Report From The Eye of the Storm

From an every-growing staff of reporters around the world, I have a first-hand report of facing down Katrina.

Frequent poster, Alice (aka Mayor) lives in Jackson, MS and was fortunate enough to be just slightly to the west of the Katrina's eye wall and did not get hit with the more dangerous east side wall. Just the same, she was pelted with rain and harassed by 90-mph wind, bending old pine trees to the ground. She was fairly lucky, just a small leak down the wall of her newly-remodled office. Other than that, just lots of debris and wind damage.

She has friends on the Mississippi coast who did not fare as well. From what she understands, nothing is left of Biloxi, a city of 200,000. Bridges have been destroyed, an oil rig broke loose and crashed through a highway and the River Boat casinos have been blown on to dry land requiring either new zoning laws or a tug back out to sea.

She said there had been plenty of tornados around her but none too close. Apparently the real danger for tornados and dangerous thunder storms is follwing the hurricane when the weather heats up to 97 degrees and mixes with colder air from the north.

She's been without electricity for much of the day and is concerned about keeping cool if it takes a while to repair.

As a sidenote, my brother-in-law is an insurance adjuster and has headed down there to help the people who have seen the most damage. It's too early to tell what he will see or what the people of Biloxi et al will see when the sun comes up. Just praying the loss of life will be minimal.