CROSSPOSTING from my yahoo group:
With all the concern about New Orleans taking the brunt of Hurricane Gustav, it appears that Baton Rouge, an area where shelters SENT their evacuated animals, is far worse off than their coastal brethren.
We were very concerned about the Magic Happens Rabbit Rescue in that area (among others), but they have now updated their site and they managed to weather the storm so far with no bunny losses, although they did sustain some damage and they do have a few more things to check.
Shelters all over East Baton Rouge must be having major problems without power, but this will be especially bad for the rabbits, so anybody in the area, please keep an eye open.
If anybody wants to help out Magic Happens, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it. If you can donate to their Paypal account, the link is on their homepage, at
http://www.magichappensrescue.com
They were in the middle of acquiring a building for a shelter and have a building fund in place. Any donations between now and September 15 will be matched by a generous donor to a max of $500.
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AP reports: “Louisiana’s capital city region could go three weeks before electricity is completely restored because Hurricane Gustav mowed down so many transmission towers, a state utility regulator said Thursday.
After a helicopter trip over the Baton Rouge area, Public Service Commissioner Jimmy Field said the storm knocked down 20 of the area’s transmission towers that follow the Mississippi River along the 80 miles between New Orleans and the capital.
“This was a perfect storm, if you wanted to destroy as much of the generation and the transmission alley that we have,” Field said.
Entergy Corp., the region’s top power company, agreed with Field’s prediction about the Baton Rouge. By contrast, the company predicted that power would be fully restored in New Orleans on Monday.
About 76 percent of power customers were without electricity in East Baton Rouge Parish, which includes the capital city, down from 90 percent the previous day, according to figures provided by the state late Thursday. The parish has a population of about 430,000.
Entergy said the region has never suffered damage as severe as Gustav’s.”
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