Kiss of Katrina....

[Graham]

Blu, I heard an oil rig got washed ashore and smashed into a bridge, have you heard about this?

Fuel prices, well we're already paying higher prices than ever before $1.26AUD per litre.

I am just numbed by all this terrible news. How could so many die when they were warned to leave? (not implying blame here, just saddened that it happened).

[Doc Hudson]

Blu, I heard an oil rig got washed ashore and smashed into a bridge, have you heard about this?

Fuel prices, well we're already paying higher prices than ever before $1.26AUD per litre.

I am just numbed by all this terrible news. How could so many die when they were warned to leave? (not implying blame here, just saddened that it happened).

It wasn't an oil rig Graham.

It was a platform used as a dormitory for oil rig workers. It was in port for service and blew/washed about two miles upstream on the Mobile River to lodge against the Cochran Bridge. Other than the Interstate 10 Twin Tunnels, and the near 70 year old Bankhead Tunnel, the Cochran Bridge is the only link between Mobile, on the western shore of Mobile Bay, and the Eastern Shore.

Until the Cochran Bridge and the tunnels re-open, the only way from Mobile to the Eastern Shore is a 50 mile detour North on Interstate 65 to Bay Minette and then back 20 miles South and Southwest to the Eastern Shore towns of Spanish Fort, Daphne, and Fairhope.

I lived in Mobile for three years in the early 1980's. Sure was sorrowful to see the destruction there.