A friend of mine lives in New Orleans and has started sending me these emails. I am posting it as is, with personal information editted out.

It's Thursday morning and I finally figured out how to email my entire address book. So, I wanted to let you know that I'm fine and my family (including our two cats and our fish) is fine. We evacuated early (4 am) Sunday morning and have been in Baton Rouge since, staying with friends. We know our house was fine yesterday (two broken windows, no water) but we're not sure what happened once the levees breached (we know the street now is flooded and don't think the water is that deep).