Gustav is coming.....

Four thirty on Sunday night. Apparently the first bands of the storm are passing over us, but I can't tell. With boards on all of the windows, it's like being in a cave.

We went out searching for ice earlier this morning. We rode from one end of Gause Blvd. to the other. After ten or so stops, we came up with nothing. On our way back, we were stopped at a redlight by a Rite Aid that was just closing and there was a pile of BAGS OF ICE, free for the taking!!! It was wild. We pulled in and got six bags as two other people took the rest. What a great suprise. So I think we'll be okay when the electricity goes out.

I have still been hearing blue jays and cicadas throughout the day. I think (hope) that's a positive sight.

Gustav is still a strong storm, but the winds are slowing down. Now if we can just make it jog to the west a wee bit more.

Doing my final cooking chore (chicken wings). Loaded with candles, bread,sandwich meat, pnut butter, snacks, gin & tonic beer and water. I think we'll be okay. Oh yeah! and a few 7 year old xanax pills to get us thru that horrible sound of the wind. I hate that part.

The cats are still pretty laid back and I'm hoping that continues.

See y'all on the other side.

It's in the wait

Ray writes about what we on the Gulf Coast have been doing all week. Waiting.

We originally had plans to evac to Hammond, but that was for Saturday thru Monday. THAT turned out to be no good. So much for planning ahead, huh? Then I tried for hours to find a place as far north as Memphis....nada.

So, we will hunker down with our five cats (got some tranquilizers for them) the same as we did for Katrina, here at home. And wait.

Let's hope Gustav leaves the whole state alone. There isn't any section of south Louisiana that didn't feel the affects of Katrina & Rita and people are just getting on their feet.

Watching the non stop local new reports last night there was one humorous thing: the Sheriff of
Terrebone Parish, where Gustav is supposed to hit (as of now) told residents that there will be curfews so they'd better stock up on liquor and cigarettes now. I kid you not!

Katrina Three Years Later

Groundskeepers of Lake Lawn Metairie Cemetery place 1464 white flags, etched with hand-printed names of those who lost their lives during Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the federal levees. (Photo from T.P)


We can never forget what happened across the Gulf Coast on that Monday morning in 2005.

People choose to live where they do for their own reasons. They choose to live with the threat of tornadoes, landlsides, massive blizzards and earthquakes. Here is why the people of New Orleans - and the rest of us residing on the Gulf Coast - choose to live here.

Helping the Animals

If you can, please do:

St. Tammany Humane Society seeking storm refuge for animals
by The Times-Picayune Wednesday August 27, 2008, 11:32 AM
The St. Tammany Humane Society is seeking emergency foster homes for numerous dogs and cats in preparation for the arrival of Gustav.


The Covington-area shelter, which is prone to flooding, has 92 dogs and 60 cats not enough vehicles or volunteers to transport them to safety, the organization said in a news release.

The facility on Harrison Avenue can take in water during a heavy thunderstorm, so a hurricane brings the threat of real damage and danger, the release said.

The organization is asking the public to provide temporary foster homes for the animals beginning Thursday and bring them back Wednesday after the storm has passed. The shelter also is interested in any transport programs available, the release said.

The shelter is no longer accepting animals, and the parish Department of Animal Services has already closed due to hurricane preparedness, according to the release.

For information on fostering an animal from the St. Tammany Humane Society, call 985-892-PETS(7387).

Stay Cool

World Class New Orleans is a must read to all of us worrying about Gustav and all that must be done.

Go read it. Deep breaths.

This can't be good....

Click on map to enlarge

Unscientific Poll

Latest from New Orleans CityBusiness Poll:
Q: Three years after Katrina, why is the New Orleans area not fully recovered?


responses here

We Are Not Okay - 3 years later

from the New Orleans Photoblog


there are miles of neighborhoods that are abandoned 3 years later. No stores, no gas, no life. homes in good neighborhoods all empty and full of mud. X’s still on the buildings to represent finding dead or not. It is so sad to see this, and to feel like the rest of the world has moved on and just left this vast beautiful city to fade into what once was, instead of a strong city that was able to come back… because the world helped and believed it could. .. the reality that the world is so immersed in itself, is sad and I do not blame the people here for thinking the rest of the world sucks. it does… where is all the promises of help to rebuild? where is all that money and materials donated by other countries and people? why has New Orleans become a game for insurance companies and the government to toss back and forth and why are we the people not standing up and demanding that our next “president to be”, address the crisis of New Orleans, so that the once great port city can rebuild and grow again? as a nation, we have abandoned one of the greatest cities of our country. We should be ashamed.

Katrina Survival Story

When I read about this item in todays Times Picayune in Charlotte's blog all I could think was "wow".

Here's Jennifer Zdon's take on it

The Diary of Tommie Elton Mabry

from Charlotte's blog

It’s a fascinating account of Elton Mabry’s solitary days of survival during and for eight weeks after Katrina in an apartment in the B.W. Cooper public housing development. Mr. Mabry documented his days by writing a diary on the walls of the apartment with a pack of sharpies he found while scrounging for food.

What I like about this story is it tells the story of how an average New Orleanian survived in a broken and isolated city in the aftermath of a governmental disaster: the failure of the levee system AFTER a major hurricane blew through.


Check out the whole story at the TP's web page link above.

Another Scuzzbucket

From NOLA Rising

Please take a look at the sketch below. If you know the person, or think it resembles someone you might know, contact the police at the numbers on the poster. The man in the picture is wanted for questioning in the unfortunate murder of Jessica Hawk. This does not necessarily mean the person in the picture is guilty, but may have pertinent information vital to the police investigation. If you don't feel comfortable calling, you can leave an anonymous tip at Crimestoppers. Don't let this New Orleans tragedy go unsolved!

Criminals is Stupid

this pea brained fool was caught on camera climbing a ladder to disable the crime camera.


It's just too funny how stupid some folks can be.

Thanks to Prytania Waterline for the heads up on this laugh of the day.

On the Excellence in Recovery Award

Chris Rose gives this subject some badly needed levity

The New Orleans 100

"The New Orleans 100" is a worldwide initiative that will highlight and encourage discussion among millions about 100 of the most innovative and world-changing ideas to take root in the city since Katrina.

The list will be released on Monday, August 25th - the week of the Hurricane Katrina anniversary. Our goal is to reach 1,000,000 pageviews by 8/29/08. We encourage everyone to spread the word by emailing the list, blogging it, digging it, stumbling it, and yelling it out their windows.

You can sign up to receive the New Orleans 100 list via email at the title above.

Thanks to Mosquito Coast for the heads up.

Nagin's Seven Sins

Varg over at the Chicory has compiled a list of WHY Ray Nagin should never, ever be considered for any award related to Katrina recovery. You can read them here, along with links to back up the claims .

Here's a copy of the handout Varg has created

Bayou Sauvage Boardwalk

Last week I posted about the reopening of the Bayou Sauvage Refuge on Highway 90 in "da east".

Jennifer Zdon on the Times Pic has put together a nice little multi media
slideshow of the new boardwalk here.

Enjoy!

Still Making it Right

From today's Times Pic The Brad Pitt's "Make it Right Foundation" is quietly doing the work that they said they would just 8 months ago. New homes are being constructed in the Katrina-devastated Ninth Ward.

Click here to see some photos.

From the aforementioned TP article:
While complaints of bureaucratic sloth persist, Pitt's foundation instead provides a striking example of a private entity taking the simplest of plans -- build houses where the flood knocked them all down -- from idea to execution in a relatively short time. As of today, Make It Right has raised enough money to build at least 84 houses, with an ultimate goal of financing at least 150 houses in the Lower 9th Ward, said Tom Darden, the foundation's executive director.

Crews are hard at work on six homes, two of them modular designs, with hopes of finishing at least one by Aug. 29 and having the others near completion by that date, Darden said. The six houses will go to the first six families who closed on the foundation's forgivable loans; 20 other families have submitted applications, he said.

Have you made a donation? I have.

Scuzzbucket of the Week

Early in the week for this one, but around here the scuzzbuckets seem to just pop out of the soil as fast as the weeds after a good rain.



Veronica White is the head of the New Orleans Sanitation Department which supposedly oversees city-authorized teardowns.

Over the weekend, Mizz White's department totally screwed up, according to newspaper report .


The pile of rubble that a city-hired wrecking crew left at 5132 Kendall Drive in Gentilly Woods on Saturday was supposed to be the DeJan family's new home.

Erica DeJan and her husband, Brian, bought the two-story structure just around the corner from their current home in June and jumped right into rehabbing it.
So it came as a surprise Friday when Erica DeJan, who is nearly eight months pregnant with her fourth child, found a sticker on the house stating that Mayor Ray Nagin's administration had declared it a public health threat and planned to tear it down.

DeJan does not dispute that before she and her husband bought it, the property was a nuisance. "It hadn't been touched since Katrina," she said. "It had just been sitting."

The DeJans, though, had already gutted the house and replaced termite-damaged wood, she said. While the couple had enough money to remodel the existing structure, they cannot afford to rebuild from scratch. She laid blame for the improper demolition on a City Hall system ill-equipped to honor last-minute reprieves.

A spokeswoman for the company that tore down the house, Beck Disaster Recovery of Orlando, Fla., said the firm was notified that Saturday's demolition had been canceled.

DeJan said a city employee should have confirmed directly with the wrecking crew that her property had been crossed off Saturday's work order.

"It's just a lack of communication," DeJan said. "It's not being on the same wavelength."

This is not the first time old Ronnie's department has shown ineptitude. check out this from Squandered Heritage .

Excellence in Recovery List

It's been a rainy weekend, so in between rearranging my living room and trying to stay off my swollen ankle I decided to go thru the list of people who think that Ray Nagin deserves any kind of a reward in the Katrina recovery and see who they were. I left out the people that Howie has identified on his website.

For an up to date status of this fiasco, check up with Kevin Alleman here at Gambit.

And the "Excellence in Recovery" Committee Members are......

Juli Juneau Glass Artist (go to page 8 of link)

Donald G. Lambert Louisiana Licensing Board for Contractors (see page five of this link)

Richard Fiske - , owner, Bombay Club

William Goldring - Magnolia Marketing Co., one of the largest independently owned wine and spirits distributors in the country.

Father Michael Jacques - Pastor, St. Peter Claver Church

Coleman Adler II - president, Adler Jewelers

Joe Maselli - developer of the internationally famous Piazza d’Italia with the City of New Orleans

Wanda Davis - Director, Alexandria Housing Authority ???

Barbara Major - community organizer and trainer with over twenty years experience in many local, national, and international community development efforts.

Rabbi Edward P. Cohn - Temple Siani, New Orleans

Mel Lagarde - President & CEO of the head of the Delta region for the hospital company Hospital Corporation of America

Ashlyn Graves - Evans-Graves Engineers, Metairie

Arnold Baker - President and CEO of Baker Ready Mix Building Materials

Ethel Kidd - French Quarter Real Estate

Terry Williams - Managing Partner of Airware Consulting

Al Groos - New Orleans Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau Chairman

Ed Minyard - Unisys Emergency Management Practice for North America.

Effie S. Naghi - Jeweler

Reverend Cornelius Tilton - co-leader of strategic planning for the Greater New Orleans Pastor’s Coalition

William Sizeler - Sizeler Architects

Blaine Kern Sr. - Mr. Mardi Gras

Joseph Jaeger Jr. - President & CEO, MCC Group

Reverend John C. Raphael - Pastor, New Hope Baptist Church

Keil Moss - French Market Corporation

Dawn Leslie - Real Estate

Ralph Fontcuberta - BFM Corporation-Land Surveyors

Reverend Fred Luter, Jr. - recognized nationally as one of this city’s powerful man of the cloth.

Steve Dwyer - Lawyer, Dwyer & Cambre, Metairie

Lisa Roth - Architect

Raoul Chauvin - Engieering Consultants, Infinity

Reverend Willie Gable - Progressive Baptist Church

Henry DiFranco - Not sure if this is the man or not, but this Henry DiFranco is in the "recovery" bid-ness.

Angela O'Byrne - President, Perez Architecture Firm

Frank Nicoladis - N-Y Associates, Architects

Reverend Sam Johnson - New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

Joseph Parrino - Fleur de Paris hat shop

John Schackai III - Independent Architectect

Reverend Richard Bellizan Sr. - another man of the cloth who loves Ray Ray

Prisca Weems - Environmental designer

Hans Wandfluh - General Manager of the Royal Sonesta Hotel

Reverend Reginald Nicholas Sr. - Pastor, Olive Branch Baptist Church

Ray Liuzza - Part owner Doubletree Hotel

American Zombie blogs about Bernardo , Nagin's personal "photographer" and apparent organizer to the event and his lurid past peddling cocaine to performers at House of Blues and sexually harassing the staff there.


Bernardo's the sleazy looking dude on the right

Clancy DuBos opines Nagin will never be remembered for being the beast that (Idi) Amin was, but he’s about as delusional if he thinks anybody beyond his small circle of sycophants actually deems him worthy of an award for “courage and leadership” after Katrina.
AMEN.

Is this for real?

From the TP
Mayor Ray Nagin takes his fair share of shots from New Orleanians who are less than thrilled with his leadership in restoring their beloved city. But a group of about 50 civic worthies apparently couldn't be happier with him.



The group plans to have retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, credited with restoring order after the storm, hand Nagin the newly minted "Award of Distinction for Recovery, Courage and Leadership" next week as part of a ceremony marking Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary.

I'm gonna puke.

Here's a list of the assholes sponsoring this.


Howie Luvz Us has done the work I was going to do by providing links to info for the "supporters" on that list . Thanks, Howie.
REACTIONS across the blogsphere

Schroeder has an excellent entry and suggests an "Excellence in Recovery Chutzpah Award" for Nagin and his ilk

Humid City

Gambit

Library Chronicles

Oyster

Ghosts of Katrina

Times Picayune photographer extrodinaire John McCusker has assembled a slideshow from his former neighborhood nearly three years post Katrina.

bring a kleenex

Scuzzbucket of the Week #3

It's been a busy week for scummy people.

Thursday's nomination for "shit of the day" goes to United Airlines their lowlife idea
From the Washington Times:

American Airlines is charging troops for their extra baggage, a practice that forces soldiers heading for a war zone in Iraq to try to get reimbursement from the military. One of the country's largest veterans groups is asking the aviation industry to drop the practice immediately.

American, which recently charged two soldiers from Texas $100 and $300 for their extra duffel bags, said it gives the military a break on the cost for excess luggage and that the soldiers who incur the fees are reimbursed.

"Because the soldiers don't pay a dime, our waiver of the fees amounts to a discount to the military, not a discount to soldiers," said Tim Wagner, spokesman for American Airlines. "Soldiers should not have to pay a penny of it."

I never understood charging men and women who are putting their lives on the line. I used to send boxes of goods to soldiers in Iraq but had to stop when it was costing me over $100 in postage for two boxes. It sickens me.

Scuzzbucket Twins

From the "lovely lah-dee-dah" metropolis of Mandeville, Louisiana come the mayor-with-a-drinking-problem Eddie Price and his sidekick Police Chief Tom Buell.



Not only is it unsavory enough that the mayor would not go to jail several instances of drunk driving. Last month four Causeway police officers, including Chief Felix Loicano, lost their jobs after an outside review recommended that they be fired or resign for treating Price leniently after he crashed through a tollbooth barrier on the bridge April 22.

Now Eddie and Tom are in deep shit after publication of a Legislative Audit
that claims these two theives have been stealing money from the city, from charity to benefit themselves and other cronies.
touched a responsive chord.

From 2002 to 2007, the Mandeville Police Department's Citizen's Service Fund received donations totaling $217,938. But according to a Louisiana Legislative Auditor's report, only $16,492 of that money was used to buy Christmas presents for needy children -- less than the $26,055 that was spent on materials to solicit donations.

The report states $15,775 were used to purchase Wal-Mart gift cards for residents and city employees including Price who, over the five-year period, received $1,300 in gift cards. The report also states Price was given additional gifts, including a gun cabinet and a crossbow, that totaled $1,607.

Yesterday Price called for revised procedures from his office for better documentation of monies spent. What gall.

And now the Louisiana State Attorney General is investigating these scumbags.

Stay tuned.

Scuzzbucket of the Week

Actually, this scum has been a scuzzbucket for a loooooong time.




David Duke former Ku Klux Klan leader believes that an Obama victory be a "visual aid" for his "cause". His election, he says, would trigger a backlash - whites rising up, a revolution of sorts - that he and his ilk think is long overdue.

Rot in hell, scum.

Courtesy 2 Millionth Weblog

To the French Relay Swim Team

Check out the Recovery

View Larger Map

Street view via google will let you look at different neighborhoods in NOLA to see how the recovery is progressing.

Where I'd rather be

>

Shenandoah Mountains in August.

The Worst Month

August, yuck. It's stuffy, it's more than hot, and I would skip it if I could.


Mosquito Coast talks of what August is all about on the Gulf Coast and she nails it!!

Scuzzbucket of the Week

Scuzzbucket of the Week

Miss Stacey Jackson, a money grubbing bitch who probably thinks she's a glamourous house flipper.
At the expense of New Orleans' poor and elderly citizens, Mizz Jackson has been grabbing up property that has been designated as "blighted" under the auspicies of a company she and her sister controlled.

I've been looking thru everything this group of crazy bandits have been doing for the past few years and it's astounding how intertwined everything is.

Here's the whole story from WWL TV.

Refuge Boardwalk Reopens

from the Times Pic, it took almost three years, but here's news of the reopening of a wonderful little known wildlife boardwalk on Hwy 90 in New Orleans East.



The boardwalk at Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge reopened this week, offering promise and a glimpse of what has yet to return after Hurricane Katrina. Three years after deadly winds and saltwater invasion, scores of trees and thousands of migratory birds are missing, along with hundreds of acres of marsh that made up the 23,000-acre site.



Joe Madere, a retired resident of New Orleans East gives us a little history lesson about the beginnings of this beautiful refuge:

On June 29, 1980 I retired from the New Orleans Police Department and went to work for the New Orleans East Corporation who was developing the eastern section of New Orleans. I worked for them for five years. In 1985, they went bankrupt and Merrill Lynch took over 23,457 acres, and asked me to work for them as land manager. While working for Merrill Lynch, I worked on a project to turn 19,0000 acres to the national government as a wildlife refuge. We worked on this for 5 years, and in 1990 the final papers were signed, making the 19,000 acre Bayou Sauvage Wildlife Refuge.

I got to name the refuge, Bayou Sauvage, because of the bayou, which runs right through the middle of it, that at one time was part of the Mississippi river. This bayou was formed about 600 BC and was a tributary of the Mississippi for about 1000 years, but was sealed off as the river moved further south. Today, Bayou Sauvage is a small body of water about 2 miles long, but it is in its natural state.




"I'm happy to be able to invite people back," Fortier said in spite of the stark surroundings. Few large trees remain to shade the trail, a 2/3-mile loop of raised, wooden boards just east of the Maxent Canal. But along the way strollers can catch glimpses of magnificent insects and flowers and cypress stumps poking from a pond that shimmers in the sun, catching the reflection of snowy egrets flying gracefully overhead.

The boardwalk entrance off Chef Menteur Highway is open daily from sunrise to sunset. Parking is available inside the sliding metal gate, along with new restrooms and cold-water fountains and a pavilion that weathered the storm. Fortier said he hopes to gather students there in the fall for environmental education programs, just as before Katrina.

Touted as the largest urban national wildlife refuge in the United States, Bayou Savage is roughly bounded by the Maxent Levee on the west, Lake Pontchartrain on the north, Lake Borgne on the south and Chef Pass and Lake Pontchartrain on the east.

It has taken many months to clean the area around the boardwalk and rebuild it, Fortier said. A contractor is ready to grind dead trees and brush into mulch in preparation of the massive planting of indigenous trees along the walkway come winter, he said.

Plantings will include live and water oaks, cypress, hackberry, green ash and red maple, Fortier said. The removal of invasive Chinese tallow trees will continue.

With reforestation of the refuge's forest area will come the return of neo-tropical migratory song birds and other wildlife, he said. Also anticipated is the purchase of about 1,500 acres that make up a portion of nearby land and marsh called Brazilier Island, Fortier said.

For information about the refuge and boardwalk, call (985) 882-2000.

Of gators and misconceptions

As a child growing up in New England, I always had this image of Louisiana similar to the ones seen in movies: all swamp and alligators everywhere. When I moved down here over 30 years ago, my ill informed image was put to rest. Louisiana, like every other state in the union, has much of the sameness as other states (walmarts, interstates, jails, etc)and it has sooo much that is awesomely unique.

With the help of NOLA columnist Ron Thibodeaux (tib-a-doe) let's explore some of the misconceptions.Here's the link and here's an exerpt:


When you live in a place as gloriously unique as South Louisiana, it's inevitable to come across some glaring misconceptions from outsiders.

We've all heard them, from the nominally misguided to the patently absurd. As we revel in what makes our home unique, it becomes our duty to set the record straight.

No, just dousing a piece of meat or some other dish with pepper doesn't qualify it as Cajun.



Yes, there is more to Mardi Gras than women showing off their, um, attributes to get beads.



And no, we don't have to fend off alligators as we go about our everyday lives down here.



Over the years we have come to embrace the alligator, figuratively at least, as a state mascot of sorts, an indigenous creature possessed of a mystique that leaves visitors agape.

They can appear ferocious, but many who come in contact with them in the wilds of the Louisiana swamps and bayous know that, unlike their more aggressive cousin the crocodile, most alligators tend to be more skittish of us than we are of them.



The bloodthirsty feeding frenzy by the world's press after Katrina helped plant yet more misconceptions about S.E. Louisiana to the world. True to their colors, the press went after the dirty, gory sensational stories because that's the stuff that sells. They ignored the thousands of people who were just trying to survive while Kathleen Blanco bumbled along and Ray Nagin slowly lost his mind (he's STILL got a slow leak up there somewhere......)

But I digresss.

From yet another article in the T.P. following the gator attack in Slidell last week, some stats:
When an alligator turns up in St. Tammany Parish, sheriff's Deputy Howard McCrea, 61, is the man who gets the call.

He's been doing it for years, pulling gators out of waterways all across the parish. But he had never seen anything like Wednesday's attack on Devin Funck

A national study found in 2005 that only two attacks on people had occurred in Louisiana between 1948 and 2004, compared with 334 attacks and 14 fatalities in Florida. The report stated that numbers might be skewed because of poor documentation.

In 2005, a 12-year-old girl in Venice lost several fingers from a gator bite. In 2007 a 30-year-old woman swimming in Lake Charles was bitten on her buttocks, state Wildlife and Fisheries officials said.

After being hunted nearly to extinction, alligators were listed as an endangered species in 1973. Since then, the population has rebounded along the Gulf Coast, coinciding with suburban sprawl that has placed homes closer to alligator habitats.

McCrea said he enjoys the showmanship of his trade. Sporting camouflage fatigues complete with a glow-in-the-dark alligator logo, he visits classrooms and hands out laminated business cards embedded with pieces of alligator scale.



Mr. McCrea lives in my neighborhood in Slidell. Ten years ago he ran a rescue refuge on his property where he took in gators who had been abused by teenagers and rednecks: gators whose eyes had been shot out, on leg cut off, etc. He also
housed other abused wild animals there. On Sundays he would offer tours to the public of his refuge where a well trained racoon would entertain the crowd. It was very touching, actually to see this ex Marine tough guy (who wouldn't let the high school kids who rode on his school bus to talk in transit) taking care of these huge, potentially life threatening creatures with such tender care but with his years of experience and gator knowledge always in the forefront. The refuge has since closed to the public, but I'll never forget how impressed I was with someone who - until then - I thought was just a big old macho ex marine.

Take this if you have to evacuate

a truely beautiful post
from a truely beautiful Maitri with quotes from a BigEZBear

Thanks, Katrina

St. Tammany Parish Deputy Howard McCrea, THE wildlife specialist with the parish, has seen his share of alligators in the past 20+ years. He's spent his entire life tracking and wrangling alligators, said that while he spends most of his time in the Slidell area rounding up the creatures, the incident that occurred this week is the first actual attack.

“The last incident I can recall is a guy getting his finger bitten off when he was feeding a gator,” said McCrea. “These are very territorial animals, and as we move more and more into their territory, the greater the risks of something like this happening.”

McCrea noted that the area’s alligator population has experienced a huge surge in the last three years........since Katrina.

~~~~~~~

The little boy who was attacked by the eleven foot gator, Devin Funck of Slidell, is still in intensive care but has been taken off a ventilator and has been able to speak with with his parents, said Dr. Leron Finger, medical director of Ochsner Flightcare and a pediatric intensivist. Though attempts to reattached Funck's arm were not successful, he is otherwise expected to make a full recovery in the coming months, Finger said.

"Devin and his family's courage during this difficult time has been an inspiration to the entire Ochsner staff," he said.

What should also be noted is the incredible efforts by two St. Tammany Parish Deputies who responded to the attack.

Detectives Ben Godwin and Gordon Summerlin had to be hospitalized for heat exhaustion after the alligator was captured and shot.

As St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Detective Ben Godwin recalls:

“I was in the subdivision doing an extra patrol in the area for drug-related activities when I overheard the dispatcher telling patrol units about a 911 call regarding a kid who got his arm bitten of by an alligator. It was a kid. We had to go,” Godwin said.

Godwin and his partner, Detective Gordon Summerlin, headed toward the pond and were flagged down by a New Orleans Police Department officer who lives in the subdivision. He told them they would have to take the levee to get to the pond.

“But when we got there, we got there blocked by a chain link fence and the kid was about a mile and a half in,” said Godwin. “All we could do was run. I grabbed a towel I had in my unit, and me and Gordon took off running. I made it to the kid first. He was out by the pond where the alligator attacked.

“I pulled him to the top of the levee. He had bad lacerations on his neck, and his arm was just gone. I wrapped him in the towel and ran back with him.”

The child, Devin Funck, was remarkably calm, said Godwin. The detectives worked to keep him that way, and to keep him alive.

“I kept the towel over him,” said Godwin. “I didn’t want him to see his arm. He talked about paint ball. And he said he was thirsty. I told him I had a Mountain Dew back in the unit, but he couldn’t have all of it because I needed some, too.”

Godwin kept running through the heat of the afternoon. Funck started to turn pale.

“I kept him talking,” said Godwin. “If he’s talking he’s breathing. And he was thinking. He was making sense.”

When they were part way back from the pond, some help arrived.

“A civilian on a mule, a four-wheeler, was coming toward us as I was running back,” said Godwin. “He picked us up and drove us the rest of the way to where the fire department and medical personnel were.

“When we made it back, medical personnel took the kid, and the next thing I knew I woke up in the emergency room.”

The detective suffered a heat stroke. His partner ended up in the emergency room as well. Summerlin was dehydrated.

As tragic as this story is, it tells of what 99% of all law enforcement officers face on a daily basis and of their dedication to their duties.

Many thanks to Officers Godwin and Summerlin. Y'all rock.

Keep going, Lee

Nagin is such a son of a bitch.

I hope this is the beginning of the end for him

NOAH inverview with Lee Zurik.