‘New Orleans is sinking ... I don’t want to swim’

OK, it’s official, Katrina is beginning to knock on our door.

We've already been without main power for about two hours ... no air conditioning ... flashlights to get around the building. Thankfully, no televisions turned to helmet-

haired weathercreatures yapping away about worst-case scenarios. Times-Picayune staffers huddled around a radio or gathered at the second-floor landing where there's a view of the newspaper's front drive circle.

The scene out the windows is frightening, and it's just beginning. Gusts slamming the big windows, and people reflexively ducking, knowing they've got to break. Trees whipping as if they're about to be uprooted.

There is a tooth-grinding whistle from the wind ... if it keeps up, I'm going to climb up there with my trusty duct tape. Here in the centre of the building the "hurricane bunker" there is more power ... enough generator power to keep our mission-critical computers going. Whether we'll keep connectivity is iffy.

Scanner traffic now is all about storm emergencies windows popping and frantic calls for help. People urged to move to interior hallways. Some structural collapses being reported ... police trying to aid victims ... didn't hear where this is occurring in New Orleans.

8.24am

NEW ORLEANS is sinking ... I don't want to swim.

The side of the Times-Picayune building facing the Pontchartrain Expressway has taken enough damage to cause some extra discomfort among those sheltered here.

Windows blown out in the third floor executive suite have lead to flooding through the ceiling into the company cafeteria Chez Picayune.

The cafeteria, which usually

features some pretty decent local

cuisine, this morning is dishing out simpler fare well-appreciated grits, bacon, biscuits and scrambled eggs. The line of employees and families are cramped in the lunch line, because most of the room is barricaded due to the ceiling leaks. Along the wall, where the lunchroom's huge windows are shuttered against the storm, leaks from the hurricane-driven monsoon are

cascading in a waterfall. A steamy

waterfall, since the air-conditioning has now been out for hours.

It's not the heat, it's the humidity. The heat comes later.

9am

BUILDING collapse reported on Laurel near Washington in the Garden District ... possibly with people inside. Emergency workers trying to see if they can get a

National Guard deuce-and-a-half to get through the storm for

possible rescue.

Listening to reports of windows blowing out ... most frantic calls about downtown hotels, where a number of windows have blown out. Guests huddling in halls. Water blowing in through windows, leaking through ceilings.

9.34am

REPORTS of widespread flooding now, although not at the doomsday scenario levels. But we've got several hours to go before we've seen the worst past. Scanner traffic is busy with calls of rising water, including 18 inches and rising against the levee in the French Quarter. Dispatchers questioning officers on the scene, trying to

determine if there is a break in the river levee, or if water is pouring over the top. Independently,

NOLA has received a flooding alert for the French Market area.

Heavy street flooding in front and behind the Times-Picayune ... water appears about knee-deep, whipped by the steady wind into whitecaps and breakers. Water is hubcap deep on the furthest

vehicles in the employee parking lot, and rising quickly.