Scoop’s Views

When Hurricane Katrina was heading toward New Orleans, Louisiana just over three years ago, many residents were shoo’ing off warning to evacuate the city and other areas. In the case of Hurricane Gustav, estimates were for severe flooding and possible levy breaks. In essence, pretty much a repeat of Hurricane Katrina. Fortunately, for taxpayers around country, as well as residents of the areas where the hurricane made landfall, the hurricane didn’t live up to its projections.

With Hurricane Ike bearing down on the South Texas to Louisiana coast, evacuation orders for many towns have been issued, including in Galveston, Texas, which saw 16,000 people die in a hurricane in 1901. Galveston now has 15-foot storm walls to protect the city, which is basically bowl-shaped, but the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service are saying storm surges could be as high as 20 feet – five feet over the storm walls.

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Hurricane Gustav is going to hit the United States unless there’s an act of divine intervention. Short of a miracle from Heaven, all computer predictions are showing Hurricane Gustav will hit somewhere along the Gulf Coast, anywhere from Pensacola, Florida on the Eastern side to Houston, Texas on the West.

Unless Hurricane Gustav’s path is suddenly diverted, or unless Hurricane Gustav falls apart and becomes little more than a tropical storm or depression, it’s more than likely at least one of the many oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico will receive some damage, but likely all of the platforms will be closed down in advance of the storm.

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In the Prince George County jail, Ronnie White, 19, who was being held in solitary confinement at Prince George’s County Correctional Center the died of strangulation and asphyxiation — meaning someone strangled him to death — but he also had two broken bones in his neck, according to autopsy findings. When a person is in solitary confinement, access is restricted, and only a few guards have access to the prisoners. In this case, no one knows what happened. Supposedly.

A few hundred miles north, in Brooklyn, New York — the bastion of manners and friendliness, to be sure — a woman died on the floor of the Kings County Hospital emergency room on June 19, 2008, after she keeled over and fell out out of her chair, landing face down on the floor. She thrashed about on the floor for awhile, then became still, emergency room video shows. In this case, no one, including other patients and people in the emergency room, including what appears to be another woman who was siting across from the 49-year-old deceased woman, did anything to help the woman — even after she collapsed to the floor.

In Missouri Illinois, a young guy, named Nicholas Sheley, 28, is being sought as a “person of interest” in the murders of at least several people. Police are wondering if the murders are the work of a serial killer.

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