Don't know how many New Orleans / gulfside Louisiana/Mississippi Dumpshockers we have among us; but to all those who are there or who have family or friends there, my thoughts are with you.

(Readers and/or admins: turn into a more directly SR-related topic or close, as you see fit, but this needed posting.)

Talia, your sentiments are greatly appreciated. We live in Baton Rouge (60 miles from New Orleans), but luckily picked this weekend to stay with friends who live in the northwestern most corner of Louisiana. They have graciously offered my wife, daughter and I a place to stay until the hurricane has passed. I'll be sure and let the board know how things progress down here.

Hurricanes: good or bad times to stage a shadowrun?

Does Seattle ever get some hurricane lovin'?

~J

i would say bad, and i dont think so, not that i ever remember hearinf of atleast

Hurricanes and typhoons tend to hit the west side of their water of origin at tropical latitudes. Seattle's got too much north and too much east to have a significant chance of getting hit by a natural typhoon. (an unnatural typhoon on the other hand...)

Why do you say bad, out of interest?

~J

I'd say that any time you risk a 25D wound* from flying building materials is a bad time to do much of anything.

*inspired by the vehicle collision rules, but not actually calculated

Storms like hurricanes in places like acid rain-ed Seattle is bad news. Can you say more background count? Most commercial installations are concentrated on detecting intruders and dealing with them in the facility, unlike military installations which are usually more dangerous outside their perimeter.

i say bad purely on the fact that right now, people arent exactly being encouraged to head to the gulf coast, ANYWHERE...

Seriously, if you're in NO and actually reading this, get the fuck out. NOAA's giving something that reads like Revelations as a warning (here) PM me if you can make it to Little Rock, I'll put you up free of charge.

EDIT: Aku, NO is under a mandatory evac, and using the Superdome as an emergency shelter.

Dear Lord, may the French Quarter be spared the wrath of the storm. You can nuke Algiers, though. Amen.

If you're making a raid on a zero-zone, I can't think of a better time.

Mind, if you don't have a few mages with appropriate protecting spells, a few solid vehicles, and a stockpile of emergency supplies, it's probably a bad idea.

Edit: Let's not exaggerate. It says light trucks "will be moved". A roadmaster probably won't budge, and a good Rigger with a VCR-3 will probably still be able to drive (if slowly).

~J

Well, yeah, its not so much that you can drive, it's what's gonna hit that Roadmaster while on the road. I didn't think of the mage angle here, that would help a lot. I still wouldn't want to be around it when the flooding hits, especially down there.

First off... I really hope that everyone in the area is either gone or sitting inside the Superdome in New Orleans.

on an SR note, this is more on the order of the kind of destruction seen by "freak storms" right after the awakening. Personally, I don't think doing anything anywhere near this is a good idea. "anyone facing these winds will be killled" pretty much an exact quote. I don't care how much body armor you have a stove flying at you at 100 mph is going to hurt. A lot.

Live feeds from WWL in 'Nawlins: here

Coulden't you just get an elemental to help you get around. Maby a Wind &/or Water one to shield you from the effects?

I was thinking a greatfrom storm spirit of high enough level would suffice, but it still wouldn't be fun.

Based on the precedent set by the amazing reach of the guard power when used by spirits of the water, a storm spirit should be able to guard against direct dangers from lightning and wind. However, a plate of glass traveling 120km/h is an indirect danger from the wind and a falling tree can be an indirect danger from the lightning.

Does anybody know if the local power company shuts down during a hurricane? I'm asking because I saw a repoter earlier today in NO standing almost knee deep in water on a street with street lights. Some of my co-workers and I thought that if the power is still running that he was asking to be made extra crispy.

Considering the number of people who are electrocuted after the fact -- and the reports of electricity failing (not being switched off) beforehand -- I'd say probably not.

Hong Kong -- shudder. That's a place already all too prone to landslides. Even where building codes are enforceable, there is little that can be done if the entire slope comes down upon you.

But the worst of a hurricane's damage often is really seen only afterwards, as the floodwaters slowly recede (or don't, where pumps are needed), the people who had been forgotten about in what constitutes a mandatory evacuation are found (insert expletive), and the effects of lost infrastructure start to become apparent.

hocus Pocus is in NO. goddess willing he and his family are way the hell out of Dodge. the evening news just showed what is going on. 2 dykes were breached this morning. What didn't seem so bad is getting so so much worse. Areas with a few inches of rain water yesterday, have feet of lake water today. It is 3-4 feet deep outside the Superdome where people lined up to get in on sunday (anyone remember the bugcity dome?)The belief is that electricity will not be back for 4-6 WEEKS.

There are looters running wild in NO and there is nothing the police can do. they are out numbered. if they arrest someone they have no where to put them and the police cars are running out of gas.

The main roads are gone. Most are underwater, one elevated highway, #10 I think , is a wreck, with whole sections of elevated road pushed off to the side. The only way inor out is by boat or helocopter-no planes, the airfields are underwater.

It is going to much much worse before it gets better.

Re hocus pocus: any friend-in-common who can confirm if they made it out? or at least know a RL name?

(It's not a "near miss" when east and north is where the major threat is, because that's where the NO levees are lowest. And east and north is where the dominant wind ended up coming from.)

Most of the police don't want to harm or arrest for looting based on food and water, basic needs. Anyone who is trying to take anything else hasn't thought this through. In the absence of transportation, gas, and infrastructure, expensive electronics is just so much scrap.

Snow_Fox: please, let me know if you hear anything.

(I don't think I'll ever look at SR-canon Fulton Stadium the same way again.)

You guys are pretty spot on with what is going on down here. Only it's worse than what you are seeing on the news.

Baton Rouge is what you have to keep your eyes on now. We are at about +30% population due to the influx of refugees from NO, and that number keeps getting higher. A lot of food and gasoline supplies are dwindling and a handfull of the neighboring towns are completely out of fuel.

Keep watching the news...things will come to a head here this weekend.

Ronin, let us know if you and your family need help taking care of people, I could certainly donate for supplys and such.

On that note, if any Dumpshockers are living in the afflicted areas and need help during or after the emergency, they should definitely ask for it. I don't think anyone here would hesitate to help a fellow DSer.

If posting a public plea for help makes anyone uncomfortable for whatever reason, I'm open to being PMed.

Two dijks were breached.

Actually, both spellings have both meanings.

~J

And for the record, down here we call it a levee (rhymes with Chevy).

i think i was with you

Them good ole boys were drinking their whiskey and Rye, saying this'll be the day that i die...

Crying won't help you. Praying won't do you no good. When the levee breaks, mama, you've got to move.

A story of survival

What's really sickening are the people who are taking potshots at the rescue choppers.


I mean, if you're trapped in ground zero, hey, waddya gonna do? You havta eat, you havta drink, and you havta find some TP somewhere. So you pilliage it. It'll be good practice for if the world goes post-apoc.

But shooting at the rescue choppers... That just blows my mind.

Yeah, so they've pulled the boats and the choppers. Way to go.

I haven't seen it, but have they declared martial law in NO yet? I'm thinking the marines roll a few armoroed amphibious units in and there will be no more potshots....

And how many of you here play your characters as habitually gaining what they want out of other people by threatening them with weapons?

What is wanted, here, is escape. In many of those potshot cases, the person's families are explicitly mentioned.

Edit: and Eldritch, not yet. And I'm thinking it won't, not if it's at all avoidable. That's a dangerous bridge to cross, and I think the federal administration will try to avoid it if at all possible.

Assumptions about human nature aren't any different in a roleplaying game than in real life. They just usually happen to come out more visibly, more nakedly, in a roleplaying game which strips us of our civilised masks. Most of us aren't usually in a situation where these kinds of things are real : and so we have the luxury of civilised trappings, and start to think that's not only the norm, but the only possibility between rational individuals. But anyone who's ever been through a war will know just how thin a barrier exists between everyday security and the realities that take over when you pass bodies on the streets.

I had been expecting something like this to happen -- at least in part because I was watching how casually exactly parallel situations were discussed in a game. In both cases, the assumption is that the person who holds the power (the gun) gets to have their way.

I get the feeling that some of the shooters may be militia types, who see the local martial law declarations to be the final act of government takeover. So they're "fighting back."

Good grief.

Perhaps the gunshots were desperate attempts to get attention and get rescued?

Say you're trapped in the 2nd floor of your house or your attic. You're obviously hot and uncomfortable, but now you're running out of food and water and sitting in your own filth. Now add that you might have maybe some relatives, perhaps a young'un.

You wish you would have bought batteries for your radios. Or you wish you put the batteries in the attic instead of in your 1st floor kitchen which is under 10 feet of toxic water that you've been crapping in. At least with a working radio, you'd have some idea of where you might go.

You see helicopters for the past few days rescue people and you think "ok, my turn soon". But then they keep picking up the other guy and the other family. You start to get desperate. You think if I don't do something, my kid or wife or mother or brother might die. Maybe you have a diabetic relative and is starting to enter a coma. All the insulin degraded because there's no refrigeration. Or god forbid you have a relative that's already dead.

You keep seeing helicopters but they keep bypassing you. Are they ignoring you? They keep going straight to that hospital (even though they're not rescue copters without winches or that they're ferries for wounded to the hospital). They're choppers and you saw other choppers resucing people. You need rescuing and fast.

You look around your house. Hmm, a handgun for protection. Six bullets. Next time a helicopter makes a flyby, you fire into the air to get their attention. No response (esp since noone in a chopper would even hear it). Well you have 5 rounds left and you might need to save some from those nasty gators you keep seeing swimming around eyeing your comatose relative. You have to get someone's attention.

Ok, a bullet hole in their helicopter is pretty damn hard to ignore. Maybe you'll get arrested, maybe the chopper will crash, but someone will come and maybe then you'll get some attention. An air conditioned jail cell is beginning to look better than the hell on earth you've been going through for the past 4 days and at least they can save your innocent relatives.

'course it could have just been some idiots firing at a helicopter, but it could be something much more tragic.

Jhsiao, they've had roaming bands of armed young men raping women and shooting anyone else. And they specifically said snipers, like he was shooting at the pilots.


You do not, DO NOT, shoot a firearm at something you do not mean to kill. I can understand firing a shot in the air to flag down help, but not shooting AT the chopper.