<font color="blue"> I just got word this afternoon that our deployment is delayed until Rita passes. The man from the Dept. of Emergency Management informed me that Rita will only make the conditions worse (DUH!) and to expect "primitive living conditions" (double DUH!). </font>
Bonehead, good luck when you get there, I really wish you the best in your efforts.
My guys are down there now riding out Rita, fortunately they are in an area that is about 2' above sea level and based on everything I hear (I get updates 3 times a day) there is no danger of flood where they are. Unfortunately the building they are working to get back up and running lost a portion of its roof in Katrina and the patches are not holding. My guys have pretty good living condtions, they are staying in travel trailers . . . at least they are for now, who knows if those will be blown away by Rita /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif One of the big things that I get reports of are that the whole area is in need of skilled workers and because there is really no housing left standing (along the whole coast) that there is nowhere for the skilled workers to live. The economies of many areas are in shambles, even if the businesses survived, many of then cannot get workers because the workers lost their homes. I fear that many businesses will go bankrupt not from storm damage but because they can't get employees or customers because those folks have no place to live. I've spent time today with folks from New York to Ohio to Michigan to Texas working on getting some equipment and installation crews shipped down to a warehouse in N.O. and then get people to volunteer to go down and train the workers how to use it. A lot of the businesses that are trying to reopen are now bussing workers in from Baton Rogue every day. No question that Rita is really going to screw up everything down there and simply make the situation much worse. The gulf shores will have to be rebuilt for a few hundred miles, while my guys are working on a food distribution warehouse to get that back up and running, I really wonder about the areas where the population is sparce and the news reporters don't broadcast from. . . those areas may never get the aid they need.
