Delegates look up as the balloons fall after Republican presidential nominee John McCain concluded his speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, Thursday.

Ismael Estrada
AC360° Producer

We have been on quite the adventure tour the past couple of weeks...all to talk with you, the voters, all over the country. What seems like forever ago, we started our travels in Encinitas, CA where we watched the DNC with some senior citizens.

We moved on to Arizona to talk with Latinos and on to Louisiana to talk with young professionals. It was a mad scurry to a sporting goods store to pick up rain gear when we stopped for a few days in New Orleans to get nice and wet while covering Hurricane Gustav.

We then we packed up the cars and drove to Florida to kick back up our voter tours. It was in Pensacola that we talked with conservative evangelical Christians and hopped another flight up to Virginia to talk with women.

It’s been fun talking with voters to get a real sense of what our country’s voters are thinking. We chatted with so many great people while watching the conventions and dining over everything from fish tacos to gumbo to burgers.

We watched reactions to Obama’s acceptance speech, to the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin and McCain’s performance last night. The opinions were very interesting, some very passionate, many still undecided.

We are now sitting in a hotel putting together our stories on how evangelical Christians and women reacted to the conventions which you will see tonight.

Editor's Note: Kate Barron is Oxfam America’s Louisiana Community Development Specialist. She has spent the past 2+ years working with residents of and groups assisting Terrebonne Parish, and also Plaquemines, Lafourche and Vermillion parishes, in its recovery from hurricanes Rita and Katrina. Hurricane Gustav has exacerbated an already bad situation for this area. Kate briefly evacuated to family in Baton Rouge, but is driving back into the affected parishes. She shares her experience in the storm here… both before, and after:

Kate Barron
Oxfam America Louisiana Community Development Specialist

BEFORE:

Last Friday night, August 29th, 2008 was three years to the day of Hurricane Katrina. And there I was, packing up my house, scrambling to whip up an evacuation plan to family in Baton Rouge: Gustav loomed on the horizon.

I work as the Louisiana field representative for Oxfam America, the international humanitarian aid agency, and have spent the past two and a half years in the rural coastal communities south and west of New Orleans as part of the long and heartbreakingly inconsistent recovery from Katrina and Rita. My role in Oxfam’s work is to link small, local non-profits who are renewing these very communities to resources and opportunities that sustain their good work and amplify their voice.

Prior to Hurricane Gustav making landfall in Cocodrie this weekend, one of the community groups that Oxfam’s Gulf Coast Recovery Program supported was Bayou Grace Community Services. As I headed back to Gustav’s ground zero, Terrebonne parish, the day after the storm I spoke with Courtney Howell, Bayou Grace’s now evacuated Executive Director who formed her organization when Hurricane Rita brought over 6 feet of water into her community, Chauvin. She has spent the past three years helping her area recover holistically, as well as to get more informed and involved in its own sustainability and wellness. Courtney is a Gulf Coast leader in the call for citizens to realize one very important thing: Those levees that the media couldn’t take its eyes off this week are a third line of defense.

Coastal Louisiana (including New Orleans) flooded after Katrina and Rita, and continues to be vulnerable because, as she says, “our first and second lines of defense – healthy barrier islands and marshes have been unnaturally eroded and lost.”

In fact, for generations communities lived safely along Louisiana’s coast. My family for example prospered along Bayou Lafourche, settling there in the mid 1700s. “Only until major industry – oil, gas, and navigation- began impacting this environment did coastal Louisiana being losing these first lines of defense to coastal erosion and land loss, vanishing marshes and barrier islands.” Howell knows that as a result, all we have left now is the “third line of defense” – man-made levees. The story remains to be told is the story of how, over the past 80 years, the loss of land approximately the size of the state of Delaware from Louisiana’s coast came to be. And besides, some communities like hers aren’t even protected by those man-made levees anyway.

We in Louisiana give a great deal to our country – for starters, one third of the country’s domestic energy. We deposit almost $6 billion in revenue from oil production off our fragile coastline into our nation’s coffers. “The greatest injustice from the recovery is that we coastal Louisianans are literally losing the land we live on to provide for the rest of the country,” she told me. Coastal Louisiana is an astounding cultural treasure, with a rich tapestry of culture and history: these are not communities of suburban transplants. Down here, people have lived for generations and a last name means more than what college you went to. Despite this eroding land, we have very deep roots.

AFTER:

By Tuesday morning, Gustav had plowed a northwestern path along coastal Terrebonne parish. I have spent the past few days here, away from the media glare, as a part of Oxfam’s post-disaster assessment team. In service of the community leaders still evacuated, I have been serving as their eyes and ears these past few days. Driving along the empty roads (there is 24-hour curfew here) are tin roofs and mobile homes twisted up and discarded, live oak trees, Spanish moss, power lines and transformers tangled and tumbled like dominoes. This afternoon our team spent time pulling insulation, broken rafters and wet photo albums from the wreckage of a tree-crushed house of Lafourche community leaders Sharon and David Gauthe.

Sharon was still evacuated in Alabama with her elderly mother, unable to return with the prospects of 4-6 weeks of no electricity and air conditioning in the sub tropical summer heat.

Getting information to make crucial decisions has been painfully difficult. To the dismay of those of us concerned about communities in the eye of the Gustav the media attention on these areas was noticeably sparse. I wonder if this experience of evacuating, being in the eye of the storm, and of having little information in the aftermath has created a new form of erosion: that of the willingness of these industrious people, to evacuate next time. Evacuation is not in the family budget.

It costs money that we don’t have (gas, meals out, hotel rooms) for an indeterminable amount of time that we can’t know. Toting kids, grandma, medications and Fido on top of lingering stress from Rita and Katrina is not for the fainthearted.

This Friday at 6 am, almost one week after mandated to leave, all residents of Terrebonne parish will be allowed to come home. In spite of the challenges that lie ahead, I can only smile at the spirit of the locals: one neighbor making sure that her fellow neighbor has a hot pot of coffee to start the long day, making it on a gas stove despite the fact that a tree is resting in her living room..

Susan Roesgen
CNN Correspondent

Just wanted to share two snapshots from my travels around New Orleans this week after weathering Hurricane Gustav:

This church, 'Unity Baptist' is in a part of town called "Central City" a few miles to the west of the French Quarter...

This tilting house is in Uptown New Orleans.. (the area that includes Tulane U, Loyola U, Audubon Zoo...) A neighbor told us that the owners were renovating– you can see the green paint is fresh.. and inside, the house has been gutted, and new wooden support beams have gone up... we don’t know if the owners have even been back to see it...

Plaquemines Parish's Coastal Management Director PJ Hahn cleaning the distressed bird.

Kay Jones
AC360° Editorial Producer

I went about and hour and a half south of New Orleans to check out a potentially serious levee breech in Plaquemines Parish. Photographer Leon Jobe and I got on an air boat with a local guy, Jimmy, and the parish's Coastal Management Director PJ Hahn. What we saw was a major collapse of the levee, but fortunately no homes in immediate danger.

On our way back to the car, Jimmy spotted a bird in distress. The cormorant, which looks a lot like a seagull, was desperately trying to stay afloat. It was wrapped up in debris from the water, and being eaten up by fire ants. PJ reached in and helped free the bird of the debris, and washed the fire ants off. He then tried to check and see if its wings were broken. Luckily, it looked as if the poor thing was just exhausted more than anything.

We took the boat back to the levee and dropped off the bird. Hopefully, the poor thing had time to rest and get back on his way.

Here's one more picture: me and "local guy" Jimmy on an air boat south of New Orleans.

Paul Courson
CNN Producer

Where are all the people? I've never seen a big city with empty streets and sidewalks, and even though I knew New Orleans was evacuated, seeing what that meant was TROUBLING. But the lack of much visible damage became reassuring. From a couple hundred feet in the sky, I could see that even the Riverwalk area, at the edge of the water, had been spared.

Not so for the Biloxi-Gulfport coastline. There, a few wrecked boats and many flooded houses showed where the storm surge left its mark.

In one hard-hit area, we circled around a large residential area, as the crew checked whether anyone had been trapped and needed rescue. Fortunately, everyone seemed to have evacuated this locale as well.

Jim Spellman
CNN Producer
St. Bernard Parish

The sign reads "times are hard in St. Bernard" and whatever spray paint poet wrote it has got it right.

Its not so much that Gustav brought hard times, the damage here from wind, water and a few levee issues has been relatively minor, but walking the neighborhood’s streets here makes it clear that three years after Katrina, the mess from that killer storm still remains.

Across the street from the sign sits a house with another kind of spray painted sign–the familiar cross with the number that search and rescue folks left behind.

On September 16, 2005, this house on St. Bernard Parkway was searched. Thank God no one died in this house. It’s been gutted down to the studs. No one has come back to live here.

Some houses in the neighborhood have been fixed up and show signs of life. Other plots of land just have slabs, where houses stood before Katrina. No one has come back to build on them.

In the next day or so people will start filtering back into St.Bernards. They’ll be glad that Gustav wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

They’ll be glad to be back home, but the times will still be hard.

The View from inside the Coliseum shelter in Alexandira, Louisiana.

Christine Romans | BIO
CNN Correspondent

The people who endured long bus rides to shelters far from home to escape Gustav are ready to go home.

But now they have to wait, and the patience is wearing thin. So is the food and the plumbing.

In Alexandria, Louisiana, local Red Cross volunteer Herb Boykin left the Coliseum shelter last night only to be called back to calm the evacuees.

'We almost had a riot here last night.'

The power failed, the plumbing backed up, and evacuees complained that the shelter was hot, wet and unsanitary. People on oxygen had to be evacuated to a hospital and several more had panic attacks.

Now, the waiting continues. Buses are idle in hotel parking lots. The drivers are waiting for word on when they can pick up the shelter residents and get them back to their parishes.

State officials say they have to clear roads and check bridges, then each parish must lift its evacuation order before the logistics of the trip home can begin.

That news not met with much happiness by some of the 1,076 people in the shelter in the Coliseum here. It is hot and damp. The toilets are backed up. And wherever we took our camera, a crowd of people followed asking what we knew about their parishes and when they could go home.

David M. Reisner
AC360° Digital Producer

So yesterday I told you about the formation of Tropical Storm Ike. Looks like it's not going to calm down for a while.

A new tropical storm has formed in the eastern Atlantic to make a total of four named storms currently at large. Tropical Storm Josephine

The National Hurricane Center says Josephine is the 10th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.

Josephine has top sustained winds near 40 mph and is moving west at 15 mph. It could be near hurricane strength on Wednesday or Thursday. Right when we'll be dealing with Hanna, and possibly Ike.

Take a look at the projections. Still very early, but wanted to share:

Now this isn't the first time Tropical Storm Josephine has appeared. Back in October of 1996 there was another storm named Josephine, responsible $130 million dollars in damage (around $180 million in todays dollars). Let's hope we don't see Josephine make a second visit.

Drew Griffin
CNN Correspondent

Another sure sign this storm is over and a lesson from Katrina was learned.

After Katrina, garbage sat for weeks in the French Quarter.

This morning it's already being picked up.

There are still plenty of problems with this city but you have to admit, the city was much more prepared for Gustav.

This is a shot at 8:45 Tuesday morning on Royal Street.

Kay Jones
AC360° Editorial Producer

A lot of you have been asking how Mr. Herbert Gettridge is.

I stopped by his house on Monday afternoon, and nobody was home, understandably. But the house was there with no water around it.

Also, cell phone service was down most of the day, and my calls to him still aren't getting through.
Our entire staff is wondering how he is, so I have made it my mission to find out. Will let you know when I do.

Take a look at this exclusive AC360° interview.
Sen. Barack Obama talks to Anderson Cooper about the response to Gustav and the issue of experience.

Watch the footage of large debris slamming into the glass roof of the Sheraton hotel in Baton Rouge.

Ashley Fantz
CNN.com

Eighty-six year old Maxine Richardson sat in the lobby of a Baton Rouge Sheraton and watched Gustav whip its fury on bent street signs.

A large piece of metal from a neighboring building flew off and crashed into the Sheraton's glass roof, startling and entertaining evacuees. The glass cracked but didn't break. People applauded.

Richardson was startled at first, but then rolled her eyes. She isn't going to put up with running from hurricanes any longer.

Though there are three generations of family who live with her in New Orleans, she is over the place.

"People were like, 'Oh, aren't you excited to be back home?'" She said, recalling how she moved back in to her home that was destroyed by Katrina.

"I was not happy. I didn't like that place anymore. It made me uncomfortable.

"I want to leave New Orleans and if I go back this time to the same thing Katrina left me, I will find another place to live. Lord Jesus, I hope you hear me because I mean it!"

Northern Chandeleur Islands, 60 miles east of New Orleans: before and after Hurricane Katrina. Storm surge and large waves from Hurricane Katrina submerged the islands, stripped sand from the beaches, and eroded large sections of the marsh. Today, few recognizable landforms are left on the Chandeleur Island chain

Ivor van Heerden
Ph.D., Author "The Storm – What Went Wrong and Why during Hurricane Katrina 
the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist"

The Mississippi River, for the 7,000 years before Europeans settled in North America, built most of what is now coastal Louisiana.

The Mississippi river sediment load was deposited at the coast as the river went from a deep confined channel to the shallow continental shelf building over time a series of deltas. Approximately every 1,000 years it would switch it course because a shorter course existed to the Gulf of Mexico, the active delta having expanded many miles over its lifespan.

This switching of the loci of deposition was the basic geological framework. Every year the river flooded, every year it spread its life giving sediment and nutrient goodness over 100’s of square miles, maintaining the existing wetlands such that while they did subside, sediment additions and accumulation of organic matter from roots and leaf litter, maintained the wetland surface. In fresh water areas, cypress swamps abounded, as impenetrable walls to hurricane storm surges.

Based on old Indian mounds these surges never seem to have exceeded 6-8 feet.

However, along comes man; he must tame this Mississippi river ‘beast’; put it in strait jackets called navigation or flood control levees. By 1930 we had cut off the wetland’s ‘blood’ supply, no more flooding, no more wetland maintenance and growth.

Nature did try to flex its muscle; the Mississippi river tried one of its 1000 year switches, to the Atchafalaya River, a course to the Gulf some 100 miles shorter. Again, man stepped in and locked in the distribution of Mississippi flow down the Atchafalaya to about 30%. So instead of the Atchafalaya having the potential to build a new parish (county) it barely manages to maintain the two deltas at its seaward end.

The nation, however, has and continues to benefit enormously from the numerous ports that line the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to the sea.

Now, to add insult to injury, man ‘cut up’ these starving wetlands with thousands and thousands of miles of canals and channels in support of mining very easily accessible and rich oil and gas fields.

Again the nation benefited, from very cheap domestic energy. Unfortunately, in the process the wetlands were devastated such that since the 1930’s more than a million acres have been lost, and storm surges are now Louisiana’s worst enemy.

Hurricane Gustav, and it will be destructive, will hopefully be the final wakeup call for our nation. For the nation has benefited from our river in its strait jackets; for the nation has benefitted from our cheap energy and thus our nation needs to aggressive initiate a new Mississippi river management scheme; we must let the river ‘loose’ as much as we can to rebuild Louisiana’s coastal wetlands; we must go mine offshore sand and rebuild our barrier islands; we as a nation have to own up to the error of our ways, and we need to act now.

I know there is a tendency to blame it all on the US Army Corps of Engineers; we entrusted them the job to manage our treasure the Mississippi River and its coastal wetlands. They failed because they became focused on one thing and one thing only, navigation. However, we the people are also at blame, we allowed our politicians to allow the Corps to ‘get away with it’.

We as a nation have to take Katrina, Rita and Gustav as our wakeup calls, we need to act now, we need to restore coastal Louisiana to as much of its former glory as we can. Why you ask? To save some Cajuns? Yes I say, but it is much, much more. Once Gustav is finished our gasoline prices will rocket, oil and gas production from both federal and state waters will be severely curtailed; pipelines and production facilities will be damaged, some destroyed, we will have to for a while rely on more foreign imports; the port of New Orleans may not operate at full potential for long time, exports will be slowed.

So it’s up to us as a nation, do we say “they deserved it for living in the coastal wilderness”. Or do we say, this is part of America, its being messed up by us, we need to fix it.

Only time will tell, but if we walk away from Louisiana then we will walk away from whatever community suffers the next major catastrophe, maybe it will be your town; an earthquake; a tsunami; and major river flood, a dam break and so the list goes on..

What are you going to do?

Finally getting a horizontal break after 12 hr day... Can AC360° viewers guess which CNN correspondent is wearing the soggy sneakers?

(scroll down for answer)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

Susan Roesgen
CNN Correspondent

Christine Romans
CNN Correspondent

Officials at the LSU AG Center shelter in Alexandria, LA just told the 2700 evacuees that the plumbing is not functioning. No showers or toilet flushing. Initial reaction is calm among evacuees, many of whom are bunking down for the night. Details from Dr. John Barnett, head of the facilities at this building:

1. Building is now on generator power 
2. Generator power is not reaching the plumbing system
3. No on site to fix it 
4. Porta Johns not practical now in high winds, maybe in a few hours 
5. another option to bus people to nearby college

Heavy winds and rain at the moment. Not much to do about it right now.

No panic. Just no plumbing and 2700 evacuees, and 600 volunteers and EMTs.

Three years ago this New Orleans nurse cared for patients during Katrina. She decided to volunteer again for Gustav

Matt Sloane
CNN Producer

It has been a long day here at Tulane Medical Center, but luckily, boredom, rather than chaos, is the reason.

I arrived at the parking deck this morning at 5 AM, and everything was relatively calm. By six o'clock, it was starting to get a little windy and rainy. I was gearing up to weather a monster category 3 storm embedded in the hospital.

But the storm came, and went. The biggest issues we've had here all day - a minor water leak on the upper floors, no Starbucks coffee in the cafeteria and one downed tree.

But what if the storm had materialized into a monster? Would Tulane Medical Center have been ready?

Absolutely, says Dr. Bob Lynch, the hospital's CEO.

"A lot of coordination, a lot of planning has gone into getting ready for hurricanes after Katrina. People really understand the need for being prepared down here."

The plan, he told me, was to get as many patients and staff members out as possible before the weather got bad. They succeeded, keeping only 67 patients and a few dozen staff in the building.

Those brave staffers like pediatrics nurse Nicole Hammons – many of whom worked 96 hours straight after Katrina – risked their own personal safety again. They chose to let their own families go on ahead without them, while they stayed here to mind the farm.

"This is what I went to nursing school for," she said. "My family is in Atlanta with my sister, they’re doing fine. I'm confident that they’re safe, and that allows me to take care of these patients that’s a little less fortunate than my kids."

We saw the flood-resistant walls around the generator. We saw the ambulances lined up outside. We saw a staff of highly courageous emergency room staffers at the ready.

Luckily, Tulane didn't need any of those things this time around. Let's hope they don't for a very long time.

The view from Randi Kaye's windshield as she drives through Gustav to reach Baton Rouge.

Randi Kaye
AC360° Correspondent | BIO

We are on our way to Baton Rouge to meet some of the folks who evacuated from New Orleans. I’m with my producer, Chuck Hadad.

We flew into Jackson, Mississippi because the Baton Rouge airport was closed. At first, it was just raining… now it’s storming and the wind is rocking our car back and forth pretty fiercely.

At first we thought the drive would be a breeze, but now we’re seeing big downed trees in the road and it’s nearly impossible to see through the rain out the front windshield. We are following our crew which is in the car ahead of us and we can barely see them. At this point, we are still 70 miles away... Not good!

We’ve had to slow down considerably even though we’re on a deadline. Chuck is white-knuckled on the steering wheel. The only cars we’ve seen are a few state troopers... It seems most took the advice to ‘get their butts out of town’ before the storm hit.

We must be in between bands because the rain seems to get really strong, then falling off for a bit. Gustav is keeping us guessing that’s for sure.

Once we get to Baton Rouge we’re not expecting any stellar conditions either. About 30,000 people are without power, including our hotel. Have you ever tried taking your contacts out in the dark? I did it during Katrina. It’s a challenge. I look forward to doing that again.

I’m also looking forward to meeting some of the evacuees. One woman we expect to have on the show tonight evacuated with her husband and 12 year old son. They stayed in New Orleans during Katrina and this time said not again. Her son is a bit of a ‘storm chaser’ so it should be a great interview.

I’ll keep you updated on our travels along the way…

Cross your fingers for us we get to Baton Rouge safely… thanks!

CNN's Chris Lawrence reports the waterflow into New Orleans at one levee is not as bad as it looks.

What an amazing difference a few hours makes.

When we first drove into the area around New Orleans' Industrial Canal, the wind and driving rain were just knocking us all around. We saw rolling waves constantly overtopping the walls, spilling over the levees, and the Port of New Orleans was almost completely underwater.

It looked bad.

Then we drove around, further south of where the Industrial intersects the Intracoastal, and saw water shooting out of sections of a flood wall. First thought would be, isn't this how floods start?

But it was a good lesson in not taking what you see at face value. When I spoke with a Surveyor, he told us the walls/gates are not designed to be 100% watertight. He says some water always escapes – BUT, this one was letting out more than it should & needed to be sealed.

This was bad -but not as bad as it first seemed.

By the time we finished our last live shot – around 6pm, we'd all been up about 34 hours and were beat. We felt better about calling it a day when we noticed the water level. The roads, train tracks & buildings nearby were still flooded ...but had dropped 2-3 feet since we got there!

We only saw a few small parts of this storm, but dropping water levels to me means: maybe the worst is over. We can only hope...

Susan Candiotti
CNN Correspondent

It's not over, but compared to Hurricane Katrina three years ago, Gustav spared the Mississippi Gulf coast.

This time, thousands followed evacuation orders– more than 47-thousand people– and took cover in shelters. At least 100 homes were flooded to some degree in Hancock county.

It's eerie driving along Highway 90, seeing shells of homes never rebuilt after Katrina... Or a patch of ground holding a sign promising one day Saint Thomas' Church will return.

As for Gustav, one early sign that Gulfport isn't wasting any time cleaning up, bulldozers already showed up to plow the sand off Highway 90. A storm surge up to eight feet flooded the coastal road making eastbound lanes impassable during the height of the storm.

Despite the pounding they get from hurricanes, and the anxiety it brings, Steve and Monica Montagnet don't ever plan to leave their century old home facing the Gulf. "It may be crazy, but we love the view of the water, ' Monica Montagnet told me. "And that's a fact."

Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans was empty, Monday.

Gary Tuchman | Bio
AC360° Correspondent

Bourbon Street was a barren street. The road where it takes you a half hour to walk two blocks through thousands of people during Mardi Gras, had nobody on it when we were shooting video in the worst of Hurricane Gustav.

The street and the entire city as a matter of fact, haven't been this empty since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The effectiveness of the hurricane evacuation was remarkable and commendable. But a tiny percentage of New Orleanians decided not to leave, and one of the people who didn't leave is a guy I want to tell you about.

Russell Gore lives in New Orleans East, a neighborhood that was devastated during Katrina. And nobody was more personally devastated than Russell. He and his wife Cindy did not evacuate during Katrina, and while they were in their house, floodwaters tore into it.

Russell says more than nine feet of water came into his home, and for a day and a half he and his wife were in the attic. He says his wife was panicked, and then, to his utter shock, she died. Russell says the doctor told him she died of stress.

Either way, psychologically, Russell Gore has been a wreck for the last three years. He said he pledged to rebuild his house and move back in because he never wanted to forget the good memories.

So indeed he did. And it's that house where Russell decided NOT to evacuate once again from this hurricane.

I couldn't understand; I asked him after all he went through, why wouldn't he leave? And he gave me an answer that in a way made a certain degree of sense.

He told me he felt guilty he did not leave with Cindy in 2005; and that he just couldn't bring himself to evacuate this time, and not with her last time. He told me "I ain't running."

I stopped by his house after the worst of Gustav was over today. He told me it was scary but staying was something he had to do. It's easy to think that Russell Gore didn't make an wise decision. But its hard to say that to him because most of us fortunately have not had to walk in his shoes.