NEW ORLEANS — It’s a major concern for the Crescent City, and on Tuesday night, city leaders and neighbors joined together to take a stand against crime.

A makeshift memorial set up in front of the 7th Ward home where a woman and her 13-year-old son were found shot to death early Monday morning added new urgency to the neighborhood’s annual Night Out Against Crime event, just a few doors down on Annette Street .

“We’re out here because this was a senseless, senseless murder and they say not in your backyard, but not on your front porch,” said neighbor Kevin Parker.

Over 265 Night Out Against Crime events were planned in the Crescent City on Tuesday. According to Superintendent Ronal Serpas, that’s the most since 2004. They’re aimed at strengthening communities by bringing neighbors and law enforcement officials together.

Continue at WWL

Killifish, a common bait fish found in Louisiana marshes, might have been affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010, a recent study said.

Conducted by a team of scientists from Louisiana State University and published in the Proceedings for the National Academy, the study found that the common Louisiana coast fish was “hurt severely by the spill and now is turning up deformed and may be unable to produce properly,” The Associated Press reported.

Though Louisiana’s seafood was approved for consumption more than a year ago, the killifish is used by area fisherman and they also are an important food source for other fish, including speckled trout and redfish.

“Sub-lethal” effects were found in the fish as they grew up, the study showed. According to the wire service, the fish are showing signs of damage even though the amount of oil in their tissues and in the water where they were sampled was low.

Continue at Beaumont Enterprise

Every morning is a new nightmare for Tanga Winstead.

After waking up, she walks outside to inspect the destruction left in the wake of the previous night’s crazed Caligulan scene.

Winstead knew she would have to put up with parking problems, noise, litter and the occasional drunk when she bought a house on Annunciation Street next door to Grit’s Bar and F and M’s Patio Bar.

That’s to be expected, she said. It’s New Orleans after all.

But she didn’t expect someone to draw penises on her car or people to defecate in her front yard like goats. She didn’t expect to see people having sex in the parking lot behind her house or to find used condoms, tampons and dirty underwear in her bushes.

Winstead has also had her car scratched, her license plate bent, $100 planter pots smashed and fronds ripped off her palm tree.

“One morning there was someone sleeping on my front stoop. He was literally using my step as a pillow,” Winstead said. “I nearly stepped on his head. I rue the day I bought this house.”

Enraged residents shared similar stories at a Sept. 13 community meeting. They presented Chris Hernandez, owner of Grit’s, and Trevor Palmer, owner of F and M’s, with a good neighbor agreement. Nicole Webre, who lives next to Grit’s and serves as legislative director for Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, drafted the document. The bar owner and the councilwoman are not related.

The bar owners were given two weeks to review and sign the contract. If they didn’t agree to the stipulations, which include increased security, lighting, noise abatement and video surveillance, the residents threatened to petition the city to impose sanctions or close down both establishments.

F and M’s and Grit’s entered into a consent judgment with the city in 2008 after neighbors lodged similar complaints. The decree required the bars regulate noise levels, pick up trash and hold monthly neighborhood meetings to address community concerns. Grit’s agreed to provide security details through the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff’s office or a professional security company.

Violations of the judgment would result in a $7,500 fine for the first offense and a 30-day suspension for the second.

The consent decree, however, has done little to solve the problem, said Ted Nass, who has lived next to Grit’s for eight years. Excessive noise continues to be a major problem in addition to the more outlandish incidents.

Nass said he has chased drunks out of his backyard cutting up lines of cocaine on his patio table and a couple having sex on his lawn. He even had a drunken bar patron park in his yard and then, hours later, attempt to drive through his fence only to pass out with his foot on the gas pedal after the vehicle got caught on a metal pole.

Two weeks ago, Nass woke up to find more than a dozen planks ripped from his wooden fence, just two years after the last incident. He has also lost several tenants who moved out of a nearby property he rents because they were too freaked out by the unhinged debauchery.

“I had two female law students living here and twice guys tried to break in the back door” Nass said. “One of the law students opened the door with a gun in her hand and the guy started arguing with her. ‘Hey, just let me in so I can sleep on your floor.’ It can be scary especially if you’re a woman home alone.”

Despite the new round of complaints, there is little chance residents will be successful closing the bars, said Justin Schmidt, attorney for F and M’s. Historically, the city only shuts down bars where there is widespread criminal activity that results in violence or murder, though there are exceptions.

In 1999, neighborhood complaints forced Audubon Tavern II to close but only after the bar had been cited repeatedly for violations such as underage drinking.

continue at New Orleans City Business

Many people think that the official motto of US Postal Service begins “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night,” and testifies to the dauntless of mailmen. In fact, the Postal Service has no motto – meaning the statement of purpose is free for others to use as their own. HuffPost Food would like to suggest an unlikely taker: Waffle House.

According to the Wall Street Journal’s Valerie Bauerline, the 62-year-old Southern food chain has a longstanding reputation for staying open during natural disasters. And if a storm is too intense to stay open straight through the worst of it, Waffle House has especially strong protocols for getting back online quickly. Bauerline explains:

Its hurricane playbook explains how to reopen a restaurant and what to serve if there is gas but no electricity, or a generator but no ice. An important element is limiting the menu so the company’s supply chain can focus on keeping certain items stocked and chilled or frozen.

Waffle House’s tenacity and preparedness are so watertight that FEMA Director Craig Fugate has joked that he watches a “Waffle House Index” of disaster magnitude. He can tell how bad a disaster’s been by how much of its menu Waffle House is serving. EHS Today specifies the exact parameters of the index, which gained credence when Washington University Business professor Panos Kouvelis conducted a study on the subject:

For example, if a Waffle House store is open and offering a full menu, the index is green. If it is open but serving from a limited menu, it’s yellow. When the location has been forced to close, the index is red. Because Waffle House is well prepared for disasters, Kouvelis said, it’s rare for the index to hit red. For example, the Joplin, Mo., Waffle House survived the tornado and remained open.

As FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate explained to the Wall Street Journal, “If you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That’s really bad. That’s where you go to work.”

The only other chains with comparable disaster management are Wal Mart, Lowe’s and the Home Depot — none of which serve pork chops or hash browns topped with chili.

From Huffington Post

Today and Tomorrow’s Forecast
Wednesday, Aug 31: 110 AQI Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups Particle Pollution (2.5 microns)
Thursday, Sep 1: 90 AQI Moderate Particle Pollution (2.5 microns)

Today, smoke from the marsh fire will enhance ozone and particle production in the New Orleans area. In addition, sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-90s will support the formation of ozone. These conditions, combined with carryover from yesterday, will lead to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups AQI levels for particles. Tomorrow and Friday, a low-pressure system will move into southern Louisiana from the south, producing mostly cloudy skies and moderate easterly winds. These weather conditions will limit ozone formation and disperse pollutants. However, continued smoky conditions, warm temperatures, and high pollutant carryover will lead to mid to high-Moderate AQI levels on both days.

DEQ is forecasting a PM2.5 Action Day for the New Orleans metropolitan area. Smoke from a burning marsh fire near I-10 and I-510 will cause poor air quality in the New Orleans metropolitan area. This Action Day may be extended depending on the fire and weather conditions.

The Air Quality Index indicates that particles will be at the orange level, which is unhealthy for sensitive groups. Increasing particle levels may cause unhealthy air quality during afternoon hours. Active children and adults, the elderly and people with respiratory diseases, such as asthma, should avoid prolonged outdoor activities and exertion.

from katc

Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appeared on the CBS Early Show Friday morning to offer his advice to those preparing for Hurricane Irene. In the interview conducted by Chris Wragge, he referred several times to his experiences during Hurricane Katrina to make his points.

After saying “95 to 96 percent” of citizens evacuated New Orleans before the storm, he advised those who live in low-lying areas to take the threat seriously. He said riding out the storm was “one of the biggest mistakes our citizens made.”

Continue reading and watch video at TP

Forecasters don’t expect Hurricane Irene to make landfall until Saturday. But for nearly a week now, big-box retailers like Walmart and Home Depot have been getting ready.

They’ve deployed hundreds of trucks carrying everything from plywood to Pop-Tarts to stores in the storm’s path. It’s all possible because these retailers have turned hurricane preparation into a science — one that government emergency agencies have begun to embrace.

At Home Depot’s Hurricane Command Center in Atlanta, for example, about 100 associates have been trying to anticipate how Irene will affect its East Coast stores from the Carolinas to New York.

At times like this, the Command Center looks much like NASA Mission Control during a shuttle launch, says Russ Householder, the company’s emergency-response captain.

“We’ve got all the key news agencies on the big screens up front,” he says. “We’re also monitoring our store sales so we can better be in tune to what’s happening in our stores, and we’re also connected live one-on-one with district managers in the impacted areas.”

Preparing For Emergencies

Those district managers have been focusing on stocking a short list of items, Householder says, including generators, chain saws, water and tarps.

Householder says those supplies are flowing to stores because of a process that began months ago, at the beginning of hurricane season.

“We take storm product, both pre- and post-strike product, we stage those in containers and we have them in our distribution centers, really ready for a driver to pull up and pick up and take them to our stores,” he says.

The system got a stress test a few days ago when Irene struck Puerto Rico, causing widespread power outages. Householder says Home Depot stores switched to emergency generators.

“All stores opened up the day after the storm came through,” he says. “We opened up on time and we were there, ready and waiting for our customers.”

Continue at NPR

The oldest female Southern white rhino in the world lives at Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.

Macite is 48 years old. She’s been at Audubon Zoo since 1998, when animal experts added her to Audubon’s group in a successful effort to stimulate breeding between the established pair of the group, Saba and Yvonne.

“Yvonne and Saba just weren’t breeding,” said Audubon Zoo general curator Rick Dietz. “But when Macite joined the group, she stirred things up enough to get some activity going, and Yvonne produced a baby in 2003.”

Today, Macite is on supplements for arthritis, but otherwise shows little evidence of her advancing years. Curators hope she continues to ignite sparks between Saba and Yvonne.

“Another birth would be a significant contribution to the white rhino population,” said Dietz. “Even though Macite has no offspring of her own, she has played a major role in helping her species survive.”

Southern white rhinos live about 45 years in zoos. A male rhino in Germany holds the world record as the oldest white rhino in the world at 53 years of age.

Native to Africa, increasing numbers of white rhinos are encouraging to conservationists, as rhinos rebounded from a dangerously small population a century ago to more than 15,000 today.

Macite, Yvonne and Saba are all seen at Audubon Zoo’s African Savanna exhibit.

From ouramazingplanet

It’s not your average commuter coach.

The conspicuous bright baby blue and pink bus that will be traveling through parts of New Orleans is the new Mom & Baby mobile health center and looks exactly like a doctor’s office.

The mobile health center is part of an initiative between the Interim LSU Public Hospital and the March of Dimes to provide prenatal and gynecological care in Mid-City, Bayou District (the former St. Bernard housing development) and the Upper 9th Ward.

At a ribbon-cutting Tuesday, health officials announced that the mobile center will visit each area once a week for two-day periods and will provide services to women, mothers and children up to 2  years old. Services include screenings, prenatal and postpartum care, gynecological exams and immunizations.

Dr. Roxane Townsend, CEO of Interim LSU Public Hospital, said it’s important that women start their prenatal care the “right way” to ensure better outcomes for their children. Townsend said moving closer to the neighborhoods where services are needed is a part of helping women reach that goal.

“We want people to get the right kind of care as close to home as possible,” Townsend said. “We’re going to make sure the next generation of Louisianians have a better start.”

Continue at the TP

NEW ORLEANS — The use of lead pipes was outlawed decades ago, but according to the Environmental Protection Agency, New Orleans has an undetermined amount of lead pipes connecting water mains to homes. The agency also says New Orleans is the only city in the state of Louisiana with this type of lead pipe infrastructure.

Dr. Howard Mielke, the scientist who uncovered lead contamination in soil, conducted a water quality study before Hurricane Katrina and says that he found the water was safe.”Well within limits,” said Mielke. “And we had very sensitive equipment and we were able to do the analysis of water samples at that time.”

“There is good evidence out of Washington, D.C., that this is a fairly corrosive combination,” said Mielke. “The problem of very small particles of lead ending up in water. That would be missed by simply taking a water sample. There are particles of lead that come in with the water.”

Continue at WDSU