the mississippi river, on the outskirtds of the french water. the great fear this would be over 20-foot stage. it started off and allison was talking about this. it started off before the storm came in if 15-foot vicinity. that s high. right now, it s closing in on 17 feet. when it gets over 17.1, you have a problem. there s flood walls all over the new orleans metropolitan area. it separates us from the french quarter here, the major tourist area in new orleans. this is the flood wall right here. it contains up to 20 feet of water. where i m standing, there s no wat water whatsoever. and floodgates. we call them the storm gates.
gates, flood gates that we installed when we took over the building. and the water has come to within about a foot, actually maybe less, of spilling over those flood gates. so we had concerns, you know, from the very beginning as far as the safety of people in this building and that was too great a concern for us. you thought it would be a gamble. your critics are posting videos and pictures like the ones i am going to show here which suggested the church suffered little damage. you see the cars in the parking lot. when you look at it, did you wait too long to open your doors to those who need shelter? the doors were never closed and in fact we did have people come to the church on sunday evening or maybe it was monday morning, but it was some time overnight. we had about ten people here at the church. and they road out the storm here. a few were maintenance people keeping an eye on the building. others were here to receive anyone who came into the church needing help. now, we were
it s important to say they are not saying there is a specific threat, but what they are saying is there is a continued threat. certainly from al qaeda and affiliate organizations, and it notes that briefly al qaeda and the terrorists groups have linked their attacks to significant dates, and of course 9/11, there couldn t be anymore specific or significant dates than that. you know, i was just talking with a friend that said is this something that we should really, really be worried about. the state department issues these, randy, on a regular basis. in fact, this supplements another caution that was issued. it s the responsibility of the state department to warn americans who are abroad about this. that said, it is, of course, 9/11, very significant and the state department is saying there s a continuing threat out there. but it s not a travel alert for those here at home, it s for those who are traveling abroad or residing abroad? yes, that s what the state department d