Blogs give gripping first-hand accounts

As Hurricane Katrina tore across the US Gulf coast, leaving snapped communications in its wake, Internet Web logs offered an unique and often dramatic insight into the storm's destructive fury and aftermath.

With the mainstream media struggling with the logistics of covering the story, the blogs came into their own, providing gripping firsthand accounts from some riding out the hurricane, posting updates on the flooding situation and helping put people in touch with stranded relatives.

Television stations like CBS affiliate WWL-TV in New Orleans, which was forced to evacuate its studious due to rising waters, turned to its own blog on Tuesday to offer a continuous stream of updates.

"Two dead in Slidell in rising waters after attempting to get back to their homes," the blog reported at 11.53 am(11.53 pm Bangkok time). And one minute later: "Kenner mayor asking for more National Guard. Asks anyone with the guard to call 468-7200."

The New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper joined with reporters and editors from NOLA.com, an affiliated website, to produce stories and blogs about the storm.

"Water continues to rise around our building, as it is throughout the region. We want to evacuate our employees and families while we are still able to safely leave," the newspaper's blog reported on Tuesday morning.

NOLA.com editor Jon Donley had offered dramatic eyewitness reports of the storm unleashing its fury on New Orleans on Monday.

"New Orleans is sinking...I don't want to swim," Donley posted on Monday morning as he looked out to see "water, appears about knee deep, whipped by the steady wind into whitecaps and breakers".

At one point, Donley described his acute distress at not hearing from his daughter who had decided to ride out the storm at the family home, surrounded by pine trees.

"I'm looking at the wind smashing the trees outside this building tropical storms. And that storm surge," Donley wrote. "All we can do now is pray for our family members in harm's way."

Kaye Trammel, an assistant professor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge received responses from around the world to the dispatches she posted on her site "Kaye's Hurricane Katrina Blog".

Another live eyewitness account of the storm's impact came from John Strain, a social worker in Covington, Louisiana.

"The wind is really picking up now and I hear the roof above me wobble," Strain wrote in his blog.

"The sound is like a waterfall or rushing river. It is a powerful noise. It is a noise that reminds me how small I am and how big God is."