This is from my friend Bevis who stayed in NOLA

I am alive, arguably tougher than any of you all...

I got out today, Sept. 1st, from the worst of all possible worlds. If any of you that don't know me personally saw the tattooed freak on CNN days ago, that was me.

Yes, I rode out the storm, that was the easy part. The hard part was living through the hell that New Orleans became after the fact. MAKE NO MISTAKE, WHAT THE NEWS IS TELLING YOU IS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO THE RAMPANT ANARCHY AND CHAOS THAT IS AND WAS NEW ORLEANS.

Some reasons why:

Roving packs of weapon weilding marauders killing and looting everything in sight.
No power, making the French Quarter wonderful for the first night, a TOTAL NIGHTMARE the next.
Destruction on a level only rivalled by Iraq, SERIOUSLY.
Corpses floating in most parts of the city.
The heat, good lord, the heat...
Police essentially forming gangs of their own, sleepless and out of control.
The military having turf wars in every parish, leaving yet more corpses and scaring the shit out of everyone.
Crazed militia-type behavior from people that you always knew were on the verge, turning them into assholes too ready to kill than help their fellow man.
The stench of organic rot and the imminent threat of diseases long thought extinct.
And many more things I can't bear to tell you all right now for fear of giving you all the cold sweats, I mean it.

Imagine "Apocalypse Now", mix in a generous portion of "28 Days Later", it doesn't even come close. This is something that you will never undestand unless you were there. I am in serious shock, yet somehow calm in the knowledge that I LIVED THROUGH IT.

Yeah, I didn't even know I was that crazy... But I'm not stupid, so I am in Lafayette for a couple of days in sanctuary, then possibly to Texass, who knows....

I kept a storm journal, the results of which will be posted as soon as I have enough p.c. time and the stomach to relive it that long.

Whatever you do, DO NOT GO THERE UNTIL IT IS UNIVERSALLY AGREED THAT IT IS SAFE.

Death rules that place and all that dared to stay any longer...

I am deeply and sincerely touched by the communication I have received as a result of my descent into madness, much love to you all...