On the Ground

Fox News reporters Rick Leventhal and Steve Harrigan are both in hurricane-devstated areas.

Rick, who covered the invasion of Iraq with the military, has been reporting from Biloxi, Mississippi. He's been writing about what he's seen. You can read it here.

Here is an excerpt:

Aug. 31, 2005
8:25 am Biloxi, Miss.

Highway 90 is now a broken stretch of beachfront ruin. Sections of the road have buckled or washed away, and the once beautiful views have been replaced by miles of sadness.

Hotels, restaurants, apartment buildings, churches, and hundreds of homes, are completely demolished or severely damaged. Some look as if they've been swept from their foundations by a giant broom. Others look like a bomb went off on the ground floor: second stories collapsing onto the first. Front porches hanging perilously, their support columns washed away.

Katrina is being called the worst disaster in the history of the state of Mississippi, with Biloxi and three neighboring beach towns hit hardest. The pictures can be numbing after a while, but try standing in Randall Broussard's front yard, just a block from the beach, and talk to him about his storm-ravaged house and watch the tears well up in his eyes.

Steve has been to some of the worst, most dangerous places in the world. Right now he is covering the devastation in New Orleans and the evacuations to Baton Rouge. You can read his thoughts here.

Here is an excerpt:

Sept. 1, 2005 5:50 a.m.
Baton Rouge, La.

We found gas in Baton Rouge, an ATM and a Wal-Mart. I bought clothes, bug spray, foil packs of tuna and water. I also bought an ace in the hole: an anti-lice shampoo. If someone gets lice I will pull out the family size bottle of Rid. It is a very reassuring item, like Lotrimin for athlete's foot or Ciproflaxin for salmonella.

There is so much stuff I did not bring — an irridium phone, water purification tablets — because I thought I was going to a hurricane, not a war zone. The last time I needed water purification tablets was Afghanistan. I didn't think I'd need them in Louisiana.

You can also read a blog on Foxnews.com written by a woman whose family lost eveything in the hurricane, but managed to escape. You can read Michele's entries here.