current chair of the Univ. of Wisconsin Geology Dept. writes,

I sent an email several days ago to faculty I know at LSU asking that they let any geology faculty, staff or students they may be in touch with from U New Orleans, Tulane or other affected institutions that our department would be willing to try to find ways to accommodate them here. If you are in touch with anyone from those institutions, please ask them to get in touch with me if we can be of assistance. More generally, UW is attempting to serve as a university of refuge.

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Shell: For 1000 displaced employees, Shell managers are “currently putting the finishing touches on their space allocation plan, which will place our employees at workstations in Robert Training Center, Baton Rouge, One Shell Plaza, Two Shell Plaza, Pennzoil Place, Westhollow and Woodcreek. Plans are to review this information with Level 3 and 4 managers this week. Leaders will then be in a position to talk with everyone about your work location and other arrangements once your personal situation has stabilized.”

Plans are also being ironed out to “re-enter One Shell Square in the near future to secure critical data, hardware and files. This work will be delicate given the conditions in New Orleans and One Shell Square.” If CBD power is back up and conditions improve, why remove the data and hardware? It will probably be more secure and accessible here in Houston; additionally, even if the CBD is ok, where is everyone going to live and how are they going to get to work? I hope this goes by quickly.

Shell production is ramping up and flowing in most areas shut in due to the hurricane. Asset damage is still under assessment; all will not be fine until inspections and repairs are complete.