This hurricane season brought an above average number of storms, and Mexico, with storms on both coasts, can attest that it ain’t over yet.   Tropical Storm Marco, approaching hurricane strength, touched down in the east, forcing evacuations of schools and oil platforms near Veracruz.   Fortunately, no major damage has been reported yet.   And in the west, Hurricane Norbert moves northeast growing in strength, and is expected to touchdown around the Baja Peninsula around Saturday.

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Inconvenient Truth of the Day

Photo: Washington Post

Here at takepart, we’ve been covering the devastation caused by the hurricanes rushing across the country this season, as it seems they’ll never stop wreaking havoc.  Indeed, the destruction caused on the ground can’t even be summed up by words such as “terrible,” or “tragedy.”  What is so remarkable, then, is how beautiful these disasters look from above.  Indeed, look at this photo of Hurricane Isabel, taken aboard the International Space Station (photo courtesy NASA):

It’s actually somewhat breathtaking.  Well, over at The Boston Globe, they’ve compiled a series of several pictures of hurricanes that NASA has taken from space. Read the rest of this entry >>

Allyson Kapin wrote a fabulous piece for Fast Company about Andy Carvin’s new project: The Hurricane Information Center which includes that hurricanes08.org and the wiki hurricanewiki.org. Combined, they  houses the latest information on hurricanes threatening the US and what you can do to help.

Carvin is the social media strategist at NPR and some of his friends that helped build the site include Craigslist founder, Craig Newmark who promoted the site and Deanna Zandt, a media technologist for progressive and grassroots activist organizations was instrumental in developing the wiki.

Essentially, we’ve got the wiki as our reference desk, our social network as our operations center and our Twitter feeds as our news wire service, Carvin told Kapin.

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Baton Rouge is slowing recovering from the paralysis caused by Hurricane Gustav damage. The photo above is of a dear friend’s house. He and his wife are back at work, his children are back at school, but they won’t be moving home for quite some time. The rental market in Baton Rouge (particularly for families) is incredibly tight right now, and the surrounding areas are further behind with recovery and have even fewer options.

The city is in the transition phase from the sprint to get life functioning again and the marathon to getting life back to normal. For instance, commute times are close to twice as long as normal becuase so many street lights remain either completely out or blinking. My family said that the feeling around town is very strange: you’re happy to have your electricity back, but you’re saddened to see the brush piles, destroyed homes, tarped roofs, and food lines. Updates below:

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Carl Pope, the Executive Director of the Sierra Club, wrote an amazing piece on the Huffington Post about Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Gustav’s impact on policy, infrastructure and government responsibility.

Here is the beginning of the piece:

Three years ago Katrina devastated New Orleans and upended American politics. Gustav has proved to be kinder, at least so far, to the Crescent City and to the Gulf Coast in general, but it was still a sobering reminder of some basic truths. Its impact on politics remains to be seen.

Truth 1: Hurricanes are big; nature is bigger. Natural systems, not engineered ones, are the only defenses big enough to rely on in a big storm. Hurricanes get their energy from passing over heated water and lose it when they hit land. Storm surge builds in open water but dissipates rapidly in coastal wetlands or barrier islands. One acre of wetlands typically absorbs one million gallons of water.

South Louisiana is in such big trouble because we allowed its wetlands to be starved — courtesy of the Army Corps of Engineers — of the natural silt and sand that fed them and because they were then opened up to storm surge and erosion — courtesy of oil and gas drilling. Our first priority on the Gulf Coast after immediate recovery needs to be wetlands restoration. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before the coastal regions become uninhabitable or vanish beneath the waves.

Read the rest of this entry >>

Hurricane Ike pummeled Cuba today killing 4 people and causing millions to evacuate their homes. Ike is trailing the disastrous Gustav.

A few hours ago, Ike tore thought Havana, damaging historic buildings and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee.

Ike is heading towards the Gulf of Mexico and it may reach Texas early Saturday.

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Hope is back to coming once a day

The Hurricane Gustav saga continues, but there are signs of hope around Baton Rouge. My brother sent me this photo and I thought it was pretty funny, so I called him. He was trying to make the point that life is slowly returning to Baton Rouge and the hope is contagious - even if it’s just the mail being delivered to houses without power. Hurricane Ike is moving into the Gulf right now; while no one would ever wish a disaster on someone else, the thought of another hurricane pounding the area is keeping things in Baton Rouge tense. In classic Louisiana fashion, locals are jokingly calling it “Hurricane Yikes” and hoping it fizzles out. The revised path has the storm barely missing Louisiana, but no one is taking any chances.

If you look closely in the photo you can see the now-ubiquitous brush piles lining the road and the iconic blue FEMA tarp on the roof in the upper right corner. Lines at FEMA sites are still long (photo below), but more and more people are returning to work or settling into temporary accomodations while their homes are repaired. Photos and updates about traffic, gas stations, schools, and more after the jump: Read the rest of this entry >>

Delivering meals to shelter evacuees in Plaquemines, LA

There are still thousands of Hurricane Gusav evacuees living in shelters in and around the Baton Rouge area. My brother Jordan (if you’ve been following our coverage, he’s becoming quite the online content creator) sent me these pictures from the front lines of the relief effort. Feeding evacuees, relief volunteers, and first responders in from other states to help is a huge part of the relief effort. Churches, companies, and NGOs work to keep everyone fed throughout the weeks and months they’ll be on the ground helping or in shelters waiting for electricity to be restored or homes to be rebuilt.

The pictures are from a feeding shelter in Plaquemines, LA across the river from Baton Rouge. Dow Chemical employees prepared 500 meals that were sent to evacuees in Point Coupee parish northwest fo the city. Even in dreary times like this, Louisiana’s spirit and culture shines through. The meals prepared today were jambalaya and red beans and rice, classic staples of Louisiana Cajun/Creole cuisine. Most Louisiana food has the advantage of being scalable to cook for large (or in this case, VERY large) groups of people very easily. Additionally, if you’re in a shelter with your family worried about rebuilding your home and Hurricane Ike in the Gulf, some Louisiana comfort food goes a long way. Read the rest of this entry >>

It’s been one week since Hurricane Gustav made landfall and devastated south Louisiana. We apologize for the brief interruption in posts; TakePart will continue to do our best to cover the effects and relief efforts from the storm, even if the national media won’t. As you can see in the video above, cleaning up all the limbs, trees, and debris remains most people’s daily routine, and desperately wishing you had your electricity (aka air conditioning and perishable food) back remains a popular past time. Brush piles up to 10 feet high line most streets in older Baton Rouge neighborhoods.

Just how much debris did Hurricane Gustav create in Baton Rouge? The parish created a 30 day plan for removing all debris. However, with Hurricane Ike looming just outside the Gulf of Mexico, the parish has speeded up the plan to less than a week. If the piles were to remain uncollected, they could turn into dangerous projectiles if Baton Rouge were unfortunate enough to be hit with another deadly hurricane. More updates and pictures after the jump.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

TakePart Gang:

Participant Media Takes Burning Man by Blair Golson

Hurricane Gustav: Photo Update by Joshua Tremblay

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Nicole Hughes:

Top 5 Tips for Biking to Work

Obama Acceptance Speech: Green Energy Highlights

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Andy Kondrat:

A Survey of the Top 10 Greenest Presidents

HP Designs Laptop for Wal-Mart, Reduces 97% of Packaging

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Jon Popham:

Open Mic Reveals Right-Leaning Journalists’ Real Views

Comcast Appeals FCC Net Neutrality Decision

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Giulia Rozzi:

Getting What You Want

Female Amputee Competes in Beijing Olympics

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Gina Telaroli:

Heart Not Happy with Sarah “Barracuda” Palin

Top 10 Cancer Movies That’ll Make You Stand Up