Tag Archives: New Orleans

Violent Tornadoes Ravage Louisiana and New Orleans, several injured

Lightning strikes

By Kami Klein

According to the National Weather Service, at least three tornadoes have touched down close to or in the New Orleans area on Tuesday.  New Orleans East seems to have been the hardest hit so far but officials are touring the many areas that have reported tornadoes on the ground.  

According to local officials, the storm flipped over cars, tore roofs off homes, broke power poles off their foundations and ripped through a gas station canopy.  CNY Central News says that as the storm blew over New Orleans, the sun could only be seen on the far away horizon below the dark thunderheads that turned day into night.

The Weather Channel reported that New Orleans East is home to at least 65,000 residents, down from 95,000 prior to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the area in 2005. New Orleans East is a neighborhood in the city’s Ninth Ward.

The tornado also left damage to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility and the USDA’s National Finance Center’s Primary Business Center. The buildings are located adjacent to one another in Michoud.

The Times of Greater New Orleans is reporting at least 15 people have been injured and taken to local hospitals.  

“Please do not try to come to New Orleans East,” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a press conference, “It is totally shut down.”

A tornado watch is in effect until 6 p.m. CST Tuesday for southern Alabama and the western Florida panhandle. This watch area includes Mobile and Pensacola. A tornado watch is also in effect until 5 p.m. CST for parts of southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi. This watch area includes New Orleans, along with Gulfport, Jackson and Hattiesburg in Mississippi.

Louisiana officer shot and killed during pedestrian stop

(Reuters) – A Louisiana sheriff’s deputy died of gunshot wounds on Wednesday after being shot three times in the back by a pedestrian he had stopped in a high-crime suburb of New Orleans, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office said.

Sheriff Newell Normand told reporters at a late night news conference that deputy David F. Michel, Jr., 50, got into a struggle with the suspect around noon local time, believing the man was following another individual.

Normand said the suspect, identified as 19-year-old Jerman Neveaux, pulled a revolver and fired a total of three shots into Michel’s back during the confrontation.

Michel, a detective who was assigned to a street crimes unit, died at a local hospital.

“David, I wish I had 1,000 of him,” an emotional Normand said, adding that the shooting was “a cold-blooded murder.”

Neveaux fled into the surrounding neighborhood and was later apprehended.

Bystander video published online by local broadcaster FOX8 showed two of several officers striking a prone Neveaux more than a dozen times as he is arrested, footage which Normand said his office would investigate.

Neveaux was treated for minor injuries at a hospital. Normand said Neveaux admitted to the shooting, saying he was on probation and did not want to go to jail for possessing a firearm.

Michel worked as a reserve deputy for the department starting in 2007 and became a full-time deputy in February of 2013, the office said.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Richard Chang and Sandra Maler)

Planned Parenthood’s Proposed New Orleans Abortion Clinic Rejected

Planned Parenthood won’t be able to perform abortions at their new facility in New Orleans.

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals rejected a request from Planned Parenthood to allow for abortions to take place at a currently under construction facility.

“Planned Parenthood’s application for an outpatient abortion facility license was denied by the department based on failure to demonstrate the need for an outpatient abortion facility in the DHH Region 1, as well as failure to meet the requirements of a facility need review process,” Ashley C. Lewis, a spokesperson for the DHH, told The Christian Post.  Lewis said the department ruled this way because: “The number of other outpatient abortion facilities in the same geographic location, region and the area serving the same population; as well as allegations involving issues of access to outpatient abortion services.”

Pro-abortion activists are blaming Governor Bobby Jindal, saying that he has taken steps to stop abortion from growing in the state of Louisiana.  They have taken the state to court over laws that, for example, require doctors who perform abortions to be able to admit patients to a hospital within 30 miles.

A spokeswoman for Americans United for Life told the Christian Post that Planned Parenthood is always seeking to expand their abortion business and expects the group to try again to open an abortion room at the new facility.

Mississippi Abortion Law Struck Down

A Mississippi law that would have shut down the state last abortion clinic was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court even though it had the same provisions as other states where the constitutionality was upheld.

A three judge panel with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that the law was unconstitutional because it would mean women would need to travel to another state to kill their babies via abortion.  That, the court said, would cause an “undue burden” on the women who wanted to end their child’s life.

The court also said the state is “obligated” to uphold the “right” for women to kill their babies via abortion.

The Mississippi law was modeled on a Texas law that requires all abortion clinics to have abortionists with admitting privileges at a local hospital should a complication arise during the procedure.  All hospitals in the area of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization had refused to work with the abortionists.

The judge who dissented in the case said states are not required by the Constitution to provide abortion clinics, but rather to ensure the safety of anyone that wanted to operate a clinic within their state.

Maya Angelou Says Faith In God Made Her “Courageous”

Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree Maya Angelou, who died Wednesday at the age of 86, said that it was her faith that made her so bold in standing for what was right.

“When I found that I knew not only that there was God but that I was a child of God, when I understood that, when I comprehended that, more than that, when I internalized that, ingested that, I became courageous,” Angelou told the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 2013.

“When I was asked to do something good, I often say yes, I’ll try, yes, I’ll do my best,” she continued, “And part of that is believing, if God loves me, if God made everything from leaves to seals and oak trees, then what is it I can’t do?”

Angelou often stated that before she began to write anything, she would spend time in prayer.  Part of her “writing ritual” was to have a Bible with her when she was writing.

A civil rights leader who spent much time working with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Angelou said that her faith in God is what allowed her to see that all people were created equal under God because God created everyone.

“I will see human beings and I believe — whether they believe it or not — I believe they were made by God and I’m not in a position to put them down because they look different from me,” Angelou said.

New Orleans Levees Save City; First Isaac Fatality Reported

Unlike Hurricane Katrina which rushed through New Orleans and Louisiana, the remnants of Hurricane Isaac have stalled sending over two feet of rain that has flooded the areas around New Orleans.

The upgraded levee system put in place after Hurricane Katrina spared the city itself of flooding but surrounding towns are under several feet of water. Continue reading →

Hurricane Isaac Strikes New Orleans Exactly Seven Years After Katrina

On the seventh anniversary of the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, the less powerful Hurricane Isaac is hitting New Orleans. However, Isaac has already breached one levee in the city causing flooding of hundreds of homes.

The storm currently is maintaining sustained winds of 80 miles per hour.

Plaquemines Parish spokeswoman Caitlin Campbell said water is currently running over an 18-mile stretch of levee. The storm made landfall in their Parish and then went back out to sea before touching down further west to hit the city a second time. Continue reading →