>>The water level in Memphis is the lead story on cnn.com. Good luck!
>
>Yep, I was downtown this morning and saw the Fox News and CNN production trucks, with their reporters and cameramen doing their thing in front of the river. I understand Diane Sawyer is here too. The funny thing is, as usual, the media has this thing way overblown. There are probably only a thousand or so homes that are being effected. Oh, and Graceland is high and dry as is Beale Street, except for at the foot of Beale and Riverside. Here are some of the pics I took this morning....

Thanks for posting the front line report and the pictures.

Illinois is not famous for scenic vistas but at least we don't have natural disasters.

I know this is like an achy tooth with me but I will never forget Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans had about half a million residents before the storm and flood and has about half that now. The proportion of young people has shrunk even more. The utility companies report that tens of thousands of addresses have not recorded since. It's a crazy place to build a city, surrounded by water -- the Mississippi River at its widest, the Gulf, Lake Pontchartrain -- but it was IMO our most vibrant and romantic city depending on how you feel about San Francisco. Then the levee broke like soup pouring into a bowl.

I highly recommend Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke", a terrific documentary. Spike is known as an inflammatory director. In this case he didn't need to do anything but let people tell their own stories. I am also hearing good things about the HBO series "Treme".

UPDATE: Dan Barry of the NY Times wrote a number of unbelievably good reports from New Orleans after the storm. He is on a different beat now -- a dream beat for a reporter -- but he hasn't lost a step. This guy is as good as it gets. He is who I wanted to be when I was 17 years old. Read him every chance you get.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/us/01land.html?ref=danbarry